Oregon Ducks Must Learn from Notre Dame's 2024 Turnaround After Shocking Loss to Oklahoma State

Oregon coach Dan Lanning should call Marcus Freeman this week and pick his brain. Whatever Freeman did to resurrect Notre Dame in 2024 following a stunning Week 2 loss, Lanning needs to borrow the formula after his No. 6 Ducks fell 39-31 at Oklahoma State on Saturday.

It's the early frontrunner for most stunning upset of the college football season after Oregon entered as a 23.5-point favorite. Oklahoma State finished 1-11 last season and carried a 21-game losing streak against FBS opponents into the game.

The misery continued in Week 1 with a 24-10 loss at Tulsa in Week 1 before the Cowboys shocked college football by becoming the first team in the sport's history to snap a 10+ game losing streak by defeating a top-10 opponent, according to ESPN.

It's a devastating and humiliating defeat for Oregon, which began the season at No. 2 in the AP poll and beat Oklahoma State 69-3 last season.

Now, the Ducks will have to play their cards right and make the loss what Notre Dame's loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2 of the 2024 season was for the Fighting Irish. Ranked No. 5 at the time, Notre Dame suffered a stunning 16-14 defeat against the Huskies and plummeted to No. 18 in the AP poll.

From there? The Irish rattled off 13 straight victories and reached the national title game.

That's the hope if you're the Ducks. But getting there will require navigating some uncomfortable realities for a program that entered the day 36-0 against unranked opposition under coach Dan Lanning.

Growing pains with revamped staff

What seems clear now is the extent to which Lanning relied on two coordinators who left after the 2025 season to take Power Four head-coaching jobs. Tosh Lupoi, now at California, coordinated Lanning's first four defenses. Will Stein coordinated the offense for three years before Kentucky hired him as its head man.

Lanning promoted Drew Mehringer (offense) and Chris Hampton (defense) from co-coordinator gigs to replace them. It seemed like a natural way to keep the momentum going for a program coming off consecutive 13-win seasons.

But there are serious flaws to address on both sides of the football. If not for two devastating interceptions that led directly to 14 Oregon points, the Cowboys wouldn't have needed an Oregon fumble with under two minutes remaining to secure the outcome.

This was a more dominant showing from Oklahoma State than the final 8-point margin suggests. Oklahoma State nearly doubled Oregon in total yards (554-281) while limiting the Ducks to just one red-zone trip. An Oregon offense led by a quarterback in Dante Moore, who passed up the chance to be a likely top-10 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, never found a rhythm.

A week after converting on just 4 of 15 third- and fourth-down plays in an uncomfortably close comeback win over Boise State, Oregon struggled on critical downs once again. The Ducks finished just 5 of 17 on those downs against Oklahoma State as Moore completed only 14 of 29 passes.

Regrets for Dante Moore?

Moore never completed less than 60% of his passes in a game last season while grappling with a devastating wave of injuries to key pass-catchers. This year, he has a deeper and healthier receiving corps at his disposal and a productive duo of returning backs.

Oregon's offensive line was supposed to be one of the best in the Big Ten and maybe the country, if things broke right. The unit surrendered four sacks against an Oklahoma State defense that did not register a single sack against Tulsa in Week 1.

It all raises the question of whether Moore should have declared for the draft instead of returning to play for a new play-caller and to be part of what's shaping up as a much stronger 2027 quarterback draft class.

That point is moot now, though. He and Oregon must now work to reclaim the wreckage suffered in Stillwater on Saturday.

The 2024 Notre Dame story offers a hopeful vision. The 2026 Oregon schedule may offer a tougher reality. Road games against No. 14 USC and No. 1 Ohio State still await. No. 19 Washington is on the docket at season's end, and a Nov. 14 home game against unranked Michigan suddenly looks tougher after the Wolverines upended No. 11 Oklahoma on Saturday.

Those games are simultaneously opportunities for redemption and landmines that could make recovering from this Week 2 blunder impractical.

Brad Crawford's CFP outlook

Oregon's loss at Oklahoma State could prove fatal to its College Football Playoff hopes if the Ducks stumble multiple times during Big Ten play. The Ducks have left themselves little room for error with major areas to correct moving forward. The Cowboys entered this matchup after losing at Tulsa, making this a damaging résumé blemish with no redeeming value. After replacing both coordinators, the Ducks have obvious issues on both sides of the football following their first two games. Unless those problems are corrected quickly, Oregon's playoff path could disappear before November arrives.