Dan Lanning discusses defensive takeaways in spring game

First-year head coach Dan Lanning comes from a defensive background at Georgia and provided his thoughts on the defensive takeaways forced during Saturday’s Oregon spring game. After the two defenses combined to take the ball away five times throughout the game, the players and staff all received high praise.

During his postgame press conference, Dan Lanning broke down the philosophy which helps create those defensive takeaways and showed an early example of the mindset to his players.

“I don’t know if I’ve been around a defensive coordinator that emphasized takeaways as much as Tosh Lupoi,” said Lanning. “And our defensive staff does a phenomenal job. The entire crew. Again, one thing we’ve realized is that if you can create takeaways, you give yourselves a chance.

“I think Yellow early on would have run away with the game if they hadn’t turned the ball over a couple of times. And they kept it close because of that. Some big takeaways by the Green [defense].

Tosh Lupoi comes to Oregon as the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach after one season as the Jacksonville Jaguars defensive line coach in 2021. Before that, he spent the previous two seasons in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns in similar roles. Prior to that he spent five seasons as an assistant coach at Alabama and filled many roles, including defensive coordinator.

Alongside a defensive-minded head coach, it appears the Ducks plan to build one of the most stout defenses in college football while emphasizing takeaways as a key part of the gameplan.

Oregon spring game draws big crowd

There is plenty of hype around the Oregon Ducks football program heading into the 2022 season, and for a good reason. That hype was at a fever pitch for their spring game on Saturday. According to local Fox Sports reporter John Canzano, Oregon had a monster crowd in attendance for their spring game.

“Oregon sports information tells me it is ‘estimating’ 42,000 attendance for today’s spring game,” wrote Canzano via Twitter.

The Ducks underwent a regime change during the offseason after former head coach Mario Cristobal departed for his alma mater in Miami. The whole he left in the program was field by one of the top young coordinators in the SEC in former Georgia Bulldogs defensive coordinator Dan Lanning. And with Lanning’s promise to usher in a dominant defense for the Ducks, Fans could not wait till the start of next season to get a glimpse of the future.