What a difference a week, or two, or three, makes.
Three weeks ago, Oregon football transfer quarterback Dylan Raiola stepped in for an injured Dante Moore, threw for nearly 300 yards and a pair of scores, stuck out his tongue and danced to a 41-27 victory over USC. Last week, following a bye, Raiola was benched in the worst performance of his career versus UCLA, completing just 6 of 19 passes for 43 yards with two interceptions.
Saturday night, in a 17-14 win over his former team, Nebraska, at Autzen Stadium, Raiola came off the bench to lead the game-winning drive and threw the go-ahead touchdown pass to Jamari Johnson with under a minute to play.
Even before his press conference started following the win, Raiola couldn't resist a smile and said this game meant a lot to him.
"UCLA was very uncharacteristic," Raiola said. "That was very uncharacteristic for me to play like that. I felt horrible. I let these guys down. These guys put so much time in, these guys got futures in the league and they decided to come back and you have a performance like that. Now you got to take it on the chin and you’ve gotta grow. It was all about growth."
Oregon's shaky offense was brutally inefficient for the second-straight week, totaling seven punts in the first half and losing the only other possession to a fumble after the defense set up the Ducks inside the red zone with an interception.
Brock Thomas, who replaced Raiola last week and threw for over 150 yards and a score in the loss, got his first career start and couldn't get much of anything going for Oregon's offense.
The senior completed 9 of 20 passes for 54 yards and an interception off a tipped pass. Lanning said Thomas earned the job because he protected the ball better than Raiola in practice.
"I told Dylan the same thing throughout the week," Lanning said. "Like, why did we lose last week? We didn’t score, we didn’t get yards, but he protected the ball better than Dylan in practice."
Eventually, after Thomas threw an interception in the second half, Lanning went back to Raiola. Thomas told Raiola to "let it rip," and the junior transfer did just that while leading a resurgent Oregon offense down the field for a game-winning drive.
"A lot of people don’t necessarily get second chances," Lanning said of Raiola. "Dylan got a second chance to go out there tonight and execute for us when he was ready and proud that he was able to do that."
Raiola, who completed 11 of 18 pass attempts for 59 yards and the go-ahead score to Johnson with under 30 seconds to play, said he wasn't going to mope after Lanning's decision to start Thomas. But he was always going to be ready for his moment.
Ultimately, even against his former team, his preparation was about his new team.
"This game was never about them," Raiola said. "It was always about Oregon, it was always about us and us getting back on track and playing our brand of football."
Now Lanning and his staff will have to navigate yet another week without a clear picture at quarterback. It's unclear whether Moore will be cleared to play after suffering a concussion against USC in late September. The starting quarterback has practiced with the Ducks each of the last several weeks, but he's been listed as out and sat out against UCLA and Nebraska.
If Moore can't play for a third-straight game, Lanning says all options are still on the table as Oregon evaluates who gives them the best chance to win moving forward against Illinois next week.
"We’ll reassess and compete again this week to see where things are at as we move forward," Lanning said.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football and women’s basketball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com.
Want to see more Oregon Ducks coverage? Subscribe to The Register-Guard’s newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Dylan Raiola, Oregon football react to dramatic win vs. Nebraska