Dan Lanning Says Brock Thomas has Earned QB2 Role

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning met with media Monday evening per usual. He was in a much different mood this week coming off a big win over Rutgers on the road.

The Ducks are now back at home hosting Wisconsin. Last year Oregon traveled to Madison and found themselves in a dogfight late with the Badgers.

He talked about several updates including Jayden Limar’s absence last week and the intriguing QB2 battle at Oregon.

Opening Remarks:

“Good. All right. Good to be back in Eugene. Certainly excited about the opportunity to be in front of our fans again this week. I know they’ll have a great turnout. It’s good to have a little bit later game as well. Well, I think that’ll give us an opportunity to get some more players here to be able to see us also.
But ultimately, an exciting opportunity for our players to continue to to level up and raise our standard.

You know, there’s there’s a lot of things that Wisconsin actually does really well. Their special teams play and defensive play have been really good. And you look at offense, they’ve been, you know, they’ve been affected by injuries.

But there’s just you watch the film and you’re like, “Well, man, the ball bounced the wrong way on this play.” They’ve just been kind of unfortunate, bad luck on some some plays, but you see a team that’s capable having a lot of success. They’re really well-coached. I’ve got a lot of respect for coach Fickell and the job they do. They stress you in a couple different ways. It’ll be a good challenge for our team. So excited about this matchup and a chance for our guys to go compete.”

On Bouncing Back:

“Yeah, I mean we talked about all week about starting fast and we kind of started fast in the wrong direction. But I do think they had a good response and I I really like the energy that our team had throughout and that was kind of a good punch in the mouth really early.

But for the guys to come out there and and uh the defense to put out the fire, hold him to a field goal there and then offense respond and and be able to create a real positive drive. That next drive was a big big positive.”

On Brock Thomas Being QB2:

“Yeah, just, you know, over time he’s done a really good job in practice. He’s operated well. Um those guys have done also done a really good job as well. But there’s not anything that necessarily that Brock hasn’t done to to to earn those reps. He’s earned them in practice. We talk about rents due in football every single week. And he’s been a guy that’s been paying rent, been doing what he’s supposed to do.”

On the Wisconsin Defense:

“Yeah, it’s probably one of the best defenses when it comes to disguise and what it looks like pre- snap is going to look different than what it looks like post snap. They do a great job of stopping the run. They game plan your runs really well. And I think that’s that’s a big piece of it. They they make sure they get the extra hat where necessary and then they do a good job of avoiding explosive plays. So, it’s really sound. It’s difficult. They pitch different looks to you. There’s different guys that can pressure. Unconventional pressures at times, which makes it a real challenge.”

On Limiting QB Pressures vs Rutgers:

“Yeah, it just means everybody’s working in sync and I don’t think we were in the game before and this game we were like I said I thought we had a really clear plan. It was a good plan. I thought our players executed that plan to a really high level and then Dante, I thought made good decisions. There were times he threw it away in the game. And I think those were good decisions to be able to throw it away and get to the next play. We didn’t really do that the week before.”

On Moving Wilson to RT, Harkey to RG:

“Yeah, we just continue to look at uh strength and numbers, right? I think we had 67 guys playing this last game. I want to say we traveled just over 70 to the game, right? So, as many guys as we can, we want to be able to see them in different spots in different locations because injuries can happen in the season, you know, much like Wisconsin’s faced this season. And we want to make sure guys are ready for opportunities when injuries happen to look at guys at different positions.”

On Kenyon Sadiq’s Involvement:

“Yeah, probably had more his involvement had a little bit more with his availability in practice. The week before there wasn’t as much availability for him. But he was available last last week in practice and allowed us to be able to attack them. And again, it’s also predicated on what the defense is doing, right? There are opportunities there.”

On Na’eem Offord:

“Yeah, Na’eem’s a great example of a guy that’s been developing over time and getting better and better and where he might have not not have been completely ready at the moment. As the season started, he’s gotten better and better and he had a great week of practice and it goes back to everything I’ve said this entire time of when when you perform in practice, you get opportunities in the game and he performed well in practice this past week.”

On Jayden Limar’s absence:

“Yeah, he’s out. He’s going to be out for a little bit, but I don’t anticipate it being a really long time.”