Dan Lanning previews Portland State, talks injuries ahead of Week 1
It has been an incredibly long offseason for the Oregon Ducks.
243 days, to be exact.
That’s how long it has been since Dan Lanning wrapped up his first season as the head coach in Eugene with a victory over the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Holiday Bowl.
Since then, there have been departures, arrivals, and a whole lot of hype built for the Ducks. Now, at long last, we have entered game week in Eugene, and just mere days from now the stands at Autzen Stadium will be filled with green and yellow, and meaningful football will be played.
In attempts to preview that upcoming matchup against the Portland State Vikings on Saturday afternoon, Lanning met with media members for his weekly press conference on Monday night. He touched on the biggest challenges that the Vikings will face, what the Ducks can do to find success in Week 1, and gave an outlook on some injuries going forward.
Here are some of the best quotes from Lanning on Monday:
Opening Statement
Lanning: All right. It’s finally here. So, certainly excited about having game week. It’s fun for us to be able to have a home game first. You know, I’m excited to see our fans out there. I know what a great crowd it can be, a great environment for our players to get to go experience. Like I’ve said several times, our guys are ready to hit somebody else and it will be fun to play a team that’s right up from this region as well, Portland State, and certainly a coach that I have a lot of respect for so should be a fun game for us.”
Gameday Prep
Question: Have you guys made any changes to your gameday prep compared to last season?
Lanning: Not a ton. I mean the process is still somewhat the process, you know. Little notes here and there from how we practice, what we feel like we have to practice so that we get the best out of it, but I don’t know any that would speak necessarily to your question. More than anything, you know, we found that we get a lot of good work when we when we do a lot more good on good periods in practice. We’ve created a lot more of those
Portland State Preview
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Question: What have you seen offensively and defensively in your prep for Portland State?
Lanning: The biggest thing is their quarterback is extremely dynamic. You know, he’s a guy that’s really fast. It shows up you can see you watch their explosive play tape really quick. You realize that he’s a guy that you know, has the ball in his hands, they have one of the deeper target areas for as far as throws down the field. They throw it, you know, downfield quite a bit, I think theaverage targets over 12 yards from a passing game standpoint, and then they have a couple of dynamic players that they’ve done a good job using on that side of the ball.
Defensively, they have some guys that run to the ball, and play like their hair’s on fire. It’s kind of an exotic scheme. It’ll be interesting to see. I know they’ve had some changes, you know, staff-wise, and how they manage things on that side. But you kind of have to prepare for everything that you’ve seen on film from there or even, you know, previous schools that these coaches have been asked to prepare for them.”
Injury Update
Question: Will Jackson Powers-Johnson and Nishad Strother be able to play this week?
Lanning: “Yeah, I think so. Strother will be a question, but JPJ was practicing with us today and is doing great back.”
Question: And what about Jestin Jacobs and Khamari Terrell?
Lanning: Yeah, I think we should have our guys available right now. We’re still waiting to see what it looks like as we get closer. We’ve got some guys who still have to get healthy.”
Bruce Barnum
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Question: You’ve talked a lot about your respect for Portland State coach Bruce Barnum. What is your relationship with him like and have you been able to spend a lot of time around him?
Lanning: “We’ve been at some, you know, the satellite camps you do as coaches in the offseason and these mega camps that you go to. I’ve got to be around him a few times. He’s a really personable guy and then obviously, to be able to be in a place for nine years, you must be doing something right and he’s done it for a long time. But just respect for a guy that’s coaching there and how he’s built his career.”
Game Night Prep
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Question: With all of the anticipation and excitement leading up to a game, what does the game night prep look like for you?
Lanning: “I try to prepare, you know, certainly at the end of the night, I’ll kind of sit down and go through, play the game in my mind before the game is played and make some additional notes for myself that I want to hit in the morning with staff. Just try to get into an easy spot where I can figure out what’s what’s next for us.”`
Game Week Shift
Question: How have you guys approached the last 48 hours? Have you noticed a shift in excitement for the players?
Lanning: “Yeah, I think our guys have a great effort and great energy. They know it’s game week. There’s been a buzz around the building, you know that we’re there. We finally get to go play somebody else, but they’ve had good juice and energy this entire week.”
Measuring Success
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Question: Other than a win, how do you guys measure success this weekend?
Lanning: “I think that’s one of the things that we’ve shown our players you know, there’s more turnovers in college football in week one and the bowl week then there is in any other time of season. There’s more missed tackles in week one and then the bowl game than there is any other time of season. That’s because of the long vacancy between games. So starting there. But ultimately, you know, college football school about explosive plays and takeaways, right, so those are the things that we want to create, you know, defensively as far as takeaways, and offensively, we want to create explosives.”
Offensive Playbood
Question: Do you guys feel like you’ll be able to go comfortably into the playbook this week or will you be using a more vanilla scheme?
Lanning: “Really what fall camps about is building that library of plays right? Offensively and defensively and then you want to be able to pull from that library whenever you get into a game. So you don’t necessarily carry every single play into each game but you’ve got the library that you’ve already kind of attacked. So for us, you know, I feel like we have all of our tools in front of us that we can use.”
Week 0 Action
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Question: Were you able to catch any of the Week 0 action and potentially scout a few of your upcoming opponents?
Lanning: “Not necessarily for me as far as early scouting. You know, I certainly watched a couple of games this past weekend, but it gives us a chance for the staff to get ahead. You know, there’s other people that will be working on breakdowns and some of that stuff in advance. But yeah, I got to glance at the game. Certainly not my focus right now.”
Question: What do you make of seeing the new clock rules in practice?
Lanning: “I think it just prioritizes points per possession, you know, offensively like it’s not necessarily about points per game as much as it is when you get the ball do you score and do you stop teams for scoring because there are going to be a few less snaps and games.”
