Though the loss can't solely be put on officiating errors in the fourth quarter of Oregon football's17-15 defeat to UCLA, the Big Ten admitted Sunday, Oct. 11, officials made a crucial mistake in the waning moments at Autzen Stadium.
Trailing by eight points late in the fourth, Brock Thomas connected with Evan Stewart for a touchdown and six points with 2:16 left on the clock. Lining up to tie the game on a two-point try, UCLA was called for a facemask, which should have given Oregon another chance from the spot of the foul at the half-yard-line.
Instead, the officials spotted the ball half the distance from the original spot of the ball at the 3-yard-line at the start of the play. Oregon's subsequent play was stuffed at the goal line and eventually led to a defeat.
"The Big Ten has been in contact with its officiating team from Saturday's game regarding the error and will continue to emphasize consistent application of the playing rules," the league said in a statement.
Speaking with local media Monday, Lanning said they heard the same announcement that the ball had been moved to the half-yard-line first, and called a play for that scenario. After the ball got moved back a yard inexplicably, Lanning met with the officials, who insisted the latter was the proper ruling.
"Obviously, that wasn't the proper ruling and I got a call from the Big Ten and it's after the fact, so there's not a lot you can do about it," Lanning said. "But that's no excuse for what the result of the game was. We can score from the three, like we can from the one-and-a-half or the half-yard-line. But it's disappointing that it was wrong. I know they're disappointed that they got it wrong. Apologies don't really matter in that moment, but that's not the reason we lost the game. I'm not going to use that as an excuse for us."
Though the two-point conversion spot deserves scrutiny, so does Oregon's play in the loss. The Ducks turned the ball over seven times, the most in 20 years, and had less than 100 yards of total offense at one point in the fourth quarter.
Oregon takes on Nebraska this weekend at Autzen Stadium.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football and women’s basketball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com.
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This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Lanning accepts Big Ten apology after blown call costs Oregon shot