The Oregon Duck mascot Puddles falls on field, loses mascot head vs. Purdue

On Friday evening, Oregon committed friendly fire before squaring off against Purdue. As the Ducks ran onto the field, Oregon defensive back Sione Laulea accidentally collided with The Duck mascot, Puddles, who crashed to the ground.

The Duck’s head briefly fell off, exposing the man underneath, before he recovered and continued to cheer on his Ducks. It was a brutal — and perhaps hilarious — moment for one of the most widely-recognized mascots in all of college spots.

However, there was likely no love lost from fellow Big Ten teams. Before Oregon kicked off its inaugural season in the prestigious conference, the Duck visited every school in the Big Ten, taunting them and standing outside their respective stadiums.

Oddly enough, this incident isn’t the first time the Duck mascot has lost his head. Before Oregon faced off against Colorado last season, the Duck walked onto the field dressed as Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders.

He took it like a champ 💪🦆 pic.twitter.com/LNScw7mxsK

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 19, 2024

While attempting to smash a clock that was metaphorical for Sanders’ nickname of “Prime Time,” the Duck lost his head and scrambled back into the tunnel. While some fans interpreted the moment as a bad omen, the Ducks went on to handily win the game 42-6.

It appears Oregon’s offputting start on Friday night also had no ramifications on the team’s performance. By halftime, the Ducks boasted a 21-0 lead over the Boilermakers and have shown no signs of slowing down.

NCAA changes rules after Oregon exposes loophole

With 10 seconds left in Oregon’s 32-31 win over Ohio State in Week 7, Oregon put 12 defenders on the field, leading to a Buckeyes incompletion. Oregon received a 5-yard penalty for the play but four seconds ran off the clock and Ohio State accidentally ran out the game clock on the next play.

Viewers around the nation immediately called for the NCAA to examine its rules to avoid similar situations from happening again. On Friday, the national coordinator of officials, Steve Shaw, explained how the NCAA changed its rules to address the loophole.

“Our new interpretation is that after the two-minute timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul — which they did here — and have 12 or more players on the field and they participate in the down, then officials will penalize the defense for the substitution foul,” Shaw said. “But, at the option of the offended team, we’ll reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap.

“The game clock will then restart on the next snap. So [in the Oregon-OSU game], after the five-yard penalty on the defense from the previous spot, we would reset the clock to 10 seconds, and it would start on the next snap, and the offense would get to repeat third down.”