Oregon Ducks' Matayo Uiagalelei gave Ohio State Buckeyes football fans elite social media troll fodder at Big Ten media days.
Uiagalelei admitted that much of Dan Lanning's roster has obsessed over their 41-21 loss to the Buckeyes during the 2024/2025 College Football Playoff's No. 1-8 matchup.
It sounds like they're having a tough time getting over their undefeated record getting snapped so brutally during postseason play.
“It definitely motivated us,” Uiagalelei said. “Obviously, it’s not healthy to just dwell on it and just go back to it every moment. But I’d be lying to say our team isn’t fueled by that, us as players, maybe the coaches. But at the same time, you don’t want to just dwell on that, you want to be in the present and move forward from it. Just see what you did wrong and then change it.”
Uiagalalei's hard feelings trickled down straight from the top. Dan Lanning shared the same sentiment.
“For me as a coach – I think every coach probably feels this way – but we always remember the losses over the wins,” Lanning said. “I think you can learn from that. It doesn’t take away from what we were able to accomplish, but we lost to a great team. Coach Day did an unbelievable job last year of having his team in a position to have success there, and there’s some things that I feel like I could have done better there at the end. I don’t think we played our best football.”
Oregon linebacker Bryce Boettcher admitted that the Ducks were stunned by the Buckeyes' thorough domination back on New Year's Day.
“I was pretty shocked, man, walking off the field at the end,” Boettcher said. “You wouldn't expect it to go that way, given that we'd already beat them. But they just came out with their hair on fire and played a better football game than we did. And that's the way the game goes sometimes.”
Ohio State broke hearts all the way up until their CFP title game triumph over Notre Dame.
None broke as hard as Oregon's. That was their best-ever chance to win their first-ever national championship.
Instead, OSU won its ninth. Tough scene in Eugene.