If you really wanted to argue, nobody would have stopped you from calling Friday night’s matchup between the No. 6 Oregon Ducks and No. 16 Oregon State Beavers the biggest game of Dan Lanning’s young career.
With a spot in the Pac-12 Championship on the line and a chance to keep its College Football Playoff hopes alive, Lanning’s team needed to perform. More than that, Lanning needed a victory against a rival, something he had yet to accomplish in Eugene.
Fortunately for Duck fans everywhere, all three of those things were checked off in a 31-7 beat down in Autzen Stadium that left zero doubt when it came to who was the better team.
The reward? Oregon’s second-year head coach gets to play the biggest game of his career next week in Las Vegas: a rematch against the Washington Huskies, the only team to beat the Ducks this season.
While we have several days to dive into that highly enticing game, let’s first take a deeper look at this matchup that could well be the final Civil War we see for quite some time. No future game is scheduled.
Here are my biggest takeaways from the evening: