Oregon Ducks the only team in country to pull off comeback feat after Wisconsin scare

As the Oregon Ducks entered the fourth quarter of their matchup with the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday night, they faced a 4th-and-9 and trailed by seven points. It looked, for at least a brief moment, like the top-ranked team in the country was on the verge of being toppled. However, just four plays later, Oregon found the end zone and tied the game at 13. Then with under 3 minutes to go in the game, Atticus Sappington connected on his third field goal of the game, this one which proved to be the game-winner.

After the game, the man who has led the Ducks to an 11-0 start, head coach Dan Lanning , explained how his team was able to overcome the adversity of trailing in the 4th quarter on the road.

"We can handle critical moments," Lanning said, per Jake Trotter of ESPN.com. "We can handle when it's tough, and at some point, that experience is going to pay off for us. It certainly paid off for us tonight."

All season long, the Ducks have proven they can handle critical moments. According to ESPN research, Oregon became the only team in the country to win three times this season after trailing by at least six points in the fourth quarter. Maybe even more impressively, they're also only the seventh team since 1936 to start a season 11-0 with three of those wins coming by three or fewer points.

This trio of come-from-behind wins have come in the difficult environment of a night game at Camp Randall Stadium, and then against a pair of one-loss teams that are currently in the College Football Playoff field , Boise State and Ohio State.

So what goes into these consistent late game heroics?

Well, first it involves having a top-tier coach who prepares for literally everything, like Dan Lanning, who this week in practice made sure to play the House of Pain smash hit "Jump Around" on repeat. For years, it's been tradition at Wisconsin football games for this springy hip-hop hit to bridge the gap between the 3rd and 4th quarters at Camp Randall.

Then you need to have a quarterback who doesn't flinch, like sixth-year senior Dillon Gabriel , who has 61 games of experience and is 2nd in NCAA history in both passing yards and touchdowns. In these three comeback wins, Gabriel has completed 73 percent of his passes and thrown for 267 yards per game.

Lastly, you need a roster that top-to-bottom is stacked with talent, and historically, even before Dan Lanning arrived in Eugene, this has been the case for the Oregon Ducks. Over the last twenty years, only six college football programs have won more games than the Ducks.

"It's hard to win. Big plays need to happen in big moments," Gabriel said after the game. "Winning games are hard, and we have a team that knows how to win. That just speaks volumes about the guys we have."

The Ducks have to win just one more game, a home matchup on November 30th with former Pac-12 rival Washington, to clinch their first 12-0 start since 2010.