SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time in weeks, wide receiver Darren Carrington reverted back to something that used to come so naturally for him:

Simply having fun with the game of football.

Amid a lackluster season and during a week in which he was under investigation by police, Carrington made arguably the biggest catch of his life in one of the Ducks’ few truly meaningful moments of the season.

With eight seconds left in regulation, quarterback Justin Herbert tossed a lofting pass to the back of the endzone. Carrington made a jaw-dropping catch, keeping his foot inbounds by just centimeters to pull down a touchdown. It gave Oregon (4-7) a 30-28 lead that would hold as the final score in a win over No. 11 Utah.

The team waited for what seemed like ages for an official review to confirm the catch. When it was ruled as a completion, the Oregon bench erupted and celebrated the highest point of an otherwise lost season.

“If I’m gonna be honest, I lost the fun of the game for a little bit,” Carrington said. “For us to come out here and play against the [No. 11] team in the nation and play how we did, I think that speaks for something.”

HERE IT IS (with no ticker): The @OpusBank #12Best Moment is Darren Carrington's toe-tap game-winning TD! #UOvsUTAH pic.twitter.com/EjC61LUcoI

— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) November 19, 2016

With two minutes, 18 seconds remaining in the game, Utah quarterback Troy Williams threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Evan Moeai that gave Utah a 27-24 lead and allowed the Utes to take back control of what had already been a wild fourth quarter.

Herbert and Oregon began a two-minute drill from their own 25, and marched down the field for a 10-play drive that nearly stalled numerous times. Herbert found tight ends Evan Baylis and Johnny Mundt for catches of 14 and 30 yards.

The Ducks found themselves in a 3rd-and-10 situation. On the ensuing play, Herbert was flushed from the pocket and instinctually weaved his way through a pair of Utah defenders before diving for a first down.

Herbert took a shot at the end zone on the next play, but Jalen Brown wasn’t able to corral a pass that was too high. Two plays later, Oregon ran an identical play to the opposite side of the field, and Herbert found Carrington in single coverage.

“[Utah’s] philosophy was that they were gonna make us throw it fast and bring everybody,” Oregon offensive coordinator Matt Lubick said. “But that gave us man-to-man coverage and so it worked out perfect.”

After Carrington’s catch, two seconds remained on the clock, and Utah staged a sloppy kickoff return that featured a half dozen lateral passes before it was blown dead near the 25-yard line.

Rice-Eccles Stadium fell dead silent as Utah’s home fans watched its team, which was on the cusp of drilling it’s way into the College Football Playoff conversation, fall at the hands of a Ducks squad that looked dead in the water seven days ago.

Oregon, meanwhile, celebrated like it was 2012. It scraped out its lone win over a ranked opponent this year and did so in a chaotic environment that featured that 10th-largest crowd in stadium history.

For one day — or maybe more like one half — head coach Mark Helfrich’s Ducks looked like the same Oregon team that spent almost a decade winning these types of games on a weekly basis.

Royce Freeman broke loose for 130 yards on 20 carries, and Tony Brooks-James chipped in another 82 yards. Justin Herbert threw for 324 yards and three touchdowns as he eluded a pass defense that is among the best in the nation. Oregon’s defense forced five stops in a row at one point and held the Utes to 5-of-12 on third down conversions.

With a laundry list of off-field incidents that is growing longer by the day, Oregon’s players and fans had amnesia for one brief moment as they embraced a point of euphoria amidst a morbid season.

“I can’t say enough about how those boys have stuck together throughout the season,” Helfrich said. “Here again today it could have been, “Oh, here we go again” in a heartbeat. So I am very, very proud of that.”

The gravity of Carrington’s remarkable moment on Saturday doesn’t outweigh the reality that Oregon is still stuck in one of the darkest points in program history. Carrington is one of five players who has been, or is still, under investigation for a criminal offense this year.

“Man, it’s just so eye-opening,” Mundt said. “Because you’re sitting in meetings with a guy, and then three days later he’s gone forever — out of that building, out of the facility. He’s not gonna be back. It’s extremely tough but then you’ve got to just look back and say, ‘We’re here to play football.’ We’re not here to be drinking and driving or doing any of that. It’s pretty ridiculous.”

Oregon will still have plenty of questions to answer when it wakes up tomorrow — one win won’t fix its problems on or off the field. But as Carrington smiled through the chaos that surrounds his life on Saturday, Oregon’s players and coaches smiled through the chaos that surrounds the program.

Even if it was only for one day.

Follow Jarrid Denney on Twitter @Jarrid_Denney

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