As the game crumbled from the Ducks’ grasp in the fourth quarter against Oregon State, shock and disappointment rang through the locker room. And no one felt worse about it than starting quarterback Tyler Shough.

“One of the worst feelings on Earth is losing,” he said.

Shough has had to take on an entirely new set of responsibilities as the starting quarterback this year, and despite some ups and downs, he’s grown and learned from his mistakes. While the recent losses to Oregon State and Cal might be a tough pill to swallow, they have forced him to utilize the values that have been taught to him since childhood to handle adversity.

“Our guys were resilient throughout the whole process…I just gotta keep progressing through it even if it looks a little cloudy,” he said.

Even at the college level, Tyler is still using the lessons he learned from his parents and coaches growing up to move on from a tough loss. The basic foundation that he lives by is the 24-hour rule, and it’s more important now than ever that he continues to follow this sentiment.

“Flush it down the toilet, man,” he said. “Twenty four-hour rule, learn from it and get better.”

Perhaps the biggest influence on Tyler’s mentality today has been his father Glenn, who has been instilling these values from a young age.

“He’s learned over the years through coaches and me, we have a thing called the 24-hour rule …,” Glenn Shough said. “Football’s a unique game where you only play once a week, so you have more time to reflect…You got 24 hours to reflect on your performance, and then you gotta move on and start working on your next opponent. So that’s what we’ve done with him since he was in youth football.”

Even after a second consecutive loss against Cal to bring the Ducks’ record to 3-2, Shough and the team as a whole aren’t going to handle this any differently going into the final game of the regular season against Washington.

“Not thinking just because we had a good week of practice and felt good about the game plan that we can just go in and it’s going to be done by itself,” he said of his mindset. “It’s gotta come down to execution…just do the best we can to find it within ourselves and find it within our heart.”

While this challenging season has certainly exposed weaknesses for the team,  Shough’s individual numbers have stacked up well against the rest of the conference. He currently leads the Pac-12 in passing yards and has the fourth-highest completion percentage.

Saturday’s game against Cal was a step back, however, as he posted a 53.8 completion percentage, his lowest of any game this season.

After another loss, though, Tyler is simply going to return back to the lessons he’s learned from his youth.

“We just focus on effort and attitude and toughness as parents, those are the critical core values…,” Glenn Shough said. “Your performance is based on how well you work and how well you do those things.”

As much as Shough has learned on the field, he has been equally shaped by events and struggles off the field. In 2006, his mother Dana was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. This taught him about resilience from a very early age.

“I’ll never forget that day that I took Tyler to kindergarten,” Dana said in an interview with the East Valley Tribune in 2016. “I had just had a head-shaving party the day before, and I forgot my hat in the car. So I turned around to get it, and he looked at me and said: ‘Mommy, you don’t have to put that hat on. You look beautiful without it.’”

“That was a defining moment…I said: ‘You know what? What I do right now in front of this little boy, and show how comfortable I am is going to define his character.’”

This experience embedded a toughness in Shough’s attitude that he’s carried with him, and has fueled him through an upbringing that has required sacrifices and commitment.

“When you’re a talented player and you know you’re pretty talented…you gotta make sacrifices, not doing all those sleepovers and those kinds of things, and making good decisions, not partying,” Glenn Shough said. “So there’s that aspect that you have to sacrifice.”

While the recent losses may sting, this is just one of the obstacles Shough has had to battle in his life. With the principles that have been implanted in him since day one, he has the talent and the mindset to get through this and help return Oregon to its winning ways.