EUGENE — The highest stakes games of college football bring extreme consequences.

Oregon knows this well; it beat Ohio State in thrilling fashion last season to vault to No. 1 in the country, a Big Ten Championship win and then encountered an offseason’s worth of doubt after being shellacked in the Rose Bowl.

A thrilling double-overtime win over preseason darling Penn State, in front of more than 111,000 people amid a White Out, legitimized a younger, less experienced and unproven Ducks team as a contender once again.

But that was two weeks ago.

That was before the value of that Penn State win cratered after it lost back-to-back games to a UCLA team that fired its coach and a bad Northwestern team. It was also before a 30-20 home loss to No. 7 Indiana Saturday afternoon at Autzen Stadi

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