The second quarter against Arizona State on Nov. 18 had just ended and a seemingly dissatisfied Dan Lanning made his way to do his weekly halftime radio address.
“We’ve played a half,” he said. “Now let’s play the whole game.”
The score was 42-0. Quarterback Bo Nix had thrown for six touchdowns and Lanning wasn’t pleased.
He never is — and his players love it.
“He’s the best coach in the country,” wide receiver Tez Johnson said of Lanning after Oregon’s win over USC on Nov. 11. “He’s going to coach hard, and he’s going to challenge us every day.”
Behind Lanning, Oregon is 11-1 and set for a Pac-12 Championship rematch with Washington.
“The way Coach Lanning approaches kind of everything gets us fired up,” center Jackson Powers-Johnson said after a practice. “He has so much passion.”
On both sides of the ball, Lanning’s Ducks have been dominant, Oregon is ranked in the top 15 nationally in both total offense and total defense.
“At the end of the day it’s Oregon vs. Oregon,” linebacker Bryce Boettcher said after a practice. “We’ve got to control what we can control, and if we do that, good things will happen.”
Oregon vs Oregon — it’s like a code in Eugene. Quite simply, Oregon is the only team that can beat itself, as has proven time and again to be the case. Lanning’s squad opted not to kick a field goal twice in the Ducks’ loss to Washington on Oct. 14, leaving six points on the board. They lost by three.
Despite analytics saying Lanning should do otherwise, with a 4th-and-3 facing the Ducks late in the second quarter, Lanning elected to pass on fourth down and was unsuccessful.
“The one before half was one you could go back and say, ‘Let’s take the field goal,’” Lanning said postgame.
The Ducks would go for it twice more on 4th downs and come up unsuccessful both times. Oregon is the only thing that can beat itself, and it did.
“We are in control, we can go out and win out,” Nix said after Oregon’s loss. “Put ourselves in a really good spot, that’s all we can control and that’s really all we have to control.”
That’s exactly what Oregon has done. The Ducks have won out since their loss to Washington. A 31-7 victory over Oregon State punched Oregon’s ticket to a rematch with the Huskies in the Pac-12 Championship.
“Ultimately every single player in that locker room knew what was in front of us, we knew we wouldn’t get there if we didn’t do a good job at focusing on the task at hand,” Lanning said of his team earning a berth to the Pac-12 Championship and a rematch with the Huskies. “It’s not going to be about Washington either, it’s going to be about the Ducks and what we have to do to be better.”
It wasn’t facile. Oregon has been more motivated than ever. Following the Ducks’ lone loss of the season, Lanning’s squad immediately responded. In the following week’s practice, Lanning quipped that Oregon’s practice intensity was “a little too much at times.”
“There’s a rule of diminishing returns,” Lanning said, “where you have so much juice that you can’t focus on the job at hand.”
Oregon’s intensity eventually balanced out. The Ducks went on to score five touchdowns against a hapless Washington State on Oct. 21. Still, Lanning’s Ducks were not content.
“We weren’t playing to our standard,” defensive back Nikko Reed said. “That’s what we had to adjust to, playing to our standard.”
Oregon has won by more than one score in all of its games following the Ducks lone loss. Lanning’s squad has dominated, regardless of the opponent.
“Every single day the standard is the standard,” Lanning said after the Washington State game.
It’s said in every program nationwide, but in Eugene it’s palpable: the Oregon standard is rooted deep in the Ducks’ success.
Lanning’s work has begun garnering national attention. Amid Oregon’s success, he was mentioned in rumors regarding a potential Texas A&M job opening.
“Everything I want exists right here, I’m not going anywhere. There’s zero chance I would be coaching somewhere else,” Lanning emphatically said regarding the rumors. “I’ve got unfinished business here. My number one priority is being elite here at Oregon.”
The Ducks have been as elite as they come — not only has Oregon been near perfect, it has defeated opponents by one or more scores in all but one of its games so far this season.
“1-A win, 1-B play to the standard,” Lanning said of his team’s goals after practice. “If you do either one without the other, you’re going to feel unfulfilled. That’s what it’s about for us.”
Lanning’s self-proclaimed “Oregon standard” has been near impossible to reach, and that’s likely how he wishes it to be. At halftime of Oregon’s win over California on Nov. 4, Lanning was as displeased as ever.
“Really disappointing start. Really disappointing half,” he said of his team’s performance. “I don’t care what the scoreboard says, we have a standard of play.”
The scoreboard read 35-13. Cal was yet to record an offensive touchdown and Lanning was as incensed as ever.
“I think we put ourselves in some tough positions at times,” Lanning went on to say after the game. “We didn’t play to our standard of play.”
Oregon won the game 63-19.
Coaches at any level are innately demanding and want more from their teams. Lanning takes his expectations to a whole new level. And it’s worked. The Ducks are now 11-1 and are going into a rematch with the Huskies, and they are as motivated as ever.
“Right after the game in Seattle, that’s one of the main things that I said,” linebacker Jeff Bassa said. “‘We are going to see that team again. I promise you that, don’t lay your heads down.’ We didn’t see that in the locker room. Guys were ready to go to work, we knew what was at stake, we knew we could control our future.”
“We got one goal, and that’s to go 1-0,” offensive lineman Steven Jones said before Oregon’s victory over the Beavers. “So we just have to go 1-0 this week and the rest will handle itself.”
Oregon did that and now it’s on to a rematch with a bigger foe. No matter what the score is in the following games, fans can bet Lanning won’t be satisfied.
“I expected us to be here,” Lanning said after the Oregon State game. “We still have some unfinished business.
