Dan Lanning confirms viral 12-men penalty vs. Ohio State was intentional

As seconds ticked away in Saturday’s contest between Oregon and Ohio State, the Ducks were called for a 12-men penalty. This put Ohio State five yards closer to field goal range but more importantly, time was taken off the clock and got Dan Lanning closer to a marquee victory. At the time, the foul was seen as a harmless one but social media caught up pretty quick.

Turns out, Lanning intentionally sent 12 players onto the field for the play, giving his secondary an extra player. As a pass from Will Howard fell incomplete, the sequence took four seconds in its entirety. And since the penalty was considered a live-ball one, no time was added back out.

Asked about the moment on Monday, Lanning confirmed Oregon got the penalty on purpose. He claims to even have prepared for the situation leading into the game.

“It’s called dog,” Lanning said. “He was in extremely tight coverage but he was in dog coverage where we had a safety on top of him. There was a timeout before that. We spend an inordinate amount of time in situations. There are some situations that don’t show up very often in college football but this is one that, obviously, that we have worked on. You can see the result.”

When watching the replay, there were 10 players on the right side of the field while Jabbar Muhammad was lined up against Jeremiah Smith. As Lanning mentioned, there was a safety over the top to bring Oregon’s total to 12 players. Howard threw it to his true freshman and Muhammad swatted the pass down.

Four seconds in exchange for five yards in that situation is one every head coach in college football takes 10 times out of 10.

The very next play was the final one, with Howard taking off and eventually sliding down in the middle of the field. Chaos then ensued inside Autzen Stadium, with Lanning getting a signature win and manipulating the rule book while doing so.