For Dante.

"I said the most physical team's going to win," Dan Lanning said afterward. "I think that showed up tonight." Dante Moore went down in the second quarter, the Ducks prayed for him on the sideline, and then everybody in green stepped up and won it for him. Dylan Raiola came off the bench and threw a touchdown on his second snap, and when USC tied it at 27 in the fourth, Oregon answered with the last fourteen points. 41-27 in the Coliseum, five straight over USC. Get well, Dante. We are tracking every update on the injury tracker.

The play: Tied 27-27 with 12:41 left, Raiola took Oregon 75 yards in nine plays and found Dakorien Moore for the 29-yard touchdown that put the Ducks ahead for good.

Oregon 41, USC 27: full highlights (NBC Sports)

For five

First, the only thing that matters more than the scoreboard: we hope Dante is okay. With 10:06 left in the first half he was hit late at the end of a slide and left the Coliseum in an ambulance. Dan Lanning at his postgame press conference: "Right now indications are that he's going to be, you know, he's in recovery, so I don't want to speak too soon, but he is moving. He has the ability to move. So we'll continue to assess him." Asked whether he had talked to Moore: "I haven't seen Dante yet. Just got updates from our medical staff." A team spokesperson said Moore had movement in all of his extremities. On Sunday Lanning said Dante sustained a concussion, that his MRI and CT scans came back clean, and that he did not suffer any additional injuries. Oregon has not given a timeline, and we are tracking every official update on the injury tracker.

Then his team did the most Oregon thing possible. Two snaps later Dylan Raiola found Evan Stewart for a 3-yard touchdown, and the two of them held up five fingers. Raiola opened his postgame interview the same way: "Seeing him like that shook the whole team. But at the same time, we knew that that was our brother and we was going to fight for him. And just want to say this is for five. Love you, brother."

Evan Stewart, who caught it: "All we were saying on the sideline was just do it for Tay. That's our brother. We love him. He makes everybody feel loved." And after the touchdown: "That's all I was saying in the camera, like, that's for five right there."

Raiola on the field right after the final whistle, to NBC: "Tay's my brother. When I see him go down with such a crazy injury like that, I couldn't even feel my body, I was so hurt for him. I know how much he puts into this game. But how about a win for the Ducks? That's what he would want."

Raiola and Stewart hold up five for Dante Moore

Video: Bleacher Report

Everybody stepped up

Losing your quarterback in the second quarter on the road is the moment a season can go sideways. This team grabbed it with both hands instead, and we have never been prouder of it.

Raiola walked in cold and went 19 of 25 for 289 and two touchdowns. Jamari Johnson, a game-time decision that afternoon, caught 7 for 119. Dierre Hill Jr. put up 168 yards from scrimmage and two scores. Jordon Davison ran for 66 and the clincher. Dakorien Moore caught the go-ahead touchdown. The offensive line gave a backup quarterback enough time to throw for 289, and the offense finished with 504 yards and zero turnovers. On defense, Brandon Finney Jr. broke up the fourth-down throw, Koi Perich picked off the last pass of the night, and USC went 2 of 11 on third down.

Nobody tried to be the hero. Everybody just did their job, for five. That is who this team is.

Did this team just find itself?

We think it might have, and we want to say how proud we are of this group before anything else.

Two weeks earlier in Stillwater, with the game on the line, we gained 11 yards on our final three possessions and lost 39-31. At the Coliseum we were down 7-3 when Dante left in an ambulance, and a quarterback whose only Oregon snaps had come in an 84-0 win over Portland State walked on in the loudest building we will see all year. What came next was not a scheme. It was a response: touchdowns on four of five second-half possessions, 6 for 6 in the red zone, no turnovers, and when USC tied it 27-27 with 12:41 left, a 75-yard touchdown drive, a fourth-down stop and a clinching drive to finish it.

Lanning called it being the more physical team. The players called it playing for five. Our read (opinion, not a stat): this was the night this team found out who it is when the plan breaks, and that is the kind of identity that travels to Columbus in November.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play; official USC box score (usctrojans.com), Sept 26, 2026. Drive results are our count from ESPN's drive chart.

Inside the locker room: the wolf in sheep's clothing

Oregon's own film of USC week, Ducks vs Them, Game 4: "For Your Brother", went up Monday night, and it answers the question this recap asks above. The team did not stumble into the second half at the Coliseum. It had been told who it was all week.

Friday team meeting. Dan Lanning, in front of the whole team (0:46): "The perception is we're not a very dangerous team. I want you guys to know that this is timed up perfectly. Right now, we have an opportunity to be the wolf in sheep's clothing. ... Let them think that we're not motivated. Let them think they have the upper hand."

The John Wick part. He played the scene where John Wick is called "the nobody" (3:27), asked the room who the nobody was in this game, and answered himself: the wolf in sheep's clothing. The movie's name for Wick, Baba Yaga, became the week's war cry, along with the line "We're the one you sent to kill the boogeyman" (4:19). Then the football translation: "What's our pencil this game? It's our pad level. It's our technique. It's our eyes on our assignment." (4:28)

Pregame, at the Coliseum. Lanning, on camera: "They go around like butchers. We go around like surgeons." (4:58)

After the hit. The sideline, in the huddle around the bench with Dante down: "Best thing we can do right is go fight for our... brother. ... That was dirty. That ain't us." (9:09) The players' chant at halftime was "We sliding for five" (0:04).

Halftime. Lanning, on camera (0:30): "There's a difference in this locker room and that... locker room over there. There's a difference. You let the world see the difference in this second half." In the fourth quarter, NBC's sideline report relayed his message on the broadcast: "Keep fighting. Let's show them who the wolves are." (15:44) Oregon scored 28 points after halftime.

After. In the locker room: "The world finally saw the wolf." (21:14)

Our take: this is the clearest look yet at who this team thinks it is, and it matches the tape. Quotes are transcribed from the film's captions and checked against the on-screen speaker where the speaker is shown; bleeped words are marked with an ellipsis.

Ducks vs Them, Game 4: "For Your Brother"

Video: GoDucks, Ducks vs Them, Game 4 (Sept 28, 2026). Starts at the Friday team meeting.

For our brothers

Listen to the players and you hear a locker room, not a stat line. Dakorien Moore: "We just came together and said we gonna do it for Dante. We gonna go out there and make Dante proud." He called Moore a mentor, and said that watching him driven off in the ambulance, he thought about what Dante would do in that moment, and locked back in.

Teitum Tuioti on the defense: "We had a fire under us." And then the part that says everything about this team: "We got to affect this quarterback as well, but we can't have no penalties. We can't do nothing crazy now that that happened. We still got to play our brand of football." No retaliation, no personal fouls. They just played.

"Soon as it happened, we pray for him," Dakorien said. "In the locker room after the game, we prayed for Dante again, cuz it's all about our brothers."

Lanning on what he did first: "I just called the guys up and first thing we did, we had a prayer, right? And we prayed for his health. Prayed for some composure for ourselves." And on what they did with it: "I thought our guys had unbelievable composure throughout the night."

Dakorien Moore and Teitum Tuioti after the win

Video: Matt Prehm

In Lanning's words

Lanning walked into the press conference proud, and it was all about his players. "I said the most physical team's going to win. I think that showed up tonight." "These guys went out and played for them, right? Played for five." "A lot of guys stepped up."

On Raiola: "Every guy on the sideline had faith in him. He was ready for his moment." Raiola had been texting him all week about his preparation, Lanning said: "Coach, I heard this on a press conference. I saw this on their film." "That trust was built long before he touched the field tonight."

On how his team handled the moment: "Everybody wants to go get in a street fight, right? And I thought our players had unbelievable composure." What he told them on the sideline: "Let's play with our passion in between the whistles," and "here's the best way you can honor Dante, in the way you operate."

On his own calls: he took the field goal before halftime, a lesson he said he learned from the Washington game in his first year, and Oregon scored again coming out of the half, "which I thought was awesome for our players and makes me have confidence to make decisions like that in games." Then he chose to go for it on fourth-and-3 at midfield to close it out.

On Jamari Johnson, who barely practiced all week and walked through every play of the script after practice because he could not run them live: "Jamari's a dog, man. He's a smart, intelligent football player. He's different when he's on the field. He's that security blanket for our quarterbacks." On Bear Alexander, back at the school he left: "You saw a leader on the sideline, a guy that was demanding the best of his teammates."

"It ain't over yet. Tonight was one game. It's time to go stack another game. You guys are going to write whatever you write. We don't care." That is the attitude, and it is the right one.

Dan Lanning's full postgame press conference

Video: Matt Prehm

A Raiola legacy game

19 of 25. 289 yards. Two touchdowns. No interceptions, no fumbles, not one turnover, on the road, in the Coliseum, off the bench. Oregon put up 270 yards and four touchdown drives in the second half with him at quarterback, and he played like he had been QB1 all season.

He did more than throw it. Lanning afterward: "One of the best things Dylan did... is redirect protections, get it pointed in the right direction, get it picked up, which is hard at times with teams like that that disguise." That is veteran quarterback work, on his first meaningful snaps as a Duck. Raiola, on the second half: "The wolf came out, and we made sure that our prey... felt what we were preparing for all week."

And the story underneath it is ridiculous. Raiola's last game against USC was at Nebraska last November, and he left it with a broken leg. Tonight he walked off the Coliseum field a winner, slapping hands with Duck fans on the way out. "It's a full circle moment," he said. "Last time I played these dudes, I left with a broken leg, and just so grateful for this program, so grateful for these coaches and most importantly these players."

How was he that ready? He told reporters he treats every day like he is the starter, and that he and Dante "have a lot of back and forth dialogue with game plan things, what he likes." The starter helped get the backup ready. That is a quarterback room.

Oregon did not survive losing its quarterback. Oregon won the game anyway, and it was not close at the end.

Dylan Raiola: "This is for five."

Video: Tyson Alger

How Oregon drove it

This was not one lucky throw and a prayer. After Moore went down, Oregon went 75 yards for a touchdown on that same drive. After halftime it scored on four of five possessions: 75 yards, 75 yards, 75 yards, and then a five-minute, 49-yard march to close it. 270 second-half yards, 504 for the night, no turnovers.

Two weeks ago in Stillwater, Oregon gained 11 yards on its last three possessions. At USC, after the game was tied 27-27, it gained 124 on its next two, and both ended in the end zone.

Lanning had said all week that the most physical team would win. "I think that showed up tonight," he said. On his backup: "Dylan was great, man. I think a lot of times when guys come into that situation, they feel like all of a sudden they have to press." Raiola did not. "He came in and he operated." And on his coordinator: "Drew called an unbelievable game, especially in the second half. Really controlled the clock." USC still had more first downs, 26 to 23. Oregon was not better on every snap. It was much better on the ones that decided it.

Lanning on Raiola: "He came in and he operated."

Video: Tyson Alger

Four answers

USC tied it 27-27 with 12:41 left, and the Coliseum got loud for the first time all night. Oregon answered four straight times.

Raiola hit Dakorien Moore for a 29-yard touchdown, and it was a read, not a prayer: Dakorien said afterward that they saw a freshman in coverage before the snap and the call between them was "check touchdown." Brandon Finney Jr. broke up USC's fourth-down throw near midfield. Jordon Davison punched it in from the 2 with 2:03 left. Koi Perich picked off Jayden Maiava at the goal line with four seconds on the clock. No panic, no turnovers. Oregon scored the last fourteen and the Coliseum went quiet again.

"Check touchdown": Raiola to Dakorien Moore for the lead

Video: NBC Sports

Jamari is back

Jamari Johnson missed two straight games and walked in listed as a game-time decision. He walked out with 7 catches for 119 yards, the team high, including a 37-yarder on the drive that ended in Raiola's first touchdown. He gave a quarterback who had just been thrown in a big target over the middle, and the offense looked like itself again.

Oregon had two 100-yard receivers at USC, and neither of them is a receiver: Johnson with 119 and Dierre Hill Jr. with 105. With its starter gone, Oregon went after the middle of USC's defense and kept going.

On Sept 29 Johnson was named the John Mackey Award National Player of the Week, and he and Hill became the first Oregon running back and tight end to both go over 100 receiving yards in the same game since 1996 (GoDucks.com (Sept 29, 2026)).

Jamari Johnson was a game-time decision. Once the game started, USC was the one without an answer.

Jamari Johnson hurdles a USC defender

Video: Big Ten Football

Dierre Hill Jr.'s night

After Stillwater, the fan base was not kind to Dierre Hill Jr. Tonight he answered all of it: 15 carries for 63 yards and two touchdowns, 4 catches for 105 more, 168 yards from scrimmage. That made him the first Oregon running back with more than 100 receiving yards in a game since De'Anthony Thomas in 2012 (Oregon Athletics). His 62-yard catch and run to open the second half was Oregon's longest play of the night and set up his own 1-yard score. The catches made Oregon impossible to blitz and gave Raiola an easy home run. Jordon Davison added 66 yards and the clincher. Two backs, and USC could not tackle either one. Lanning afterward: "He ran like a warrior tonight."

On Sept 29 Hill was named the Paul Hornung Award National Player of the Week, the award for the nation's most versatile player (GoDucks.com (Sept 29, 2026)).

Dierre Hill Jr. keeps gashing USC

Video: NBC Sports

The defense closed it

USC's offense is good, and it got its yards: 446 of them, and 326 through the air. What Oregon's defense did was win the moments that decided it. USC went 2 of 11 on third down, turned it over on downs right after Oregon retook the lead, never scored after tying the game, and ended its last drive in Koi Perich's hands. Matayo Uiagalelei and Bear Alexander each got to Maiava in the first quarter, Devon Jackson made 11 tackles, and Oregon won the turnover battle 1-0. After Stillwater, that is a defense that closed a ranked team out on the road.

Unit by unit: what the numbers back up

We walked out of the Coliseum with a few gut feelings. Here is each one checked against the box score, including the two the numbers do not fully back.

Pass protection had its best night of the year. Zero sacks and one quarterback hurry allowed, against a USC defense that came in averaging two sacks a game. After four sacks in Stillwater, that is the headline. The run blocking was not better, though. Our backs averaged 4.2 a carry, six runs went for no gain or a loss (the most in any game this season), we went 1 for 3 on short-yardage runs, and the line drew three flags, one of which erased a 33-yard completion to the USC 1 before halftime.

Dierre Hill Jr. was our best player on the field. 168 yards from scrimmage on 19 touches, nearly as many as his first three games combined (185). Most of it came after the catch: the 62-yard catch and run to open the second half and a 28-yarder on 3rd and 2, each setting up his own touchdown.

The defensive front was much better than Stillwater, not yet Boise State. USC ran for 3.6 a carry, its lowest of the season, two weeks after Oklahoma State ran on us at 6.6 a carry. Matayo Uiagalelei and Bear Alexander both got home, but both sacks came on USC's opening drive and we did not get another.

The secondary really was back and forth. USC hit six completions of 20-plus yards and averaged 7.8 per attempt, both the most any opponent has managed against us this year. The same group broke up nine passes, held USC to 2 of 11 on third down (USC had converted 65% coming in), and after we went up 34-27, USC went 6 of 15 for 55 with Koi Perich's interception. They bent all night, then closed.

Linebackers: the public numbers cannot settle it. Devon Jackson led the team with 11 tackles. Missed tackles and run fits live in PFF grades we do not have, and USC's run success rate (40%) was our best against a power-conference offense this year. Our read: the worry is fair, and Oklahoma State (five runs of 10-plus) is the tape that earned it, more than USC.

Raiola in the pocket: calm, and the results say so. No sacks, no scrambles, no turnovers, and 5 of 6 third downs converted when he threw, including 34 yards to Jamari Johnson on 3rd and 9 and the 29-yard go-ahead touchdown to Dakorien Moore on 3rd and 8. The honest footnote: about 60% of his yards came after the catch, and ESPN charted only three of his 25 throws as deep. Efficient and protected, not yet a downfield show.

What Duck fans were saying. We read the r/ducks threads and a sample of the r/CFB postgame thread on Sunday morning. The loudest subject by far was the hit and the celebration. On our own team, the one view with real agreement was Raiola's calm in the pocket: every comment we found about it was positive. Hill's night read as redemption after Stillwater. Smaller groups of fans, around ten each, said the line was better but still drawing flags and the secondary was up and down, and the handful who brought up the linebackers were all worried. Those last few are a few voices, not a consensus, and they line up with what the numbers above show.

Sources: ESPN box scores and play-by-play; official USC box score (usctrojans.com, Sept 26, 2026); GoDucks.com box scores for Boise State, Oklahoma State and Portland State. Runs excluding sacks, success rate and yards after the catch are our own count from ESPN's play-by-play, reconciled to the official box. Portland State (FCS) is left out of the comparisons.

Stillwater is not the whole story anymore

The Oklahoma State loss still happened. But it is no longer the only thing this team has shown. Oregon went on the road, beat a ranked team, lost its starting quarterback in the second quarter, gained 504 yards and did not turn the ball over once. This team is not finished. It is a lot of fun again, and it is 3-1 with a bye week and UCLA at Autzen next.

Five straight over USC

USC still owns the historical ledger at 25-38-2. Oregon owns the version of this rivalry anyone playing college football today remembers.

Five straight over USC. Seven of the last eight. Nine of the last eleven. Five of the last six in Los Angeles, and three straight in the Coliseum.

USC left the Pac-12 to get away from this, and it followed them to the Big Ten. And for one night, USC managed something Washington never could: it had the rest of college football rooting for Oregon.

Lanning had the last word on that. On the crowd: "I've watched three of their TV games. I haven't seen a game packed yet, but we were here. It was packed tonight. So, I guess when the Ducks show up, that's how you fill up the Coliseum." His parting shot at USC is further down.

No accountability at USC

This part we are not letting go of.

The hit. With 10:06 left in the first half, Dante Moore finished a 10-yard run and went into his slide, and USC linebacker Desman Stephens II hit him late. Officials called targeting and threw him out. The game stopped for 14 minutes while Dante was treated, and he left the Coliseum in an ambulance.

The celebration. Sports Illustrated and Yahoo Sports reported that Stephens was on USC's sideline afterward, laughing and dapping up teammates while Dante was still on the field. Oregon Athletics' own game story described "a melee on the field as Trojans players celebrated the dirty play." NBC reported that Jamari Johnson, one of Dante's closest friends, had to be consoled. Our players called it what it was: "Obviously we know it was very dirty," from the availability Raiola did with Dierre Hill Jr., and Dakorien Moore said the team felt it was done on purpose.

The head coach. Asked whether he saw the celebration, Lincoln Riley said: "I did not see it. No." Asked why Stephens was still on USC's sideline in the second half, he said "he's on our football team." Those were the only two questions about Stephens in his press conference, and Riley did not say one word about consequences. Then, Sunday. A day later, with the whole country having seen it, USC suspended Stephens for one game, its Oct 3 game against Washington, "as a result of his conduct during Saturday's game." Riley's statement: "Desman's actions in last night's game are unacceptable and are not reflective of USC Football nor of his personal character. He understands his mistake, accepts the consequences of his actions and will learn from this." It also wished Dante a full recovery. Stephens apologized: his reaction was "completely inappropriate and inexcusable," and "there is no justification for smiling or celebrating while another player receives medical attention." The Big Ten has announced nothing on the hit.

Our opinion, and we are labeling it as one: a player celebrating while the quarterback he just hurt is being loaded into an ambulance, and a head coach whose whole answer on the night was "he's on our football team," tells you where that program's accountability starts. It took a national backlash and a day to get to one game. We will take the apology at its word; the order of events says plenty. Nothing about it takes away what our guys did, and nothing about it gets forgotten.

It boiled over twice. Both sidelines came onto the field after the hit (Bleacher Report). After the game, FOX posted video of players from both teams in a scrum in the Coliseum tunnel until staff and security got between them. The clip does not show who started it and nobody has been named, so we are not going to pretend it does.

"Three wins against these guys. I guess if you're interested in winning football games and you're from this area, you should go to Oregon. If you want to go to a Chris Brown concert, should go here." Dan Lanning

He said it unprompted, after the moderator had already closed his press conference. Chris Brown was playing SoFi Stadium that same night. Three straight for Lanning against USC, five straight for Oregon in the series.

On the hit itself, Lanning was blunter than we are: "There's a reason targeting exists in football, and that's as clear as day targeting." And: "It's a disgusting play." He would not pin the celebration on Riley, "because I can't speak to what I didn't see," and credited Riley for asking about Dante after the game. That is how you act when you win.

And then our social team finished it. Back on March 25, right after USC landed cornerback Danny Lang over Oregon, USC posted a video of green grass being spray-painted red, ending on "Guess the grass wasn't greener," a shot at Lanning's line that the grass is damn green in Eugene. Lanning's answer then, per Sports Illustrated: "No reaction. I'm much more focused on winning in the fall." It is fall. At 9:01 PM Saturday, Oregon posted the reply: it opens on USC's own red-grass shot, same gold lettering, and pulls back until the red grass is a giant L. "There's always a bigger picture."

Sources: USC Athletics statement (Sept 27, 2026); ESPN play-by-play (Sept 26, 2026); Oregon Athletics game story, Rob Moseley (Sept 26, 2026); Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, NBC and Bleacher Report on the sideline scenes; Lincoln Riley's full postgame press conference (WeAreSC recording); Dan Lanning's press conference as recorded by Matt Prehm (14:04) and 247Sports; FOX College Football, video by Ira Gorawara of The Athletic (tunnel); @uscfb (March 25, 2026); Sports Illustrated (Caden Handwork, March 31, 2026) for Lanning's March quote; @oregonfootball (Sept 26, 2026); SoFi Stadium event listing.

Dan Lanning: "If you want to go to a Chris Brown concert"

Video: Matt Prehm, Lanning's full postgame press conference

Oregon has two quarterbacks

Duck fans left the Coliseum talking quarterbacks, and honestly, what a problem to have. Here is our take, and it is an opinion: whenever his availability allows, Dante Moore is Oregon's quarterback, and nothing about tonight changes that. What tonight did change is the floor. Oregon's season does not end if its starter goes down, and every team left on the schedule just found that out. Dante first. Everything else can wait.

Our call, graded

We said Oregon 33, USC 30. It finished 41-27: the right winner, 11 combined points off. We had the winner and underestimated how completely Oregon would own the ending. We will take it.

Last word

One of the most emotional Oregon wins in years, and one of the most fun. Lanning already has it in the right place: "It ain't over yet. Tonight was one game. It's time to go stack another game." A bye week, then UCLA at Autzen. Get well, Dante. Five straight over USC. Sco Ducks.

By the numbers

The takeaway: Oregon lost its quarterback in the second quarter and still outscored USC 28-17 after halftime, behind a backup who had not started a game in eleven months. Stillwater is no longer the only evidence. The next day Lanning confirmed a concussion, with clean scans and no other injury. There is still no return date, and we are tracking it.

• Five straight wins over USC (2019, 2020, 2023, 2025, 2026); seven of the last eight and nine of the last eleven. USC last beat Oregon in 2016.
• Five of Oregon's last six games against USC in Los Angeles, and three straight at the Coliseum (2019, the 2020 Pac-12 title game, 2026).
• USC's first loss at the Coliseum since 2024, and Oregon has still never lost a Big Ten road game (AP).
• Dan Lanning's third win over USC, after 2023 and 2025.

Source: Box score, play-by-play and team totals via ESPN (Sept 26, 2026); the injury sequence, the delay and the streak notes via the Associated Press game story on ESPN (Sept 26, 2026); Moore's transport and the team statement via ESPN (Paolo Uggetti, Sept 26, 2026); Stephens on the sideline via Sports Illustrated (Chris Wuensch) and Yahoo Sports, and Johnson being consoled as reported by NBC via Sports Illustrated (Sept 26-27, 2026); Lanning's postgame quote via On3 (Thomas Goldkamp, Sept 26, 2026) Raiola's and the players' postgame quotes from the Oregon postgame availability as recorded by Tyson Alger (Sept 26, 2026); the No. 5 moment via Bleacher Report's video; series history from this site's season archive. Riley's press conference quotes via The Sporting Tribune's postgame video (Sept 26, 2026). Lanning's quotes on Raiola, Hill and Mehringer from his postgame remarks as recorded by Tyson Alger (transcript read). Dakorien Moore and Teitum Tuioti's quotes from their postgame interview as recorded by Matt Prehm (transcript read). Raiola, Evan Stewart and Brandon Finney Jr.'s postgame interviews as recorded by Matt Prehm (transcripts read). Raiola's on-field interview via NBC Sports; the full press conference also checked against CFB on FOX's complete recording; the discipline note via Yahoo Sports (Sept 27, 2026).