You could see it when it happened.
Dan Lanning, as any good college coach would, saw a loophole and he took advantage of it. Saturday against Ohio State when the Buckeyes were driving for a potential game winning score, Lanning ran a player onto the field late giving the Ducks 12 men on defense.
you NEED to watch how genius this is 👀
:10 left, Oregon calls a timeout
they intentionally add a 12th man late to ensure no big gain occurs
ball is snapped, no big gain
obviously it’s a penalty BUT
1) :04 ticks off clock
2) no big gain:06 left
only time for 1 play
WIN pic.twitter.com/2MouQanBK8
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) October 13, 2024
Is that a penalty? Yes. Would it give five yards to the Ohio State offense? Yes. Would it put any time back on the clock for the Buckeyes? Absolutely not.
It was the ultimate chess not checkers move from Lanning, and it worked. Lanning had this to say at his press conference Monday.
“We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations, and there are some situations that don’t show up very often in college football,” he said. “But this is one that obviously we have worked on. So, you can see the result.”
Now, almost immediately, the NCAA is looking into a way to fix the loophole that the Oregon head coach took advantage of. According to Yahoo Sports and Ross Dellenger, Steve Shaw, the NCAA secretary rules editor, is looking into a way to actively address the play. There’s no word yet on what that would entail, but change could be coming soon.
