There's no excuse to fumble the ball twice inside the other team's 20 coming away with no points. THAT is why Oregon lost. Our own errors. (that isn't to imply that "we beat ourselves" USC won that game)The kicker was just the last element in the chain of events.
There's no guarantee that Oregon would have won even if we'd have gotten to overtime.
All the more baffling that CK slowed us down and took so much time off the clock to play for a tie instead of continuing to shove Barner up their throats. He was getting 9 yards a pop on that tired defense.
That is what happens when coaches decide to play against the grain. Same thing that happened to Bama in a nutshell. Get away from who you are, no matter how much it sees to make sense, and you run the risk of giving the game away.