EUGENE, Ore. -- One by one the Oregon players took their seats in the postgame interview room and tried to explain the unexplainable.

How, they were asked in a dozen different ways, had they lost to Stanford in overtime, 17-14?

At home.

On Senior Night.

To a team they were favored to beat by three touchdowns.

"Things," said Ducks safety Brian Jackson, "don't always go the way that you plan."

Jordan Williamson's 37-yard field goal in overtime lifted Stanford. Steve Dykes/Getty Images

The original plan called for Oregon to score its usual FBS-leading 55 points per game, improve its record to 11-0 and move from No. 2 to No. 1 in the BCS standings. Then the Ducks would beat Oregon State in the Civil War, win the Pac-12 title game and start shopping for suntan lotion.

Miami, here they come.

Meanwhile, Stanford had its own plan: Ruin Oregon's plan.

The Cardinal pitched a first-quarter shutout of Oregon's state-of-the-art offense. You know how many times that's happened this season to the Ducks? Exactly never.

Oregon scored seven points in the first half. It had a touchdown lead in the third quarter, but lost it in the fourth quarter. It got the ball first in overtime, lost 2 yards, gained 3, had a brain cramp on a third-down incompletion and then clanged a 41-yard field attempt off the left upright.

Four plays later, Stanford's Jordan Williamson kicked a 37-yarder for the win and sprinted half the length of the field in celebration. Or did he float?

Anyway, Oregon was outscored, out-first downed, outrushed, out-passed, outgained, out-time of possessioned, outdone on third-down conversions, outdone on fourth-down conversions and generally out-muscled. As an added bonus, Oregon is also, for the moment, on the outside looking in when it comes to the BCS championship.

So foreign was this whole losing-thing experience that Jackson did a double take when Williamson's game winner somersaulted through the uprights.