Dan Lanning: 'YouTube videos aren't going to win football games'

The story of college football will start another chapter this week when Colorado heads to Oregon. It’s a high-stakes Pac-12 matchup on the national stage with Deion Sanders’ Buffaloes hoping to come in and pull off an upset.

Dan Lanning and the Ducks have been looking over all sorts of film ahead of the game to get ready to try and contain the offense. It’s sure to be quite a battle as Oregon looks to contain Shedeur Sanders, Dylan Edwards and a Colorado team that averages 479 yards of offense per game.

But watching film can only do so much, Lanning said on Pac-12 Radio on SiriusXM. It’s all about what happens on the field.

“At the end of the day, YouTube videos aren’t gonna win football games, right?” Lanning said of his team, as clarified by host Sean O’Connell. “You’ve got to play the game between the white lines. That’s the plan for us this week. I’m not really concerned about outside noise. This is all about playing the game, not the occasion.”

Oregon is coming off a blowout victory over Hawaii last week. But the week prior, the Ducks faced their first big adversity against Texas Tech and its Air Raid offense. They came away with the 38-30 win, but found themselves trailing the Red Raiders 27-18 entering the fourth quarter.

Lanning was proud of how his team was able to find a way to win, and he’s hoping Oregon learned from that game while trying to defend Colorado’s playmakers.

“We can win in a multitude of ways,” Lanning said. “You talk about going down and having a tough game out there at Texas Tech early in the season on the road and having to do it with some takeaways and some resiliency earlier, some big special teams kicks.

“You talk about a team that has been explosive at times on offense and a group that’s taken care of the ball and taken it away on defense. Certainly, [we have] not [had] a complete game yet. We’re still looking to have one of those. But we’ve got a team that’s going to have a chance to have some real success this season.”

Saturday’s game could have some Pac-12 Championship implications now that the league has done away with divisions. Dan Lanning knows how important the matchup with Colorado will be, but he argued every game is important.

That’s why he’s confident Oregon will be ready.

“Preseason’s over, boys,” Lanning said. “Every one of these matter. All of them matter from the jump, anyway. But the way we practice, these guys, I promise you, their chinstraps are buckled tight. … We don’t have to change our mindset when we go out there on the practice field.”