By Ralph D. Russo, Manny Navarro and Sam Khan Jr.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Oregon successfully completed the first of what it hopes will be three cross-country trips for the College Football Playoff, smothering fourth-seeded Texas Tech 23-0 in the Orange Bowl on Thursday.
The fifth-seeded Ducks advance to play the winner of the Rose Bowl between No. 1 Indiana and Alabama on Jan. 9 in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The national championship game is back here at Hard Rock Stadium on Jan. 19.
That’s a lot of miles for the Ducks, but there were no body-clock or jet-lag issues on New Year’s Day.
Quarterback Dante Moore and the Ducks did have their hands full against a talented Texas Tech defense, led by All-America edge rusher David Bailey, but Oregon responded with four takeaways of its own in a dominant defensive performance. It was the third shutout pitched since the introduction of the College Football Playoff, joining Alabama’s 38-0 win over Michigan State in the 2015-16 semifinals and Clemson’s 31-0 win over Ohio State the following year.
Matayo Uiagalelei’s strip sack of Texas Tech’s Behren Morton set up the first touchdown of the game in the third quarter for the Ducks, and Atticus Sappington made three field goals.
Moore was solid, going 26 of 33 for 234 yards with one interception, while getting little help from Oregon’s running game, which averaged 1.4 yards per carry.
After being knocked out in the quarterfinals by Ohio State as the No. 1 seed in the first 12-team Playoff last season, the Ducks are now as close to a national title as they have been since reaching the championship game of the first four-team CFP after the 2014 season.
Oregon spent most of the first half in Texas Tech territory but came away with only six points to show for it.
Ducks head coach Dan Lanning took a typically aggressive approach, going for it five times on fourth down in the first half — including a fake punt from Oregon’s side of the field that worked.
Nothing worked to get into the end zone, though. Texas Tech stopped the Ducks on a fourth-and-goal from the 2 in the second quarter, batting down Moore’s pass at the line of scrimmage.
The Ducks struggled to run it all day, and the Red Raiders had eight tackles for loss in the first half, a couple thanks to Oregon ballhandling miscues.
Sappington made a 50-yard field goal in the first quarter and a 39-yarder in the second quarter, and the Ducks led 6-0 at the break, despite outgaining the Red Raiders 198-88 and coming up with two turnovers in Texas Tech territory. Bailey was a handful for Oregon’s tackles with two tackles for loss and two passes broken up.
On the other side, almost all of Tech’s offense came on a 50-yard run by J’Koby Williams in the second quarter. It was the one drive on which the Red Raiders crossed midfield, but it resulted in Stone Harrington missing a 54-yard field short and wide.
After another fourth-down stop by the Red Raiders in their own territory in the third quarter, Oregon got its third takeaway of the day on Texas Tech’s side of the 50. Uiagalelei swiped the ball from Morton’s hand while the quarterback was trying to throw and returned the fumble 16 yards to Texas Tech 6. Jordon Davison took a toss into the end zone on the next play to make it 13-0.
Cornerback Brandon Finney Jr. was the Ducks’ defensive star. He picked off Morton twice, the second time in the end zone early in the fourth quarter to protect the shutout.
World’s learning about @brandonfinneyjr today 👀
📺: @espn x @GoDucks x via @CFBPlayoffpic.twitter.com/vuOypN6HZE
— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) January 1, 2026
Behren Morton’s nightmare day dooms Tech
The obvious question Texas Tech fans will have in the aftermath of this loss is whether general manager James Blanchard should’ve spent more money on offense during last offseason’s transfer portal cycle.
The Red Raiders clearly got good bang for their buck with 12 of their 19 non-special teams transfers becoming starters, including eight on their vaunted defense. They landed five offensive starters, though one (running back Quinten Joyner) suffered a season-ending injury in training camp.
Should Texas Tech have shopped in the quarterback market? Before the portal opened, head coach Joey McGuire assured veteran starting quarterback Behren Morton that he was the Red Raiders’ guy, and they signed him to a new contract. McGuire wanted Morton to take a leadership role given the mass of transfers the team signed and believed that a healthy Morton would take Texas Tech to heights it has never seen.
McGuire was right, but it wasn’t enough to get the Red Raiders a Playoff win. Morton had a brutal performance in Miami, finishing 18 for 32 passing for 137 yards and turning the ball over three times. Hindsight may lead some to wonder why Texas Tech didn’t explore the quarterback market more this offseason, especially given the litany of injuries Morton had dealt with throughout his Tech career. But McGuire and Blanchard felt good about Morton, as well as backup Will Hammond, and clear upgrades at quarterback were hard to come by in the 2025 winter portal cycle.
Among the top quarterbacks who entered the portal last winter, several of the best options were spoken for. John Mateer followed his offensive coordinator, Ben Arbuckle, from Washington State to Oklahoma. Devon Dampier did the same with Jason Beck from New Mexico to Utah. Darian Mensah got an offer he couldn’t refuse from Duke. Fernando Mendoza joined his brother, Alberto, at Indiana, and nobody was projecting him as the Heisman Trophy winner at this time last year. Carson Beck wound up at Miami; Tech didn’t appear to express interest in the former Georgia starter.
Beyond those options, the top names that would have been available were players like Beau Pribula (ultimate destination: Missouri), Chandler Morris (Virginia), Conner Weigman (Houston), Mark Gronowski (Iowa) and Joey Aguilar (Tennessee). While all good players in their own right, it’s hard to argue they’d be major upgrades from Morton, who finished the regular season ninth in passing efficiency, completing 67 percent of his passes for 2,643 yards, 22 touchdowns and four interceptions despite playing through a hairline fracture in his right leg since Week 1 and relying on a walking boot for weeks.
And for what it’s worth, only two starters in college football this season won more games than Morton did (26) over the last four seasons, according to TruMedia: Beck (36) and Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia (31).
The Red Raiders will be in the market for a starting quarterback when the transfer portal opens on Friday because Morton is out of eligibility and Hammond is out with an ACL injury suffered in October. They’re the favorite to land Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby, The Athletic’s top available transfer quarterback. But it’ll come a day too late, as Tech needed much better quarterback play on Thursday. Had the Red Raiders gotten even a competent performance from that position, it could have been a much different ballgame. — Manny Navarro and Sam Khan Jr.
Oregon gets aggressive on fourth down again
Lanning has never been afraid to go for it on fourth down, and it was clear from the get-go Thursday he was going to continue to be aggressive even against Texas Tech’s vaunted front four.
The Ducks converted three times on fourth down in the first half, including punter James Ferguson-Reynolds’ 11-yard pass to linebacker Teitum Tuioti, en route to a 4-of-8 performance on fourth down. None of those first-half conversions led to any points, but Lanning stayed aggressive in the second half. After a Malik Benson 28-yard punt return gave Oregon possession at the Texas Tech 41 on the Ducks’ first drive of the third quarter, Lanning went for it again at the Red Raiders 33. Quarterback Dante Moore, though, missed tight end Kenyon Sadiq wide open down the middle of the field and ended up scrambling a yard short of the first-down marker.
Luckily for Oregon, coordinator and future Cal head coach Tosh Lupoi’s defense forced its third turnover of the game on Texas Tech’s side of the field moments later. It led to Oregon’s first touchdown of the game and a 13-0 lead, but Lanning didn’t take his foot off the gas. With Oregon facing a fourth-and-2 at the Red Raiders 46, the Ducks went for it again, and Moore was intercepted by linebacker Ben Roberts.
Since Lanning’s arrival in Eugene four years ago, the Ducks have been one of the most successful teams on fourth down. Of the 11 teams to win at least 40 games since the start of the 2022 season, Oregon’s 66 percent conversion percentage on fourth downs ranked third-best heading into Thursday’s Playoff game, per TruMedia. Only Georgia (74.3 percent) and Ohio State (67.5 percent) had better conversion rates, but the Bulldogs and Buckeyes haven’t gone for it nearly as much as Oregon has over the same stretch.
The Ducks were 14 of 22 on fourth-down attempts during the regular season, including a season-best 5-of-7 performance in a 30-24 overtime win at Penn State. — Navarro
Snubbed?
Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein said he was surprised the Ducks’ offensive line did not win the Joe Moore Award, which went to Iowa’s line.
The Ducks were a finalist and made a good case. Stein was especially effusive about how the interior of the line, led by center Iapani Laloulu and All-America guard Emmanuel Pregnon, has played.
The first half against Texas Tech might have been the line’s worst two quarters of the season. Moore was under constant pressure, and the Ducks running backs had nowhere to run. Even discounting the two sacks of Moore, Oregon backs managed only 31 yards rushing on 15 carries against Tech’s big and active front, led by 330-pound tackle Lee Hunter.
It didn’t get much better in the second half. Jordon Davison’s one-yard exclamation point of a fourth-down touchdown run in the final seconds brought the Ducks’ final totals to 64 yards on 47 carries.
With either a rematch against Indiana or a matchup against Alabama looming, the Ducks offensive line will need to regain its regular-season form for Oregon to advance further. — Ralph Russo
