Everything Dan Lanning said following Oregon's first preseason practice

Oregon kicked off fall camp in Eugene Friday afternoon and its first preseason practice is officially in the books. Afterward, Ducks’ coach Dan Lanning met with reporters to discuss day one.

Here’s a complete transcript of everything Lanning said. Oregon is set to begin Saturday’s practice around 2:30 p.m. PT.

**Observations from Oregon’s first day of fall camp**

Dan Lanning — opening remarks

“What’s going on everybody? Good first day, nowhere near where we need to be for game one. But luckily we’re not playing game one yet. A lot of work to do. Guys brought good energy. Definitely embracing the strain and the opportunity to get better; one percent is what we’re looking for in each and everything that we do. So where can we find those percentage points to be a little bit better? That being said, we can open it up for questions.”

Was it good to have an almost entirely healthy roster?

“We’re working. We’re gonna play with the guys that are here and available. We have a lot of those right now, which is good. Gives us an opportunity to practice the way we want to practice some two-spot drills where instead of having 11 on 11 guys going against each other where you’re getting 22 people better. You got two fields going, and you can get 44 people better or 88 when you start going ones and twos and threes and fours and young guys. So being healthy is obviously a real big benefit for us to continue to push.”

Was execution the issue when you said you’re “nowhere near where you need to be?”

“Today is day one practice and it’s a level of toughness. It’s a level of effort. It’s a level of finish. Like, if you don’t practice football every day there are some of those things that go away, right, and you’ve got to train, you got to train those habits. It’s gotta be harder right now than it is in the game. And you don’t get that just by working out in the weight room. It’s just not the same, right? So I’m pleased, with where our guys were but I’m not we’re not ready to play a game. We got a lot of work to do.”

In what ways did the quarterbacks show their improvement today?

“The biggest thing is knowledge, like knowledge of our system. But you know, in the spring, they probably had a second of hesitation. Where do I take the ball? Where do I go? What’s the operational? They’re much more really comfortable in the system and that’s showing up.”

What was the intention behind moving practices to the afternoon?

 “Big picture, I mean, yeah. Football needs to be tough. We want to strain, and we’re gonna play a lot of games. Those points in the afternoon, it really sets up well with the way we do our walkthroughs, the way we have our meetings, and everything structured-wise, I feel like it sets up good.”

Anything significant (injury-wise) with T.J. Bass?

“No.”

And Justius Lowe?

“No.”

Did any freshman stand out?

“Jordan (James) had a nice run today. That was a fun one to see. Kyler Kasper, I think kind of a nice catch. I’ll tell you who kind of showed up as a newcomer is Caleb Chapman had a couple of good deep balls. I think he’s got to continue to push his conditioning, but there were a couple of explosive plays that stuck out from those guys.”

What was it about Chapman that attracted you guys to him?

“We had a couple of guys on our staff that were really familiar with Caleb. They were there at Texas A&M. Got to see him day in and day out, and he’s got great size. Obviously, that experience. I know he’s been dinged up, but I think he’s excited to be healthy and go to work. And that’s shown up.”

How will the team’s connection help during fall camp?

“Obviously, at the end of the day, when you go out on the field, there’s going to be tough moments. To me, the connection is going to be a part that gets you through those tough moments. You know, we talked about toughness after practice today. It’s like everybody in the team meeting raises their hand and says, ‘Yeah, toughness is a good idea. Wait a minute, coach, are you calling me out?’ It’s not such a good idea when I’m the guy getting called out, right?

“That’s the way it’s gonna be. Sometimes you got to hear that. So if it’s what we’re about, we have to put it right in front of us and talk about it each day.”

What’s the difference between the culture at your previous jobs and the culture you’re building here?

“I don’t know how to answer that question. We’re just trying to do the best that we can actually do right here at the University of Oregon. What we know wins games. There’s a lot of pieces that we were really focused on here.”

Andrew Boyle got some punts today, will he be part of that competition?

“We’re going to try to figure out who the best punter is and we’re going to play the best punter, right? If that’s our backup left guard, he’s going to practice punting. Right now I think we have those guys that can compete. But Boyle can certainly help us there as well.”

Do you think (left guard Marcus Harper II) can punt?

“We haven’t got to give a shot. I close certain parts of practice so you guys don’t get to see that. He might have been out there putting today.”

When you’re looking at players in the transfer portal, how important is it to have coaches who have worked with them in the past?

“I think there’s a misconception with the portal that everybody’s answers are in the portal. Your answers come from developing your own roster. Your answers come from recruiting young guys. Your answers come from having intimate knowledge of the people that you’re gonna go pursue.

“The one thing I can say about the guys that we went and actively recruited from the portal is we had intimate knowledge of those guys we knew them well. Certainly, it’s a benefit when it comes to guys like (Caleb Chapman), (Bucky Irving), (Jordon Riley), all those guys.”

What did you see in Bucky (Mar’Keise Irving)?

“We had a couple of guys on staff that were familiar with players and coaches on staff were able to get some good insight.”

Is the plan to scrimmage a week from Saturday?

“Yeah, that’s part of it.”

How nice is it to have an experienced offensive line going into fall camp?

“Yeah, I think the challenge there — they’ve done it. But the challenge there is how do you keep it fresh and creative and you push them just as much as you’re pushing other guys. We’re moving guys around in different positions. Certainly, none of them have been anointed to being in their spots. There’s going to be some shuffling there. And that’s part about figuring out who your best five are up front. It’s not just assumed because of who it was before.”

At running back, aside from ball security, pass protection, what are some of the traits you’re looking for?

“Really, for the most part, it’s the obvious. Scoring touchdowns, big explosive runs, taking care of the ball, able to protect, understanding the system, leadership qualities on field. What I’ll say is: there are some guys that we coached really, really hard this spring and I saw some traits show up.

“The type of stuff like, ‘Hey, this is something we want to see’ on day one and I saw that in the running back room from a few guys so it’s fun to see.”

A lot of players have mentioned that they improved their speed during the offseason, have you noticed a difference between spring and now?

“Yeah, our guys look fast. But I’ll say like around period eight today we looked slow, right? So it’s learning how to play fast, consistently, over time. We’ve got to continue to do that and do a great job in recovery but speed is certainly a big asset for us.”

How close are your players to being in football shape?

“We’re still about 20 practices away. Not there yet. We got plenty of work to do. You know, today was a good first day. You got to stack a day on top of another day on top of another day. So 24-hour wins.”