I watched the game. Oregon lost the game due to a mental mistake. At the end of regulation they had a first down with about 1 minute 40 seconds on the clock. Stanford had no timeouts. They could have taken a knee and practically run out the clock. No need to run the ball. I blame the coach.
Something similar happened at the end of Old Dominion-Virginia Tech game. ODU could have taken a knee and run out the game. Instead, they chose to run it and got a two touchdown lead. However, it gave Vtech a slim chance to tie the game. Still ODU won in a major upset.
I have been watching football for a long, long time and played in high school. I have noticed that at both the college and professional levels more mental errors by the players and coaches than ever before. The Oregon debacle was just another example.
He is a new coach who will learn from those mistakes. Yes, probably should have knelt, but he didn’t want to give the ball back with any time left. Having a freshman carry it in that situation was not smart.