EUGENE — Oregon having 12 men on the field defensively for the second-to-last play of its win over Ohio State was indeed by design.

Many commentators and fans credited Oregon coach Dan Lanning for a brilliant strategic decision after the game and in the days since. Lanning did not deny the trade of time for what ended up being a meaningless five yards.

“We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations,” Lanning said. “There’s some situations that don’t show up very often in college football, but this is one that obviously was something that we had worked on. You could see the result.”

The Ducks called timeout with 10 seconds remaining in Saturday’s game, with the Buckeyes facing third and 25 from UO’s 43-yard line. Moments before Ohio State snapped the ball, Oregon cornerback Dontae Manning walked onto the field to the left side of the defense, giving UO too many men on the field and a numbers advantage against OSU’s three receivers to the right side of its formation and running back.

That helped to induce Will Howard to throw for Jeremiah Smith, who was covered by Jabbar Muhammad, Oregon’s top cornerback, with safety Kobe Savage over the top to the field side of the defense. Muhammad broke up the pass, Oregon was penalized 5 yards, and most importantly for UO, four seconds came off the clock.

On the ensuing play, Howard scrambled and slid as time ran out.

Burch expected to play again this season, but when is unclear

Oregon defensive end Jordan Burch, who suffered an injury during practice last Thursday, was listed as questionable on UO’s player availability report for last week’s game against Ohio State and did not play.

The senior wore street clothes on the sideline at Autzen Stadium.

Burch is expected to be able to play again this season, but when that will be is not clear.

“Continue to evaluate it for him, want to do what’s best for him,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “I do anticipate us being able to use Jordan again, but I don’t know that that’ll be this week. I don’t know that it won’t. So we’ll just keep evaluating that and see what it looks like.”

Burch has 19 tackles (seven for loss) with a career-high five sacks and four pass breakups this season.

Holden to face ‘some discipline’ after spitting incident

Oregon receiver Traeshon Holden will face some discipline within the UO football program after spitting on Ohio State cornerback Davison Igbinosun during last week’s game.

Dan Lanning said he was “extremely disappointed” in Holden’s actions, which resulted in a 15-yard penalty and ejection for flagrant unsportsmanlike conduct.

“There’s absolutely zero place for that in our program, zero place for that in football,” Lanning said. “Reached out to Coach (Ryan) Day and expressed my frustration in that situation. I know Traeshon is extremely apologetic. He’s embarrassed. He realizes how wrong he was in that moment and we will handle some things internally. There is some discipline that exists there, but I’m going to leave that for us internally to handle and communicate.”

Holden issued a public apology via social media on Sunday.

Holden had one catch for 32 yards before the incident, which came with 11:31 remaining in the second quarter of Saturday’s game. The senior has 20 catches for 306 yards and three touchdowns this season.

Justius Lowe filled in for Holden for the remainder of last week’s game. Lanning said the redshirt sophomore as well as other players could see greater roles moving forward, beginning with Friday’s game at Purdue.

Purdue to start freshman quarterback in Friday’s game

Redshirt-freshman quarterback Ryan Browne, who started in place of the injured Hudson Card last week against Illinois, will start again for the Boilermakers (1-5, 0-3 Big Ten) against the No. 2 Ducks (6-0, 3-0 Big Ten) Friday night.

Card, who played for Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein in high school, could also play but his status for this week’s game is undetermined as of Monday.

“I’m not sure if Hudson will be available or not,” Purdue coach Ryan Walters said. “Ryan Browne will start the game on Friday. I think the way he played it would be unfair not to. We’ll see about Hudson’s availability moving forward.”

Browne went 18 of 26 for 297 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 118 yards in a 50-49 overtime loss to Illinois last week. It was the most individual passing yards since Card threw for 323 yards against Syracuse last season for the Boilermakers, who fired offensive coordinator Graham Harrell after four games.

Walters, a defensive coach, took over as offensive play-caller last week and said he will keep calling the offense.

A former three-star recruit, Browne was Florida’s 8A Player of the Year and Mr. Football runner-up in 2021, when he led Venice High to a state title. He spent 2022 at Milford Academy in New York and signed with Purdue that December. Browne played in one game, against Northwestern, while redshirting as a true freshman and went 12 of 16 for 104 yards and had 21 carries for 85 yards.

“He had a great week of practice, really the last two weeks he’s practiced well,” Walters said. “You always appreciate his energy and enthusiasm as a competitor. He put a lot of time in preparation this past week. The things we saw during the game was what we were seeing during practice. Obviously you don’t know what it’s going to look like until you’re in live situations. … I’m proud of the way he played and it’s because of the way he prepared. I’m looking forward to watching his growth and maturation this week.”