Dylan Raiola spent one week on the wrong side of the sideline, and then he flipped the script in the biggest moments Saturday.
A week after being benched before the fourth quarter against UCLA, Raiola came off the bench again - this time to rescue Oregon from a shaky afternoon and help the Ducks knock off Nebraska 17-14 at Autzen Stadium. The win came after a game in which Oregon’s offense sputtered almost from the start, with seven punts to open the day and only two field goals in the third quarter.
Dan Lanning said he had been upfront with Brock Thomas and Raiola about the situation.
"I went over to Brock and told him we need a spark," Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. "Dylan throughout the game was completely engaged. He was ready for his moment."
Raiola got that moment with Oregon trailing by eight in the fourth quarter, and he made it count against his former team. He completed 11 of 18 passes for 59 yards and helped engineer the comeback with a field goal drive that cut the deficit to 14-9 with 7:18 left. Then, with 28 seconds remaining, he found Jamari Johnson for a 4-yard touchdown to put Oregon ahead for good.
"I knew beforehand there was going to be emotions," Raiola said of the matchup. "This game was never about them. It was always about us getting back on track."
The finish sent Autzen Stadium from frustration to eruption. The crowd had already let the Ducks hear it in the first half, and many fans were gone by halftime. Lanning later said those boos were deserved.
"None of it was necessarily pretty," Lanning said. "It was a gritty, ugly win."
The Ducks tried a different look before Raiola entered, including new formations and even some Wildcat, but nothing gave the offense a real lift. Lanning said Thomas got the start because he had been better at protecting the ball in practice, though Thomas later threw an interception in the second half.
Once Raiola took over, Oregon finally found some rhythm. The run game showed signs of life, and the offense started moving the ball in a way it had failed to do for most of the afternoon. Lanning pointed back to the USC game, when Raiola had stepped in cold after Dante Moore exited with a concussion, as a reference point for what the Ducks were searching for.
Raiola’s last two weeks have been a roller coaster. He was the face of the disappointment against UCLA, but he owned that performance afterward and came back determined not to let it linger.
"I came into this week knowing I had to compete," Raiola said. "I wasn't going to pout.
I wasn't going to be miserable to be around. ... We rallied around each other."
He also made clear how badly the UCLA game hit him.
Raiola called that outing "uncharacteristic" and said he felt horrible and had let down his teammates, especially those who returned to Eugene instead of heading to the NFL in pursuit of a title.
"I owe it to these guys, I owe it to our fans, we're going to keep doing whatever it takes to win," he said.
Oregon entered the season ranked second in the nation with championship hopes, but the year has gone sideways. The Ducks are 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the Big Ten, and while the defense appears to be settling in, the offense has not consistently looked like a contender.
Still, on a day when five top-10 teams lost, Raiola’s late surge kept Oregon’s season alive and hanging by a thread rather than slipping away completely.
Lanning said the roster has changed enough that the Ducks are still figuring out who they are on offense.
"I'll never make excuses. We have enough talent and enough players to be better than we've been.
That being said, it does look like a different group than the one we started the season with," Lanning said. "We thought we were going to have Jeremiah McClellan, Evan Stewart and Dante Moore [three players who missed the game vs.
Nebraska].
"There are some different pieces to the puzzle out there, and we're working really, really hard to shuffle things around and figure it out."
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