Crowd noise –– it’s such a key part of the game EA had to add it into its “College Football” videogame in the form of a Stadium Pulse chart showing how hard it is to play in certain stadiums. 

Autzen Stadium is one of the loudest and toughest stadiums any team can play in. The noise the crowd generates is so loud that opposing team fans are often caught plugging their ears, wearing headphones or earplugs: anything to drown out the deafening “OOOOOO” from the Oregon faithful. 

One thing can make a stadium crowd really “pop” ––  a penalty. 

In Autzen, if there is a penalty at any point during the opponents drive — especially if that penalty is in the red zone — the Oregon crowd is deafening; however, Autzen isn’t the only stadium where the crowd can be as beneficial to the home team as the players.

A stadium and crowd that will rival Eugene this year has to be the white-out game at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium. If it’s important for any team to not commit a penalty at Autzen, it will be crucial that the Ducks play clean football in University Park. 

For the Ducks, who are a hard-nosed, well-oiled machine, penalties are never entirely avoidable. The team plays aggressively, covers the field well and every player does their job. Although they aren’t avoidable, when it comes to penalties, it can be shocking that the Ducks do not have as many as one thinks they should given how they play. 

Looking at the past three years since head coach Dan Lanning left his defensive coordinator position at University of Georgia at the end of 2021 and took over at Oregon the following season, Oregon has allowed 225 penalties for 2172 yards. Breaking it down year-by-year, it goes as follows:

2022: 88-744

2023: 93-848

2024: 74-580

Oregon football had 74 penalties for 580 yards last season, which was the eighth most in the Big Ten (UCLA had the most at 98 penalties for 827 yards). Among Big Ten teams that made the postseason last year (Oregon, Penn State and Ohio State), the Ducks gave up the least number of penalty yards at 580 and was second in penalties with two more than the Buckeyes at 74.

Lanning’s best penalty season with the Ducks was 2024. Oregon averaged about the same number of flags on offense as on defense per game — offense at 5.3 penalties and defense at 5.5 penalties. While defensive errors have fluctuated with Lanning at the helm, the average number of offensive penalties per game have only gone down over his career at Oregon.

In 2025, the Ducks, who have so far outscored their opponents 128-16, have only allowed nine penalties for 64 yards. In Weeks 1 and 2, Oregon continuously pressured the quarterback, had great coverage against the pass game and only gave up 244 total yards against Montana State University and 211 against Oklahoma State University. In those games, the Ducks combined for nine penalties — three for 29 yards against the Bobcats and six for 35 against the Cowboys.

Penalties are an area that coach Lanning wants to clean up. “We had five penalties in the first half,” Lanning said after the Oklahoma State game. “(T)he second half we had one…that’s our standard of play.” 

There were only five penalties committed by the Ducks in the first half. 

Of the six total penalties that Oregon had, five of them were pre-snap penalties. On all of those penalties it was because of the way that Oregon likes to play: quick and aggressive. With that mentality, there are bound to be pre-snap penalties, but it’s still an area that has to be cleaned up.

Not all penalties are bad penalties. Sometimes, a team can know the rule book so well that they will have their team cause a penalty intentionally for competitive advantage. That competitive advantage can work so well that the team who implemented the penalty can win the game off of stalling the momentum of the opponent. 

A notorious example of an intentional penalty is what Lanning did against Ohio State. 

Late in the game against then- No. 2 Ohio State on Oct. 12, 2024, trailing and on defense, Lanning intentionally sent out an extra man to the field. This led to time running off the clock, Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard rushing to make a play, making a mental mistake and therefore handing Oregon the win. It was only a couple days later that the NCAA changed how the 12-man penalty would be handled and take away the loophole Lanning and Oregon exploited.

Oregon is a team full of strong young players and key transfers and the impact of having the aggressiveness of this Ducks team is penalties. Cutting down on the penalties is a must if they want to be better than they were last year. As the year goes on, it will be interesting to see how the young players work with the veterans and coaching staff to learn to limit those penalties.