Oregon Coach Dan Lanning’s National Signing Day Comments Speak Volumes

EUGENE — Even though the Oregon Ducks’ 2025 season came to a conclusion at the beginning of January, the program continues to make headlines with recent moves. Oregon coach Dan Lanning spoke on National Signing Day on Duck Insider about the Ducks’ recent moves.

Oregon recently promoted Drew Mehringer to offensive coordinator and Chris Hampton to defensive coordinator. The Ducks also added some notable players from the transfer portal and received a commitment from some remaining recruits.

What Oregon Coach Dan Lanning Said On National Signing Day

oregon ducks dan lanning recruiting transfer portal chris hampton drew mehringer nfl nil jordon davison brandon finney nasir — Oregon head coach Dan Lanning walks the field during warmups as the Oregon Ducks face the Penn State Nittany Lions on Sept. 27, 2025, at Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania. | Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

On New Coordinators:

"Everybody wants an opportunity to advance, and we don't hand them out. It's the work that you see every day. I've seen coach Mehringer game plan for four years here. I've seen coach Hampton and the impact he's made on our team in the last three years.”

"From the outside looking in, I don't think people get to see what I see every day, and the impact that these coaches have made on our program, the relationships they have with our players, the insight and contribution that they make to our game plan already. It's always a team effort, and certainly somebody gets to wear that hat, but those guys have earned it by the way that they've worked."

“You never want to put anybody in a position where they're not ready for the opportunity, but I'd say both these guys have prepared their entire careers, and certainly prepared here in their time here at Oregon to be ready for this opportunity when it came their way. It made it really easy to say this guy is a perfect fit."

What He’s Excited About for Next Season:

“I mean, I see size, I see speed, I see just about everything and character. I think that was probably talked about several times today. Maybe not the most important, but huge. Well, it's very important for us. And I think you just heard coach Hampton say it, like for us as a family here, like the people that we work with every single day.”

“And it's right now, when you're picking kids to come join your program, you're picking guys to come join your family. And it's at Thanksgiving, you don't get to pick who you're sitting across from. Sometimes, right here at Oregon, we get to pick, and we've done a really good job of picking guys that fit our culture, what we're trying to build, and they get to be in addition to, right? And that's a big plus for us.”

On National Signing Day:

“It's an exciting day. We've created some awesome expectations here, and we strive to get better every single year. It's exciting from a standpoint of, I'm really excited to see what this team looks like this next year, and it's a new group. and you start almost from scratch in a lot of ways, but then you see a lot of pieces returning that are going to make this thing really strong going into the next season.”

His Excitement for Players Who Are Returning:

“I think it's we're walking into a completely different situation than last year, where you saw 10 guys go on to the NFL, and it's like, okay, we're gonna have some new faces out there. We're gonna have to find some new leadership. Now, it's like, okay, we got some leaders coming back.”

“What do we got to fight? We can't be complacent, right? We're not going to get there just because we have no on our chest. We got to do some work. So I'm excited for those guys to come back. I'm more excited to see how much they grow. What are they willing to commit to? What habit can they develop that, you know, matches the goals that they have? And so that's going to be the new exciting challenge for us as a coaching staff.”

On Development:

“I always ask players, as you sit down, okay, what's development look like? How do you measure, because almost everybody says that matters to them in recruiting, so okay, what's an indicator of that? And if you look at our program, you see a group that's gone from six guys, drafted to eight guys, drafted to 10 guys, drafted to where that number continues to grow.”

“And to me, that's a great indicator of development. You see a team that didn't have very many all-conference players to grow into a team that had several and all those things, and some of them were really highly recruited guys.”

“Some of them are on signing, they know what he was celebrating them when we when we brought them aboard, but they grew into something really special here. So that's credit to our players for the work that they put in, and credit to our coaches and helping develop those guys.”

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On Having True Freshmen Play Significant Roles:

“There’s always gonna be that opportunity. And I think every guy that walks in this room, they say, okay, I just want to know, am I gonna have the opportunity to go make an impact? And it's up to you, and then us as coaches, it's we have to take ownership of that as well. As far as getting guys ready to play, I think that's something we've shown that we can do here, and guys can start to embrace the role that they have. And then as you come in, your role grows, right? And you saw that with guys on our team last year, that the role might have started off smaller at the beginning of the season, they grew throughout the season.”

How Big a Deal Is It to Have the Top Recruits From Different States:

“We want to go get the best and the brightest, and we're willing to go anywhere and everywhere to do it. And it takes some elbow grease. It takes a lot of hard work. It takes great organization by our recruiting staff to make those things happen. And we have that, but we don't. We're not trying to pick the easy way. We're trying to pick the best.”

How They've Spent Time Off:

“We haven't had any time off. Straight into recruiting. (The team) got some time off. I was in 14 states last week.”

“We're hopping right back into it. We're starting training so that they're all back now here on campus during class. You know, our classes actually started up while we were still in the playoff, right? Another great example of why the calendar shouldmove. But we started a new semester while we were going into, you know, those last games.”

“And those guys did get a little bit of a window of time. We call it discretionary, where they can work out on their own. They can do kind of their own, and now we're back to team activities, where these guys are lifting in the morning. It's really kind of a bulk phase in your lift. We're going to get a lot stronger. Put on some weight, good weight. Make sure we maintain our flexibility and prepare ourselves for what's coming.”

His Recruiting Staff:

“That's the secret sauce, right? And everywhere you go, they're going to say, Oh, the people are the separator. Obviously, here at Oregon, we have great facilities. We challenge ourselves to innovate. We've got awesome jerseys. We've got everything that you see outside looking in, that you can see from Oregon, but when you get inside, right, that's when you start to figure out the secret ingredient.”

“And there's, there's a million people in this staff that make our place different, because the relationship, if you come to Oregon, yeah, you're gonna have a relationship with the head coach. You're gonna have a relationship with your position coach. But it's also that person in player development that's helping chip in. It's that person in recruiting. It's that person that's serving you lunch every day. And those things become separators for us.”

What Role Players Have in Recruiting:

“They're a huge part of it. And I always say, if you want the truth, talk to the players, right? Because you know, what's coach Lanning going to say about this program? What's coach Hampton, coach Mehringer, what are we going to say about this program? We're going to say all the best things. The best things.”

“You got to do a deep dive. You got to get in there and get around guys, and say, ‘Okay, tell me what I'm really going to experience there.’ And again, you talk about healthy things within our program, there's just a lot of indicators that say this is turning the right way for us.”

“There's a lot of programs across the nation. We're going into year five. I've never had to let go of a coach. What does that say? All right, we got coaches that are outstanding, right? We're good at picking them, we're good at developing them, and guys have left for opportunities become head coaches.”

“I think that's an indicator of a healthy program. You look at players that have chosen to come here and the success that they've had, that's a great indicator. But I think always talking to players when they can find out, hey, it's not going to be easy if you come here, but you're going to have somebody that really cares about you. I think that's a great indicator.”

How Social Media Has Changed Recruiting:

“How is it not? You know, at the end of the day, I think it's a lot like football in the things that win football games still win football games. Who can tackle the best, who can block the best, who can catch, who can execute a play at a high level. In recruiting, it's a lot of the same things, but there's certainly a lot of other pieces that are tied into that.”

“So we want to be the team that wins every factor. We want to be Chick-fil-A of our service and what we provide to student athletes as they come in here, and you want to walk away with those guys, walk away with a smile on their face, and that feeling is pounding out of their chest. ‘I got to go play at Oregon.’”

“And then there's all those other details you got to figure out, too, that we have to be competitive in, and we've proven we can be again. Won't always be the best, won't always be the highest, but the experience, what you say you sign up for Oregon, that's what you’re gonna get.”

Spring Football Coming Up:

“Spring ball will start for us in March, the second week of March/ We'll get a couple of days in, and then have a spring break period, and then come back. And that's when, if you stand outside our practice facility, hopefully you can hear some pads popping.”

The New Practice Facility:

“It's fun, man. It's, it's a lot of fun. How fast it's happening, how quickly it's developing and growing. It just creates a lot of excitement. You know, when you can see growth taking place right outside your office, right? That's a motivating factor. And we got a lot of motivating factors here.”

Staff Members Getting Head Coaching Opportunities:

“Well, I just think it's the challenge for everybody to get better, right, as good as we are,. The great thing here is we've set an expectation. There's really one goal that we have to accomplish that hasn't been done yet here at the university before, but that's the expectation.”

“That's the standard. You get that by what the success you have. And we've had a lot of success here. So if everybody challenges themselves to grow, then great opportunities are going to come. And there's a lot of other pieces there that I think college football could change to make that a lot easier.”

“Certainly hard to go compete in the playoff when you have two coaches leaving for head coaching jobs and other coaches on your staff, they're going to places. If we can move the calendara round – I'll always stand up here and be an advocate for it, because it just makes too much sense."

"So of course, we don't do it. So you know that being said, like it's this place about growth, and my number one goal is to help people chase their dreams and goals, and we're gonna have more head coaches that go on to become head coaches. We're gonna have more players to go on to play in the NFL. And that's that's an indicator of a healthy program.”

Final Thoughts on the Team:

“Well, I think I've kind of hit on a lot of it. You got a group of guys coming back that are hungry. We all got a little sour taste in our mouth, which is awesome when the only, the only success is measured by, okay, what can we do, and how's this look at the very end of the season?”

“So you got to motivate a team. You got a bunch of guys that want to get better. I think, like I said, where there is an absence of leadership with this group, we got a bunch of guys coming back. There are leaders that can step up and can continue to develop that. And then there's some new life in the program, some new faces.”

“There's some names that people got to learn around the building, and so I'm just excited to see that growth. And you know, every day is a journey. We want to step in here and get one percent better every day. And if we do that, we'll be really satisfied with the result. That's family. That's family. I think they're good.”