Will Howard reflects on end-of-game sequence at Oregon: 'I thought I was down with one second'

Will Howard tucked the ball, ran and slid in the final seconds of a 32-31 loss at Oregon in Week 7. It’s been 10 days since that moment: The Ohio State quarterback still believes he got down in time.

“I thought I was down with one second,” Howard said Tuesday, when asked about the end-of-game sequence in Autzen Stadium.

“But they didn’t feel like clearing the field with all the kids that were already on it. It’s tough, but we always talk about leaving no doubt. So I probably should have gotten down even quicker to make sure that we didn’t leave any doubt there.”

Howard, who ended up throwing for a season-high 326 yards and totaling three touchdowns in defeat, got the ball back with 1:47 remaining and one timeout left, facing a one-point deficit. A 26-yard completion to senior wide receiver Emeka Egbuka slingshotted Ohio State to the Oregon 28-yard line, setting up a 1st-and-10 with 34 seconds left and that lone Buckeyes timeout still in head coach Ryan Day’s back pocket.

One play later, true freshman wideout Jeremiah Smith was called for a controversial offensive pass interference penalty that pushed Ohio State back 15 yards and out of its target field goal range. That ultimately led the Buckeyes to try to make up yardage in the game’s waning ticks with an eye toward a last-second field goal.

Kicker Jayden Fielding never got that opportunity.

On 3rd-and-25 with 10 seconds left from the Oregon 43-yard line Howard fired a strike to Smith: A completion would have moved the Buckeyes to the Ducks’ 31 or 32-yard line, yet Oregon cornerback Jabbar Muhammad made a fantastic play on the ball, breaking up the pass.

That said, Oregon was flagged on the play for illegal substitution — the Ducks intentionally had 12 players on the field, and that penalty gave Ohio State five free yards and another shot at third down, albeit without the four seconds that came off the clock on the play.

That put the Buckeyes in a 3rd-and-20 at the Oregon 38-yard line with six seconds to go.

Howard dropped back to pass and slid up the pocket. With Ducks defensive tackle Derrick Harmon getting his hands up, Howard pump faked a throw to sophomore wideout Brandon Inniss, who was near the boundary at the Oregon 33-yard line, and then Howard called his own number. The Kansas State graduate transfer gobbled up about nine yards before starting his slide at approximately the Oregon 29-yard line. But he didn’t get down in time for the Buckeyes to use their timeout.

“Believe me, I’ve played it over my head a million different times and what I could have done,” Howard said Tuesday. “Could I have just taken the first read and thrown it to Brandon Inniss? It’s a long field goal. Do I do that? But that’s taking a risk.

“Our goal, we said we wanted 15 yards, so I’m trying to get as many yards as I can. And I looked up and I saw two seconds left, and I got down. I thought I had enough time. Do I do I look up a little earlier? Do I get down a little quicker? Do I do — believe me, like it’s been nagging at me, and I’m kicking myself in every way. But, at the same time, you can’t let it affect the future at all. You just got to learn from it and know that if we’re in that situation again, we’re gonna handle it definitely.”

Day was the 1996 New Hampshire Gatorade High School Player of the Year. He broke program passing records as a three-year starting quarterback at the University of New Hampshire.

But the sixth-year Buckeyes head coach admitted Tuesday that the situation Howard found himself in at Oregon is one Day himself never had to deal with.

“But I’ve been in those types of situations,” Day said. “There’s a lot going on. The good news is, you we do have the communication, so we’re able to give them some information in that moment.

“We tried to get a quick pass to Brandon. Someone flashed in [Will’s] face, and he tried to dart up. With six seconds left, you got to get down pretty quick. And so I think, if we could all do it all over again, he would have got down quicker. We probably would have called something maybe with a little bit more spacing to the field. You second guess all these calls when it doesn’t work out.”

Day said Ohio State worked the same exact scenario Howard was in twice this past week while on the team’s second and final off week of the regular season: one timeout remaining with the goal of kicking a field goal.

“We’ll just continually go through those situations, so that when those situations come up, we’re just ready to handle it better,” Day said.

Howard later noted: “The amount of football I’ve played, a situation like that, or the 12-man [illegal substitution penalty] — all that stuff was kind of the first time we’ve seen that. The game of football is cool, man, because there’s a lot of different things that goes into it. Now if we have a situation like that again, it’s not gonna happen like that.”