Not what Quacked up to be- Oregon 32 Ohio State 31

     The Ohio State Buckeyes came to Eugene Oregon with the reputation of an offensive machine that was able to outscore anyone.

They left with the knowledge that they were good enough to beat anyone but any team can be felled on a particular day, as the Oregon Ducks slipped by the Buckeyes 32-31 to end hopes for an unbeaten season.

Will Howard threw two touchdown passes and 326 yards but Howard's game will be remembered for the final play rather than anything else he did.

Jeremiah Smith caught nine passes for one hundred yards and a touchdown but his day will be remembered for an offensive pass interference call that took Ohio State out of field goal range and led to the eventual time running out for OSU at the Oregon 25.

Ohio State falls to 5-1 overall  (2-1 in the Big Ten) and will be off next Saturday before hosting Nebraska.

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1) Here's my number one takeaway.

Ohio State took the best shot of an excellent team, complete with fluke plays (the onside kick in the first half) trick plays, that had home field three time zones away and lost by one point.

Any loss isn't a good loss but all things considered, if Oregon emptied the tank under those conditions, I like Ohio State's chances in a likely rematch in Indianapolis.

2) Will Howard played well and I'm going to not baste Howard over the scramble that saw time expire before using what would have been Ohio State's final timeout.

I understood what Howard was trying to do, get close enough to make a field goal attempt plausible, he simply made an error with the time.

3) BUT the problem is this- Ohio State brought Howard to add experience to the position from someone who had been in situations before, and he came up short.

4) Ohio State was moving the football and was in field goal range before an offensive pass interference call on Jeremiah Smith turned a nine-yard gain into a fifteen-yard loss.

While I did think Smith pushed off and the call was fair, one can question the call late in a game, considering the field position, etc.

The penalty was fair but I do question a little why the flag was thrown.

5) The surprising part of the game for me?

Oregon's speed at receiver was better than I expected against the Buckeye secondary.

It wasn't only the multiple big plays for touchdowns, it was how many additional big plays could have occurred if not for errant throws from Dillon Gabriel.

6) Oregon attacked cornerback Denzel Burke all evening with multiple receivers for chunks of yardage all night and the thought that I couldn't remove was Burke losing NFL draft status and money with each long completion.

Hopefully, this was a bad matchup or bad evening for Burke because if Oregon has discovered a weakness in Burke's game, it won't be bad only for Burke, it will be bad for the Buckeyes.

7) I'm still not sure if the first-half onside kick by Oregon was deliberate or not.

It was kicked very hard and could have been intended to get downfield as a squib kick with the Buckeyes unfortunate to have someone get in the way.

If it was a called play, it makes me question why more teams don't try the "bullet kick" more often.

8) Pro and Con on defense.

Pro- they needed a stop on Oregon's final drive and held them to a field goal, which placed Ohio State in a spot where a field goal would win the game, not a touchdown

Con- they needed one stop, allowing Oregon to move seventy-five yards for the field goal and win.

9) Classy move by Oregon's Traeshon Holden to spit over Ohio State's Davidson Igbinosun.

Holden was rightfully ejected.

10) Defense allowed over five hundred yards of offense, and didn't record a sack or turnover.

11) Ohio State took a loss on the offensive line with tackle Josh Simmons suffering a season-ending injury.

I always hate the term "next man up" because usually, the next man isn't as solid as the man down.

The offensive line was the biggest question mark entering the season and losing Simmons doesn't help.

12) Ryan Day is now 1-7 against top-five teams.

Just for the record, not that Day had a glaring mistake in this loss.

13) I'm surprised about two things on the day after.

The first is the glee that some media is taking in this loss, notably CBS in this article.

The other is from Buckeye Nation. Yes, there are things to clean up, and yes, this game was there to be won, but in the playoff era, one loss doesn't kill your hopes.

All things considered, a one-point loss to the third-ranked team in the country on the road isn't a devastating defeat.

However, the buffer is now gone- any loss from here on out will be a season-ending one.