What Dan Lanning Said After No. 6 Oregon Defeated USC Trojans
The No. 6 Oregon Ducks defeated the USC Trojans 36-27 Saturday Night in Eugene, moving to 9-1 on the year and 6-1 in Pac-12 play.
Below is a full transcript of what head coach Dan Lanning said in his postgame press conference.
Opening Statement:
“How about that crowd? Absolutely electric group. Made that really special. It was fun to sit out there and watch two elite quarterbacks battle it out. Obviously, we’ve got a really special one on our sideline. I think that’s a Heisman-worthy performance from Bo (Nix) and fun to do it in front of the fifth-largest crowd ever here in Autzen Stadium. We knew that it was a talented team. We knew that they were dangerous and they had the ability to come back, so I don’t know if anybody ever felt relaxed. I’m disappointed a little with our finish because I think that we are a much better team than what we showed down the stretch, but we got some good experience for some guys as we got dinged up a little bit. The penalties are something I know you guys are going to ask questions about and we've got to address it for us to be the team we want to be. We have to become more disciplined. I’m not sure that I agreed with every single one of them, but that being said, it's something we can certainly fix. Some of those are ones that we can attack. I thought we were physical tonight. I thought that showed up consistently and we knew we had to eliminate some explosive plays, but we gave them life with a couple of those explosive plays that they hit late.”
On how the defensive line played:
“I thought there were some really great moments. I think we’ll go back and look at some of the explosive plays and say how we gave them a little bit more opportunity than he needed, but we have a defensive line that can create havoc. We’ve got some guys that are talented players. That was a good front, they have a good offensive line. I thought our guys were able create some havoc and mess up some of the timing there on the back end because they have some really talented wideouts. Good job, we got to eliminate the explosive plays.”
On being aggressive to start the game:
“We saw what we were capable of. It's still about players making plays. A guy made a great catch, broke a tackle, and turned it into a huge play. I think that’s what football really is about. We have to be a great tackling team. We have to be a great team at breaking tackles. We can go back and see some fundamentals that we could have done a lot better tonight and that’s what practice is for. They did some things that we thought we could take advantage of. I thought our coaches did a good job of attacking that, but there's some finishing pieces that we can certainly clean up.”
On the penalties:
“I couldn’t go through every single one of them right now. Part of it is you need to watch the film before you can have a great assessment of exactly what happened. At the end of the day, the amount of penalties we had is too much and we’ve talked about it a couple of times up here before. We do different things at practice to try to attack it, but we have to make a decision of how good do we really want to be. It hurts us and it didn’t kill us tonight, but there were some critical ones in there that certainly didn’t help.”
On Jordan Burch’s development:
“Week in and week out I think Jordan’s gotten better. I think the sky is the absolute limit for this guy. He's a really talented player. He comes in and he takes great notes and he works hard to be a good player for his teammates and the people around him and he takes advantage of the plays that he gets an opportunity to make. I know that being said, that Jordan's going to see some plays he wishes he could have made but he's been really good for us.”
On getting a fast start:
“It's hard when you play a team like USC where you know they can score quick. So I don't know if you ever feel comfortable. There is a difference in the game when you're having some success on offense, and we certainly had some success on offense. I don’t think we punted in the first half. When you're able to move the ball, especially in the run game, I think that really opens up some opportunities for us. I thought defensively we did a good job stopping the run at times for a team that we thought was a really good back. Overall, us being ahead of the chains, it certainly helped. I think we've got to work on having that killer instinct to finish down the stretch.”
On Bucky Irving and Jackson Powers-Johnson returning after injuries:
“Tough guys. This is the time of year where a lot of people are dinged up. We gotta go attack the training room and get healthy and put ourselves in the position where we can finish this thing the way we want to.”
On Franklin’s big night and what he sees from him on a weekly basis:
“Consistency. He’s able to make those same plays in practice and it shows up in the game. He’s been I think it's a trusted target too for Bo. When you talk about having a great quarterback, that means he has great wide outs. Troy’s proven to be a guy that he can take the ball to and he’s going to make plays on the ball.”
On the difference in the game for Oregon:
“Our team, our DNA is something we thought was gonna show up in the game. I think they did. There was never any panic, there was never any relax in our guys. When they are able to execute at the level that we're able to perform at, I think we have a really, really special team. I think all those things showed up. It’s not about want to, it’s really about who’s willing to do more. I thought our guys were willing to do that little bit extra against a team that is really talented.”
On what stuck out about Bo’s performance:
“I’ll have to go back and watch the film. Just his consistency. To not punt the ball in the first half, I think speaks to his efficiency. Not all of that was necessarily throwing the ball, it's him getting us into the right run check. Him checking us into proper plays, just being efficient with the ball. I’ll have to go back and watch it to see if there were any plays that stuck out in particular.”
On the importance of the late-game drives:
“I think we could do a better job of that at times. There were some drives where we kind of stalled out and didn’t use as much of the clock as we should’ve in situations. That's something that we’ll critique ourselves with on managing that a little bit better. We knew once we got to two minutes and ten seconds that that put us in position to be able to kneel it out and that's kinda what we were working to do. Wish we could have done a little bit better job of that the series before.”
On making USC play one dimensionally:
“I thought we did a decent job of taking away the run. That being said they had some big runs in the red area where we can be better. We have to have some answers to be able to hit some explosive plays. They are a good offense. I think they score around 40 points or more a game against each opponent. I don’t think it had to finish at 27 for us, I think that could have looked different if we were able to handle it a little better down the stretch.”
On Rodrick Pleasant’s development:
“The guy takes a lot of pride in what he does. It means a lot to him and I love coaching guys that it means a lot to. He had select snaps. Didn’t have a ton of snaps, but we’ll go back and watch the snaps that he did have. I thought he got out there and got involved. I know he cares. I know it’s important and it was good to see him go out there and execute.”
On special teams’ success today:
“Yeah, it’s something we work [on] every single week and it doesn’t matter until it matters. Every Thursday we do daily skills with our special teams each day in practice, and that was a situation where it showed up. Zachariah (Branch) was a guy that we definitely thought could change the game if he had the opportunity. Talk about a penalty that really hurt us was that penalty after a touchdown and then having a long kickoff, that’s one that’s going to go unheralded throughout the game. But Cam (Lewis) had a huge kick there, and then our coverage unit was able to pin them inside the 15, when we’re really kicking off 15 yards further back. So really good job there. Didn’t let them get an opportunity in the punt return game which was big as well, with some good hang time kicks and good coverage. That was definitely the goal and that showed up tonight.”
On Caleb Williams:
“He’s special man, he's special. He’s a really talented guy. Obviously never out of the fight when you have a guy like that battling for you. Know he’s got a bright future ahead of him.”
On Khyree Jackson and Jahlil Florence injuries:
“I'll have to get with our medical staff, I haven't been able to get with them quite yet.”
On what motivates this team week after week:
“Each other. These guys are motivated by each other. They have a purpose and that purpose is in that locker room. It's not about people outside of that locker room, they're motivated by each other.”
On the opening drive of the second half:
“It's something we talked about at halftime. We felt like we needed to go out there and get a score and then turn around and get a stop. That certainly created a momentum shift for us and an opportunity to really separate, making a larger score margin, so that was important.”
On the message to the team after this win:
“We’re always going to celebrate wins here. Especially wins against teams that we know have great talent like USC does. They’re well-coached, they do some things really well. That being said, we’re always going to be looking for opportunities to grow. If you’re not growing, something’s wrong with you. I’m excited that our guys went out and performed, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to change the standard for where I expect us to perform, and what I expect us to do moving forward. The guys in the locker room know that. We got a mature group. They don’t let their highs get too high and they don’t let their lows get too low. I think it’s pretty clear we have a really good team, but we can be even better. I'm excited to see where we’re headed next.”
On Bo’s biggest area of growth:
“Leadership, self-awareness. A lot of people think they’re self-aware, but they're not really self-aware. There's probably not a more self-aware person in the world than Bo Nix. He knows his strengths, he knows his weaknesses, he can identify his thoughts, he's out there able to lead and communicate with other players on our team – which is really impressive. Obviously, he's playing at a really high level.”
On corners stepping up in the second half:
“I thought we were good at times and bad at times. I think we probably gotta pitch to them a little bit more and give some relief calls, but it's hard when you play a quarterback that can put the ball in tight windows. If you decide you want to play zone, they have a lot of great answers for zone. If you play man match, well you got a one-on-one and you gotta break up a tackle, and we had guys there in position to finish and we just didn’t always finish. I thought we had some tight coverage at times that we got flagged on that I didn’t necessarily see as a flag. Overall, it’s probably better for me to go back and watch the film to see how we executed. I know this, we got a lot of guys with want to. We gotta figure out what technique we need to improve on.”
On going for it on fourth-and-one at the beginning of the second quarter and milking the clock:
“Being efficient was probably more of the strategy there. I always feel like we can get one yard and I know that isn't always necessarily the case. But with our bigs up front, we felt good about the play that we had in that situation and obviously keeping a really talented offense off the field. That’s the only way that they can get back in the game is to keep them off the field. So having some long drives, it wasn’t necessarily by design. We wanted to look for opportunities to score quick, but that being said, we can play two different games. We can be an explosive offense that goes and scores quick, but we can also pound it down your throat and be able to take advantage of you from that front.”
