Dan Lanning's Top Quotes From Big Ten Media Day

We continue to close in on the start of the 2025 college football season with Big Ten Media Days in full swing out in Las Vegas. Wednesday is Oregon’s day to take center stage and head coach Dan Lanning spoke with reporters as the Ducks prepare to defend their crown as Big Ten conference champions.

ScoopDuck highlights some of Lanning’s top quotes from Wednesday’s press conference.

On theme for this year’s team

Lanning: “But since we’re in Vegas, it seems like the right time to say it, our theme for this team is double down. We have done an unbelievable job of building this team over time. You look at our success season to season and as this team has grown, the process works. We’re close, and we’ve been able to accomplish a lot, so that’s really what’s gonna feed our program this offseason, and will feed us into fall camp is believing in the process that we have.”

On physical growth of the team this offseason

Lanning: “Our players have worked really hard. They put on over 1300 pounds this off season. Our overall peak power numbers have gone up over 21%. Our freshmen, the average gain for our freshmen is over 17 pounds. So there’s some exciting things—you look for wins in the off season, those are some great wins for our team.”

On staff retention, coordinators, continuity

Lanning: “The experience on our staff. I continue to be impressed with the staff that we have. Going into year three now with the same offensive and defensive coordinator, we’ve got several of our staff members back, even though they’ve been given opportunities to be other places, they’ve chose to be here. And that’s credit to the success of our team, but that’s also a piece of the success to our team, is the continuity that we’ve been able to have and grateful for Rob (Mullens) and our support here to be able to make that happen.”

On having a brand new team in 2025

Lanning: “We do have a brand new team and brand new challenges. What happened last year has nothing to do with the future. So building that, starting from scratch, getting the opportunity to head back to the kitchen, figure out what we’re going to be able to throw in for our recipe and create a great meal, is something we’re super excited about. I have confidence in this group more than anything, because I’ve seen the work, right? And not everybody always gets to see the work. We’ve been a little bit under the radar this off season, but these guys have worked extremely hard. They put their best foot forward, and that’s part of what makes this so much fun for me.”

On player retention, recruiting, using the transfer portal

Lanning: “I’m really excited about the retention that we’ve had with our team. You look at Oregon, the players that we’ve been able to add. We’ve done well in recruiting. Have been able to use the portal to be a real success for us, but we’ve done an unbelievable job of keeping our players on our team. Not losing them to home somewhere else.”

On personal time with family

Lanning: “On a personal note, really enjoyed the last couple of weeks getting to spend time with my family. I’ve said it before, there is no balance in this profession. You are all in, and we’ve been all in, but these last couple weeks, I’ve been all in on being a dad. It’s been unbelievable. Caden’s 15 now. Kniles’s 14. Titan’s, 12. We’ve had flag football this summer, a couple summer camps, couple trips on the lake. They’re getting harder to throw off the tube, but we’ve had an unbelievable experience. It’s been fun hanging out with my wife and the boys this summer, but we are excited to get to work.”

On Ohio State loss in Rose Bowl, how that’s motivating the team

Lanning: “Yeah, for me as a coach, I think every coach probably feels this way, but we always remember the losses over the wins. I think there’s a lot you can learn from. That doesn’t take away from what we were able to accomplish. But we lost to a great team. Coach Day did an unbelievable job last year of having his team in position to have success there, and there’s some things that I feel like I could have done better there at the end. I don’t think we played our best football. That being said, we did go undefeated in the conference. We won the Big 10 Championship in our first year. So like I said, double down. Learn, focus on our process. What do we what do we have to continue to improve? There’s always learning lessons, but it doesn’t necessarily impact the future.”