Doubling Down: Dan Lanning reveals how Dabo Swinney helped coin Oregon's 2025 mantra

When Dan Lanning was an assistant at Georgia, Clemson was in the midst of a run to six straight College Football Playoff semifinals – including four title game appearances. A budding rivalry emerged, though Lanning saw first-hand how Dabo Swinney built the program into a perennial contender.

As he got ready for his fourth season at Oregon, Lanning made a call. He was able to ask Swinney some questions as he looked to build on the Ducks’ quick success as members of the Big Ten.

Somewhere in the conversation, Swinney encouraged Lanning to “double down” on his process in Eugene. That phrase made its way to the podium Wednesday at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas as Oregon’s mantra for 2025, and Lanning said the program embraced Swinney’s words of wisdom.

“I actually called Dabo this offseason,” Lanning said on Big Ten Network. “When I was at Georgia, that was somebody I never got to visit with. They were kind of our arch nemesis, so never really had a chance to really talk to him, but I always had a lot of respect for what he did, from across the way. I thought I’d reach out and just pick his brain.

“One of the things he said, he was like, ‘Do you like your process?’ I was like, ‘Yeah. Yeah I love it.’ He said, ‘Well, just double down.’ I said, alright. That’s it. That’s what we’ll do. Just a big fan of what he’s been able to do from across the way and have a lot of appreciation for him, so I thought we’d ride with it.”

“Doubling down” turned out to be an appropriate phrase considering Lanning’s press conference took place at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Oregon is looking to sustain its quick success in the Big Ten, winning the league in its debut season to become the No. 1 seed in the new-look College Football Playoff. The Ducks’ season eventually came to an end in the quarterfinals against Ohio State.

Now, Dan Lanning wants to see his team take another step with a slew of new faces in the fold. So far, he sees full buy-in to the idea of “doubling down.”

“We have done an unbelievable job of building this team over time,” Lanning said. “You look at our success season to season, and as this team has grown, the process works. We’re close. We’ve been able to accomplish a lot.

“So that’s really what’s going to feed our program this off-season and what will feed us into fall camp, is believing in the process we have. We got great buy-in from our players.”