Dan Lanning: "I don't think you'd be a good football team and not be physical."

On Wednesday Dan Lanning met with media ahead of Oregon’s game with USC. It will be his final media availability ahead of the top-15 matchup.

Lanning was asked about recruiting and honoring the Seniors this weekend. It’s going to be a special weekend in Eugene and here are Lanning’s thoughts on it all.

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Opening Statement:

“All right, good day of prep. You guys got some good work. There’s certainly some things that USC does that’s difficult on third and third down and red area that we had to prepare for today, but some good progress so far this week.”

On the Seniors:

“What those guys mean to us and the work that they’ve put in. You know, I know that we talk about player-led team. It’s really driven by those guys, right, and their focus and really the intensity that they bring and the standard that they hold our program to. So really grateful for every one of those guys.”

On Makhi Lemon:

“Yeah, he’s a tough matchup. I’ve spoken on it already how good of a wideout he is, and the fact that they move him around certainly makes it a challenge. It’s hard. You’ve seen some teams try to match up to him, and that can be difficult in certain calls. It also can be an indicator at times, right, if you always match up a certain way of what kind of defense you might be playing. So got to be aware of where he’s at at all times and be able to handle those adjustments.”

On Kirby’s Physical Comments:

“Yeah, I don’t think you’d be a good football team and not be physical. And there’s just certain things that have to happen at practice, certain things you have to train for it to show up.
You know, you’re not going to become a good tackling team if you don’t tackle it at practice. You’re not going to be good at blocking if you don’t do full tilt boogie when it comes to blocking and shedding blocks. Those things have to happen at practice for you to be able to do it. As far as answering questions, we’ll just let her play. We’ve done a good job in that category.

On Handling Transfers/Playoff Noise:

“Yeah, you can’t spend too much time on it. You got to worry about the guys that want to be here. Ultimately, you always hope there’s a conversation. I’m certain we have a good team so what’s that mean that means people are probably reaching out to our players we’ve been able to retain great players here for a long time we’ve done a really good job of that and i think that starts with guys being
open and honest um there’s going to be communication. And sometimes it’s best for somebody to be somewhere else but you know we’re trying to do something special here and it means being focused on where you’re at you know right now and the reality is the portal opens in January. It doesn’t open now. You’ve got time to evaluate those options for you, and each person has to evaluate those options for themselves.

I love the team we have. I love the players. Everybody has a special role here for us. Even if you’re not necessarily out there on the field for us every single down, that’s part of it, right? But it’s also part of what’s going on in college football, and the teams that manage that the best and handle that the best are going to be the teams have been successful. And we’ve had a lot of success with how we’ve managed that here in the past. Hopefully, like I said, the one thing you want is you want the opportunity to have conversation with guys before that becomes something you’re not aware of.”

On Keeping Guys Healthy/Physical Practices:

“Yeah, you evaluate what kind of drill work you’re doing and how you’re doing that. Sometimes you can split things into like a half-line drill, do stuff more in the crossover drills to where there can be a level of contact but maybe not as many bodies on the ground. And then you adapt. You definitely certainly, you know, change some things to how you practice at times, especially getting later in the season.

You know, uniquely, some of the injuries we’ve had this season have had zero contact, right? So contact’s part of football. That happens. But some of the times the guys get hurt, that’s not necessarily, you know, directly impacted by the physicality that’s required at practice, you know. And I’ve found that teams that practice not to get hurt are the teams that get hurt the most a lot of times. So you have to practice to a certain level. You know, football can be a dangerous sport. There’s going to be injuries that exist at times. We have to be able to handle those as they come.”

On a big recruiting weekend:

“Yeah, you know, recruiting is the lifeblood of our program. And for us here, it’s always been about, you know, quality over quantity, about what kind of players do we want to sign, the guys that are going to fit our mold, and then always looking kind of big picture down the road. What’s that look like for your team? What’s going to be available for your team postseason as you’re trying to develop that? But we have a staff that’s dedicated to that, evaluating that at all times.

And always number one for us will be able to be, you know, keeping the players that we have on our current rosters, as well as the additions that, you know, we can add in the future. But weekends like this with the distractions, with all the pieces that are going on, that can be huge weekends for you in recruiting. And we’ve, you know, we’ve been able to live off of moments like that here in the past and certainly want to be able to take advantage of it this weekend.

On Evolution of Recruiting at Oregon:

“Yeah. You know, and, and everything now is different with, value-based and what, what guys are, you know, what, what it costs to get somebody to, and some of the best players that have been in our program are guys that we got a tremendous value and they were able to come here. And then when you make an impact at a tremendous value, you’re able to be taken care of as well, but that’s a factor in this. But for us, it’s culture fit at skill level. I think we’ve proven on both sides of the ball that we’ll adapt to our personnel, too, and their strengths and their skill sets. So when you find a good football player that maybe doesn’t necessarily fit your scheme, being able to adapt to your scheme to fit to those players is really important.

But we’ll always kind of have our eye out for that guy that’s an extremely talented player, but an extremely hard worker, fits the right culture that we’re looking for, is going to be able to handle being in an environment like this. And that’s a continued process. That’s continued evaluation. That’s a lot of conversations.”