Dan Lanning shoulders loss on both sides of the ball for Oregon

Going into the Pac-12 Championship Game, Dan Lanning and Oregon had a chance to win the conference and likely clinch a spot in the College Football Playoff. That didn’t happen, though, with the Washington Huskies winning and going to the Playoff instead.

After the game, when Lanning was asked about the team’s defensive effort, he made it clear that Oregon didn’t play well enough on either side of the ball.

“Well, I mean, we were in the game,” Dan Lanning said. “We didn’t play well enough. We didn’t play well enough on either side of the ball to be able to win against a good team.”

Oregon trailed Washington by 17 points at multiple times during the second quarter of the Pac-12 Championship. That was the most that Oregon trailed anyone all season. Then, in the third quarter, the Ducks fought back to take the lead.

Lanning appreciated the fight that Oregon showed. However, it wasn’t enough to overcome an elite Washington team’s fourth quarter push.

“We certainly had a chance all the way down to the very last minute. I appreciate our guys’ fighting effort for that. Starting off slow hurt us.”

The loss was only Oregon’s second of the season, dropping the Ducks to 11-2. Both of those losses came at the hands of the Huskies. Because of that second loss, the Ducks will be going to the Fiesta Bowl instead of the College Football Playoff. There, Oregon will take on Liberty where the Ducks opened as a 14-point favorite.

Dan Lanning details how he wants Oregon’s season remembered

Despite the Pac-12 Championship Game loss, Oregon had a great season. As Dan Lanning explained, there is a high standard at Oregon and this season is ultimately going to be a building block for the program.

“Yeah, we want the standard to be that expectation. We have a high expectation for ourselves. There’s nobody outside of this room that wants us to do better than those guys in that locker room, these coaches. They know what we had this year. We have a special group this year,” Lanning said.

“But it’s a building block, right? We’re in year two. This is an opportunity to build on to this and set the expectation for what it should look like in the future. And we’ve got an opportunity to go play in a really good bowl game, right, and cap this thing off the right way.”