College football: Weekend losses leave Big Ten down

The Big Ten took quite the gut punch in Week 2 with Ohio State blowing a 20-point fourth-quarter lead at Texas and Oregon getting embarrassed at Oklahoma State. The conference that has won the last three national championships lost six of eight matchups against Power Four opponents last week and the two it won weren't much to look at. The SEC, meanwhile, won five of seven non-conference games against the Power Four, including two of three against the Big Ten. The SEC was rewarded with six of the top 10 spots in The Associated Press Top 25 college football poll on Sunday. The unprecedented comeback by Texas to beat Ohio State 24-23 and its ascent to No. 1 would be the talk of college football any other week. What happened seven hours north of Austin in Stillwater, Oklahoma, is every bit as big a topic. No Oregon team had entered a season with so much hype. The Ducks' No. 2 preseason ranking was the program's highest ever and it seemed merited given the prodigious amount of talent Dan Lanning had assembed, and paid a premium for, in his fifth season. The prognosticators who picked Oregon to win its first national championship might have downplayed the impact of Lanning having to replace both coordinators who left for head coaching jobs. He stayed in-house, promoting tight ends coach Drew Mehringer to take over for OC Will Stein and co-defensive coordinator Chris Hampton to replace DC Tosh Lupoi. Asked about those hires after the game, Lanning said Mehringer and Hampton don't exist on islands. "No, it's a combination of a staff, right? The decisions I make," Lanning said. "The decisions we make as an offensive staff, the decisions we make as a defensive staff and then execution. All those things play into it, and every bit of that I own, I'm responsible for." When the Ducks failed to put away Boise State until late in the opener, it was written off as kinks they needed to work out like any other team after a first game and that they were playing a motivated and elite Group of Six team. No one imagined the Oklahoma State debacle, though. The Cowboys had lost 21 straight against Football Bowl Subdivision opponents and were a week removed from a sound beating by Tulsa in coach Eric Morris's first game. Oregon had also put a 69-3 beatdown on the Cowboys last year. Instead, Dante Moore completed fewer than 50% of his passes for the first time in his 17 starts for Oregon and an offensive line that replaced three starters allowed him to get sacked four times and committed three penalties. The Ducks allowed 554 yards, most in a game in four years. They never sacked Drew Mestemaker and hurried him just three times. Losing as a 24.5-point favorite caused the Ducks to drop from No. 6 to No. 21 for its lowest AP ranking in four years. The Ducks play Friday against Portland State of the second-tier Football Championship Subdivision and open Big Ten play the following week at 12th-ranked Southern California. One loss certainly doesn't douse Oregon's playoff hopes, not with an entire Big Ten schedule left to play, but this does not appear to be the imposing team everyone expected, at least not yet. Minnesota (Mississippi State), Illinois (Duke), Purdue (Wake Forest) and Rutgers (Boston College) joined Ohio State and Oregon as Big Ten losers against the Power Four in Week 2. Michigan rebounded from its "extra second" win over Western Michigan to beat then-No. 11 Oklahoma at home and return to the Top 25 at No. 19. The Wolverines are 2-0, good enough on defense to stay in any game, but the offense is averaging a paltry 15 points per game and must do more than rely on Bryce Underwood's running if they are going to be a factor in the Big Ten. Iowa trailed in the fourth quarter against an Iowa State team picked 16th in the Big 12 and didn't finish off the Cyclones until kicking a field goal with 15 seconds left. The Hawkeyes were rewarded with a three-rung promotion to No. 18. MORE ABOUT COMEBACK The Texas comeback from 20 points down against Ohio State tied for the Longhorns' second-largest fourth-quarter comeback of all time. They trailed Oklahoma State 35-14 in the fourth quarter in 2007 and stormed back with 24 points to win 38-35. Ohio State was unable to provide records for its largest blown fourth-quarter leads. A publicist noted that the Buckeyes led at Nebraska by 21 points in the third quarter in 2011 before losing 34-27. EXTRA POINTS Georgia is quietly lurking at No. 2 with a 133-23 scoring differential through two games. The Bulldogs opened with a 63-3 win over Tennessee State of the FCS and beat Western Kentucky 70-20. They visit Arkansas for an SEC opener Saturday. ... No. 4 Indiana allowed Howard of the FCS just four first downs, fewest in a game since at least 1958. ... No. 7 LSU's win over Louisiana Tech stretched the Tigers' win streak against teams from the Bayou State to 40. LSU hasn't lost to an in-state team since it was beaten 31-28 by Tulane in 1982. ... No. 9 Texas A&M returned two interceptions for touchdowns against Arizona State, the first time the Aggies' have had two pick-6s in a game since 1999.