Oregon Ducks save season with controversial win over Arizona State

An outstanding game between the Oregon Ducks and Arizona State Sun Devils was marred by a horrendous call by the replay official. 

It was the kind of game that make or break a season. A come from behind, four overtime shootout that featured over 1,200 yards of total offense, including a ridiculous 742 yards of offense from the Arizona State Sun Devils. The Oregon Ducks gave up 55 points to Arizona State and were helpless to stop the Sun Devil rushing attack, which piled up 344 yards on 55 carries.

Thankfully, the Ducks’ own running game got going with 186 yards and 6.6 yards per carry. Vernon Adams finally looked healthy after trying to play through a broken finger earlier in the season, finishing the game 23 of 40 for 315 yards.

Preseason dark horse Heisman trophy candidate Mike Bercovici, the Sun Devils quarterback, did even better throwing for 398 yards on 53 attempts. In the end though, this incredible game was decided not by the phenomenal athletes on the field, but by a referee in the review booth.

The score tied at 55 points in the third overtime, Vernon Adams launched what appeared to be a 20 yard touchdown strike to Bralon Addison, but the television broadcast replays seemed to show Addison’s foot out of bounds in the back of the end zone. The call went upstairs for review, but the touchdown ruling was upheld due to an alleged lack of indisputable evidence. You can check out the play yourself here, courtesy of The Big Lead.

It would seem that Addison’s toe is on the chalk, and there was an excellent angle and superb camerawork. This was not a case where a pile of bodies clogs the view or the angle on the play is poor. Nevertheless, the touchdown stood and Oregon went up, 61-55. Bercovici would then throw an interception on the Sun Devil’s possession, and the game was finally over.

Neither of these teams is going anywhere special this season. The loss takes the Sun Devils’ record to 4-4, and they have been effectively eliminated from contention in the South division.

Oregon, meanwhile, moves to 5-3, and still has some hope of winning the North, but that would mean running the table, which means beating the Stanford Cardinal and hoping that both Stanford and Washington State lose at least one more time each.

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Most likely, this game was a contest to see which second tier bowl the programs would be playing in. So while the stakes are not enormous for fans of each team, there is no question that such a great game ending on such a bad call is disheartening. Replay review is supposed to eliminate these kinds of calls, but in this case replay just expanded the controversy.

There is no guarantee that the Ducks would not have scored anyway on that possession, and the ASU defender on the play was woefully outmatched. He looked slow and tired as Addison ran right by him. The Sun Devils only have themselves to blame for not winning the game in regulation and allowing the controversial play to happen.

The Ducks ran a kickoff back for 100 yards and a touchdown, continuing a poor season for Arizona State’s special teams. Zane Gonzalez, kicker for the Sun Devils’, missed three field goals. The opportunities were there for Arizona State, but the team just could not take advantage. That has been the theme all season for Todd Graham’s squad. That and giving up big plays.

In this game Oregon scored not just on the kickoff return, but also on a 64-yard touchdown run by Royce Freeman, a 39-yard touchdown pass, and a 62-yard run by Kani Benoit. Graham’s defense has been abysmal stopping big plays during his tenure at Arizona State, and that trend continued.

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Still, the big story is not the Sun Devils’ unwillingness to play even moderately conservative defense or the return of Oregon’s explosive offense. The big story is the officiating, and that is a shame all around.

These kids played one of the greatest college football games of the year and gave a national audience a taste of Pac-12 football. Both teams should be proud of the effort they gave in this one, and the only person who should be hanging his head today is the replay official in the booth.