As somebody who 16 years ago intentionally manipulated the loophole of a rule, Bret Bielema loved what he saw from Oregon head coach Dan Lanning earlier this season.

Matt Stevens, IlliniGuys Staff Writer

October 26, 2024

No. 20 Illinois at No. 1 Oregon

Date/Time/Place: Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024: 2:30 p.m. CST, Autzen Stadium, Eugene, Oregon

Surface: Field Turf

Capacity: 60,000

Records: Illinois 6-1, 3-1 in Big Ten; Oregon 7-0, 4-0 in Big Ten

Betting Line: Oregon by 21.5

Series notes: Oregon leads the all-time series 2-1. The last time these two programs, now in the Big Ten for the first year in history, faced each other the No. 24 Ducks escaped with a 34-31 win in 1995. Bret Bielema is 0-1 against Oregon with the only matchup being a 45-38 loss to the Ducks in the 2012 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Illinois will be facing the No. 1 team in the nation for the 16th time in program history. The Fighting Illini are 3-12 against top-ranked teams with wins in 1950 (Ohio State), 1956 (Michigan State), and 2007 (at Ohio State) Illinois is 1-5 all-time on the road against the nation’s No. 1.

TV: CBS; Brad Nessler (play-by-play), Gary Danielson (analyst), and Jenny Dell (reporter)

Radio (Illinois): Brian Barnhart (play-by-play), Kevin Mitchell (analyst), Michael Martin (sideline), and Steve Kelly (pre/half/post).  The broadcast can be heard live on TuneIn online radio, SiriusXM, the SiriusXM App, and at FightingIllini.com/live.

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — From one rule-manipulating coach to another, Illinois head coach Bret Bielema saw and loved what he saw from Dan Lanning at the end of its 32-31 win over Ohio State.

With Ohio State driving on its final possession of the game on Oct. 12 and just seconds left on the clock, Oregon was flagged for having too many defenders on the field, drawing a five-yard penalty. While the Buckeyes gained 5 yards, the move took four seconds off the clock. The Ducks went on to win 32-31.

Oregon took the lead with 1:47 left on Atticus Sappington’s 19-yard field goal in Saturday night’s game, giving the Buckeyes time to drive down the field for a potential winning field goal. With Ohio State facing a third-and-25 from the Oregon 43, the Ducks called a timeout with 10 seconds left. Just before the ball was snapped, Oregon defensive back Dontae Manning enter the playing field, giving the Ducks an extra defender. Ohio State failed to complete a pass against Oregon’s 12-man defense on the next play, and the Ducks were flagged for an illegal substitution penalty.

In the following Monday media conference, Lanning more than indicated his team intentionally took advantage of the loophole in the rulebook.

“We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations and some situations don’t come up very often in college football, but this was obviously something we had worked on,” Lanning said. “You can see the result.”

Two days after Lanning’s media conference, the NCAA football rules committee issued guidance Wednesday to close a loophole that allowed second-ranked Oregon to exploit an illegal substitution penalty late in its victory over Ohio State to take time off the clock.

“After the Two-Minute Timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul and 12 or more players are on the field and participate in a down, officials will penalize the defense for the foul and at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap,” the guidance said.

The guidance continued “the game clock will then restart on the next snap.” If the 12th defender was attempting to exit but was still on the field at the snap and had no influence on the play, then the normal substitution penalty would be enforced with no clock adjustment.”

When IlliniGuys.com asked Bielema, after the loophole was closed by the NCAA football rules committee, what he thought of the move by Lanning and his Oregon coaching staff, the Illini fourth-year head coach said he’s seen a colleague pull something off like that.

“2006. Penn State at Wisconsin. Give it a look,” Bielema said.

In his first season as a head coach, Bielema pulled a fast one against one of the legends of college football during a 13-3 win over Penn State at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wis.

With a handful of seconds remaining in the first half, Bielema elected to have all of the 10 players on the kickoff team intentionally go offsides prior to kickoffs so the first half clock would expire during Saturday's game against Penn State. After three kicks, Penn State did not run an offensive play in what was a manipulation of a new rule that starts the clock rolling as soon as it is kicked. An unhappy Nittany Lions head coach Joe Paterno aggressively waved off the ESPN sideline reporter for the halftime interview after he was extremely displeased with what he thought was a violation of the rules.

Bielema’s boss, Barry Alvarez, was incredibly pleased with his protege figuring out a way to exploit the rulebook.

“It was a hell of a call!" said Alvarez, then the school's first-year athletic director said when reached after the game by ESPN and The Associated Press. "If Joe Paterno does that everyone says it's genius. There are rules. Good coaches take advantage of them. Do you not think Joe Paterno would have done it if he'd known the rule?"

As he enters a game with the 38-year-old Lanning, known as one of the game’s best head coaches, on the opposite sideline, Bielema said he’s always admired the Ducks head coach’s meteoric rise in the profession.

“I just have a super amount of respect for a young coach in Dan Lanning as soon as I met him several years back,” Bielema said on Monday. “He’s just a very talented football coach who has proven time and time again to be very bright. You can already see what he’s taken from his time from Nick (Saban) and Kirby (Smart).”

Before taking the Oregon head coach job in 2022, Lanning worked for former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, current Georgia head coach Kirby Smart and current Florida State head coach Mike Norvell and with current Miami (Fla.) head coach Mario Cristobal.

A win on Saturday (2:30 p.m. CST, CBS) over the No. 20 Illini, would make Oregon 8-0 to open the season for the first time since 2013 and just the fifth time in program history. Oregon is a 21-point home favorite to get the program’s 36th win in its last 37 home games and would make the Ducks 45-3 at home since 2017.