Dan Lanning shares takeaways from Oregon's scrimmage

Explosive plays dominated the day in Oregon football’s first scrimmage of fall camp, which left head coach Dan Lanning both encouraged and frustrated by certain aspects of the Ducks’ performance.

On Tuesday, Lanning met with media after practice, where he was asked to recap what stuck out to him from the scrimmage over the weekend. He started with ball security issues for the offense and tackling mishaps on defense.

“There was a ton of things, you know, looking back. I mean, ultimately we want to tackle better, we got to take care of the ball better,” said Lanning.

That was something he talked about immediately after the scrimmage as well:

“There were some takeaways today. I think there were three interceptions, overall, had a fumble down the red area that was critical. So we got to do a better job taking care of the ball on offense.”

He also noted the team struggled when it came to executing situational football throughout the day.

“A lot of things that I walked away and was saying right after the scrimmage still hold true. Situationally, got to play a little bit better situational ball, red area, two minute for both sides of the ball,” noting that they particularly “have to do a better job in those situations offensively.”

Despite those criticisms, Dan Lanning revealed after the scrimmage that the offense lit it up in the early going and didn’t allow the punt unit much time on the field.

“They scored pretty much with ease,” said Lanning. “We didn’t punt early on in the scrimmage, we were trying to actually have some punts and we didn’t punt because we didn’t stop them. But, then on the back end, like I said, the defense kind of came back.”

Going forward, Lanning’s big goal is more consistent performances on both sides of the football.

“Yeah, I don’t know if it was consistent enough at the level that we want,” he admitted. “You know, we have really high expectations for what we want. At times we were really, really good. And at times we weren’t so we got to be more consistent.”

Per Lanning, Oregon moved the ball well offensively when they weren’t shooting themselves in the foot, and his goal is to eliminate those mistakes. Meanwhile, the defense, while forcing turnovers, needs to tackle better and struggled to contain the offense for much of the day.