playPaolo UggettiOct 27, 2026, 07:00 AM ETMultiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsEUGENE, Or. — Ron McCullough has been making the two-hour drive from Portland to Eugene for 29 seasons. He has walked into Autzen Stadium countless times, sat in Section 33 and watched as bright green trees fade into shades of amber and gold every fall. Championship-worthy or underwhelming, McCullough has bore witness to it all while never leaving an Oregon game until the clock hits triple zero.”This,” McCullough said at halftime of last week’s game against Nebraska, “is the first time.”The realization strikes McCullough like a gust of wind on his way to the exit as Oregon, with two losses already on their résumé and willingly playing its third-string quarterback, is down 7-0. There are other factors — an 8 p.m. kickoff, that aforementioned drive back home — but McCullough wants it known.
His departure is rooted in one thing.”One of the most boring games I’ve ever watched. It’s embarrassing,” he says. “Let’s just get on the road and get the hell out of here.”McCullough is not alone. A sea of green and yellow-clad fans, some of whom booed the team on its way to the locker room, headed for the parking lot.
That Oregon was able to come back and win against Nebraska in the second half is almost an afterthought, just the appearance of hope being extended a week further and not a moment more. A week later, the Ducks traveled to Illinois, and, facing an interim defensive coordinator and a backup quarterback, lost their third game of the year 21-10. Losing three games before November hasn’t happened at Oregon since 2018.”I think all things are on the table for us to make sure that we’re the best version of ourselves,” Lanning said Saturday after the loss. “And we’re currently not that.
That’s very clear.”A No. 2 AP preseason ranking, the return of potential top NFL draft pick and Heisman frontrunner Dante Moore Moore to Eugene, a defensive line that was supposed to wreak havoc, a loaded roster that stood among the most talented and expensive in the sport — all signs pointed to a special year for Oregon. Instead, they have all become bullet points highlighting the failure of a lost season.On Sunday, with playoff hopes unofficially finished, Lanning announced the firing of offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer, whom he had promoted to that role before the season began. And on Monday, Lanning announced that Moore, who has been out since Sept. 26 after sustaining a concussion vs. USC, would not be expected to play the rest of the year.
Both moves were symbolic white flags on a season that plummeted from one of the most anticipated in Oregon football history to one that hit rock bottom before the end of October.”Sometimes it’s the health of the team, it’s the bounce of the ball. There’s some things that you really can’t control,” said former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, who helped start Oregon’s era of modern success with the program’s first ever double-digit win season in 2000. “Yet when you have the initial ranking and the belief and you’ve paid [$50 million] amount of dollars for a roster, there comes to be a certain belief that, ‘Wow, this is our year’ but things still have to go right and they haven’t.”How it all started to unravelDisappointment was nowhere to be found on Sept. 5 in Eugene when Oregon kicked off its season against Boise State. The stands at Autzen filled for another sellout, and the chatter among fans was one of nervous excitement.
Could this finally be the year that Oregon would win its elusive first national title?Down on the field before the game began, former players, current athletes from other Oregon sports and donors mingled. Nike designer and longtime Oregon football benefactor Tinker Hatfield was among them, and he weighed the reality of the season that lay ahead.”There’s a lot of expectations, a lot of pressure,” Hatfield said. He paused. “I think these guys can handle it.”Skeptics and optimists found common ground in this fact: The past two seasons, Oregon had made the College Football Playoff and lost to the eventual champion.
They had won nearly every game they needed to, emerging from trips to Ohio State and Penn State with statement victories, while becoming nearly unbeatable at home. There was little reason to distrust that Lanning & Co. would make their way there again, especially with a roster that returned Moore and featured not just remarkable resources but also little to no weaknesses at first glance.”We’ve played as good of football as anybody in the last few years outside of the team that won the national championship,” Lanning told ESPN at Big Ten media days. “So we’re close.”Yet a closer look at what the Ducks lost from last season yielded some glaring results. While no marquee names left Eugene, Oregon, lost 27 players in the January portal who were all rotational players or backups.
What’s more: 23 of those Oregon transfers ended up at other Power 4 programs, despite only one of them (Jahlil Florence) starting more than three career games for the Ducks. Fifteen of those 23 players are starters for a new team this season with several starting for ranked teams, including Ole Miss outside linebacker Blake Purchase and Alabama defensive lineman Terrance Green.No loss was bigger than offensive coordinator Will Stein. His departure to be Kentucky’s head coach prompted a robust staff exodus too, including Pat Biondo to be Kentucky’s GM, Cutter Leftwich to be his offensive line coach, Parker Fleming to be his special teams coordinator and Dallas Warmack as assistant offensive line coach. Even more, former defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi left his post as defensive coordinator to take the head coaching job at Cal and brought six former Oregon staffers along with him to Berkeley.While Stein has led Kentucky to an electric 7-1 record so far this season, his absence in Eugene has been the most impactful, a reality that became evident as soon as Week 2 and has only become more glaring as the weeks have progressed.After struggling to beat Boise State at home, Oregon headed to Oklahoma State to face a Cowboys team that had lost 12 games in a row as a program, including their season opener to Tulsa under new head coach Eric Morris.
Lanning’s teams are no strangers to slow starts — in 2024, they nearly lost to Idaho and Boise State in their first two weeks — and have used the early games to find their footing as well as solidifying rotations and roles, all while still winning.But the Ducks sputtered against the Cowboys and lost 39-31; it was Lanning’s first early-season loss since his debut as coach in the loss to Georgia during the 2022 season opener and the first real sign that there was something awry. Some red flags started to come into view.Linebacker Teitum Tuioti said Oregon players were maybe “too lackadaisical” and “reading our press clippings too much” heading into the season. Morris said in interviews after that linebackers Ethan Wesloski and Tate Romney identified how Oregon’s offense was giving away plays before the snap. While there was speculation that it was Moore’s footwork before the play that was giving things away, OSU players also noted that it was the offensive line formations that were more telling.
Still, in the aftermath of the upset and after a player-led meeting, players vowed that things would be different.After a commanding, but unsatisfying 84-0 win over Portland State the following week, the season was further spun off its axis. At USC, Moore sustained a concussion after being hit while sliding and had to be stretchered off the field and taken to Los Angeles General Medical Center in an ambulance. Dylan Raiola stepped in and helped salvage the victory over the Trojans, and it appeared that Oregon was in good hands having lured Raiola from Nebraska to Eugene to be a million-dollar backup.But by the time the Ducks had to host UCLA, Oregon’s offensive line had put enough on tape that it did not matter which quarterba
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