Saturday morning, Ohio State Buckeyes offensive coordinator Chip Kelly was doing what coaches do before a big game, lauding the opponent. In this case, it’s the team Kelly and the Buckeyes will face for the College Football Playoff national championship Monday—the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and in particular, their defense.
But in the middle of analyzing the Irish, Kelly deftly changed the subject just enough to stab the Oregon Ducks. It was beautiful scalpel work by a veteran smart aleck.
“They can double anybody they want, but they can’t double everybody,” Kelly said, referring to Notre Dame’s coverage options Monday. “If they do, it’s a penalty—they have too many guys on the field. And we saw that before against some team, sometime before in a game.”
Ah, yes. We did. When Oregon defeated Ohio State 32–31 in Eugene, Ore., on Oct. 12, one of the talking points coming out of the game was that coach Dan Lanning apparently pulled a fast one with the rules to help stop the Buckeyes’ final drive. To recap what happened, before getting to Kelly’s shot at the Ducks:
Ohio State was trying to drive for the winning field goal in the final minute. With 10 seconds left, the Buckeyes had the ball at the Oregon 43-yard line on third-and-25. They needed about 15 yards to get in range for a kick, and had just one play to get there before attempting a long field goal or a Hail Mary pass into the end zone.
Just before Ohio State snapped the ball, Oregon called timeout. The Ducks came out of that stoppage with 12 men on the field, sending an extra defensive back out after some apparent confusion on who should be on the field in the front seven. The game broadcasters commented on Oregon’s apparent lineup consternation.
Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard arrayed his unit with three receivers to the right and one (star freshman Jeremiah Smith) to the left. The extra defender was on the side with three wideouts, creating an imbalance that may have forced Howard to throw the other way. He lofted a pass to Smith around the 30-yard line, which was broken up by Oregon cornerback Jabbar Muhammad.
Ohio State coaches immediately yelled to the officials that Oregon had too many players on the field and a flag was dropped. The Buckeyes got five yards closer to field goal range but lost four seconds off the clock. In that situation, time mattered more than yards—Ohio State was down to likely one last play, and Howard erred by scrambling and sliding too late. The clock expired and the game was over. Oregon won.
In the following days, Lanning was asked if the penalty was intentional—sending out 12 men and creating a coverage look that would force Ohio State’s hand to throw to the far side of the field. Lanning never flat-out confirmed it, but did—with a grin—indicate the Ducks gave up five yards on purpose in exchange for time off the clock.
“We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations,” Lanning said. “There are some situations that don’t show up very often in college football, but this is one that obviously was something we had worked on.”
Well, there was an Oregon–Ohio State rematch on Jan. 1, in the Rose Bowl. And part of the Buckeyes’ pregame motivation, Kelly says, avenging trickery in Eugene.
“It was a unique message to our players, that you can’t stop us with 11,” Kelly said Saturday. “You had to stop us with 12. And then you saw the final result of 11 vs. 11.”
Final result: Ohio State 41, Oregon 21. And it was worse than the score indicated, with the Buckeyes roaring to a 34–0 lead in the second quarter. For the Ducks, playing the Bucks straight-up wasn’t pretty.
“That was a message to our team for a week leading up to the Rose Bowl that I think resonated really well with our guys,” said Kelly, who ironically is the most accomplished coach in Oregon history.
The aftermath of that play in Oregon–Ohio State I forced an immediate rule change (dubbed an “interpretation”) designed to prevent rewarding teams for taking late penalties:
“After the two-minute timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul and 12 or more players are on the field and participate in a down, officials will penalize the defense for the foul and, at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap.
“The game clock will then restart on the next snap. If the 12th defender was attempting to exit but was still on the field at the snap and had no influence on the play, then the normal substitution penalty of five yards would be enforced with no clock adjustment.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ohio State OC Chip Kelly Jabs Oregon’s Penalty: ‘You Can’t Stop Us With 11’.