What Dan Lanning Said After Oregon Beat UCLA

Oregon Head Coach Dan Lanning met with reporters in Eugene following a 45-30 win over the No. 9 UCLA Bruins.

Below is a transcript of his press conference.

Opening Statement

“Wow. I had a pretty good feeling this was going to be an awesome day the minute I stepped out on the quad right around 6 a.m. this morning and that place was packed. Our fans brought it from 4 a.m. or even 1 a.m. last night all the way to the very end of that game and they were absolutely a difference for us. It was a complete team win. We changed the game in special teams and were able to have some big momentum plays both offensively and defensively. When they’re scoring field goals and we’re trading them for touchdowns, that’s going to be a recipe for success. There’s certainly a lot of things we can get better at. I don’t think anybody on our team is satisfied and that’s what gives this team a chance to be hungry and great. Really excited about moving forward to the next game, but we’re going to enjoy this one though.”

On what he learned about his team this week

“The buy-in. You always want that as a coach. At halftime we sat there and talked about how the most physical team is going to win this game. You look at the brand of football we played going into the half and coming out in the third quarter, we said we’re going to run the ball and be physical. We have a team that has buy-in, believes in what they’re doing and that’s when you have a chance to be really successful.”

On the onside kick

“I think some of you guys might have been at practice earlier this week and I told you ‘Don’t tell anybody or I’ll never let you come to practice again,’ right, you guys saw us practicing that and appreciate that you guys kept your lips sealed. We knew that was something that we wanted to do and we wanted to practice that in pressure situations throughout the week. We had a couple of pressure kicks that we did early on. It was there, we saw it after the first kickoff and we felt like that’s the look we want. The second kick-off we thought it was there as well. The third one was actually the worst look we had and we still felt really confident. It looked like there was some weather coming in and if there was a chance to steal a possession, it would be before the weather hit. It turned out some weather came, but we knew once we received the kick that we wanted to look to get an extra possession if we can, because we weren’t going to get the ball after halftime.”

On the growth of Bo Nix

“I don’t think anybody can sit here and watch football right now and watch our quarterback play and tell me he’s not an elite quarterback. This guy’s playing at an extremely high level and he makes great decisions for our team. He’s an elite competitor, an elite leader, he has phenomenal character, he’s throwing the ball really well and he's making great decisions. He’s humble and I think everybody on our team is excited about his success.”

On a big offensive night against a good statistical defense

“For us, the standard is the standard. You could ask those guys in the locker room before the game started who we were playing, and they’d say Oregon. Every week we are competing against ourselves. I think that’s a really good football team that we just went against, but the standard doesn’t change based on the team you play. Our offense has been operating at a really high level and I think that’s credit to our offensive coaches and credit to our players for the work they put in during the week.”

On the rhythm since the Georgia game

“Growth mindset. Our players have a growth mindset. They know every single week that there’s an opportunity to get better. Just because we won this game, doesn’t mean we’re not looking for an opportunity to improve. People know that I’m going to say we’ll have to go to the doctor, and we’ll figure out what we can get better at and go take our medicine and improve. Our team has done that week in and week out.”

On the 12-play touchdown drive

“That’s an explosive offense that we just played. They’re really hard to defend, they’re obviously really well-coached. The best way you can defend them is to keep them off the field. We wanted to have our offense on the field and their offense off the field. That’s a great example of our offense doing that, utilizing the clock, being able to take advantage of time of possession, and work the ball down the field.”

On defending Dorian Thompson-Robinson

“Ultimately we tried to eliminate one-on-one opportunities and we wanted to try and have vision to be able to close and finish the play on him. Our guys did a really good job of executing when we did have a chance. I’m not sure we had a sack in this game, but we did keep him contained. He’s a really talented player and tough guy to stop. It wasn’t as much about statistics for us as it was about keeping him corralled.”

On forcing three field goals

“We're better, we're not where we want to be at. We’ve got to continue to improve and grow there. When you’re trading touchdowns for field goals, that’s a recipe for success. Eventually we want to be able to turn those into stops. They had some fourth downs that I wish we could've got off the field. At the same time they were not able to score quick, and when you’re not able to score quick with that kind of deficit, it’s going to be hard for them to get back into the game.”

On the offensive line play

“I’ll have to go back and watch the film, but that’s a really cohesive unit. Credit to our offensive staff and the job they’ve done there but also credit to those guys. We have some guys senior leaders on that group that are like coaches on the field. They’re able to communicate the looks they see every time they come over. If you guys watched Alex Forsyth work when no one else is working, you’d understand why that offensive line is like it is. He’s out there practicing snaps before practice and going through calls. We were in chapel today and Alex is carrying the football around. I know the Lord appreciates that and so do the Ducks. Those guys work really hard and hard work pays off.”

On the secondary

“One of our goals coming into this game was to make sure we had more explosives than they had. If you want to do that, you have to eliminate explosive plays downfield. Coach Kelly does such a good job of lulling you to sleep and then challenging your eyes. We wanted to make sure we didn’t have a lot of eye violations in this game and our guys did a good job of that.”

On what it means defeating a coach that had a lot of success at Oregon

“I have a lot of respect and admiration for Coach Kelly. We got the W today, but that’s credit to our players, that’s credit to our staff, that's not me.”

On Coach Dillingham’s impact on the offense

“He’s done a great job. Obviously he’s a guy that I’ve been able to see in this profession for a long time. It wasn’t that long ago that Kenny Dillingham was a coach at Chaparral High School sitting in the corner of staff meeting every single day not saying a word. He’s grown so much as a coach and developed over time, and obviously he’s doing a great job of leading or team. I think he’d be the first one to give credit to our quarterback who’s playing at a really high level and players around him that are doing a really good job and a great offensive staff. Excited to see him have the success he’s had.”

On going for it on consecutive fourth downs and if the second one was in-question

“We knew we were going for it. We knew. We’re talking about before it gets to fourth and one. The first one wasn’t for sure though, the second one was.”

On what he's seen from Troy Franklin in practice and what's made him a go-to target

“You like guys that catch the ball. Troy catches the ball. That's a big benefit. He has a big catch radius and a lot of those catches you see out there on the game field are the same ones you see at practice. Troy’s doing a great job, he’s grown up as a player and I’m looking for him to continue to grow and continue to develop. I know you're just scratching the surface for what he can be.”

On his early successes as a head coach

“I’m excited for our players to have success and I’m excited for our coaches to have success. I’m excited for the university and for the people that support this university so much to see that success. I don’t want to get in the way of that. I’m really thrilled to see our guys continue to grow. What I want is at the end of the season-- us to be playing our best football. We’re still not there, but we’re getting better every week and that’s the part excites me.”

On Bo Nix’s ability to adapt and extend plays

“That happened on two different plays. The first one, there was an opportunity to take the ball down the field and it didn’t really develop. I think this was a great example of good decision-making as a quarterback, if it’s not there, take your check-down. Bo’s been such a threat with his legs that when he starts to simulate like he might run, now that check-down becomes a real open target. The second one, Bucky was on a wheel route out of the backfield and was uncovered. Bo got his eyes there and got it to a guy who was uncovered and you’re going to have success with plays like that.”

On Bo Nix’s growth from week one to now

“There’s not something that he’s doing now that he wasn’t doing before, I just think he’s in really good sync and really good rhythm. There are some moments in this game where Bo said, ‘hey coach, are you comfortable with this call’ and I said absolutely. You want your quarterback to feel like he can be the play caller at times and know what he wants. He’s making great decisions with the ball, he’s not putting the ball in jeopardy. He’s playing really smart football, unselfish football, and that’s going to lead to opportunities for us to win. If he continues to do that I think we’ll continue to see success.”

On the 15-play drive

“It becomes disheartening to your opponent whenever you feel like you can't impact the game cause you can’t get on the field. It’s a tough feeling when you’re not able to stop somebody. So for us to be able to have a 15-play drive and use the clock, it’s pretty exciting to know that you have that much control. I feel like our players were operating with control and our coaching staff did a good job of executing.”

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