Dan Lanning talks Micah Williams, Kyler Kasper, and Oregon’s physicality this fall
It was an exciting day at Oregon Ducks practice on Tuesday afternoon, with the announcement that Olympic sprinter Micah Williams would be joining the team as a walk-on wide receiver.
Williams currently holds the Oregon 100m record at 9.91 seconds and is undoubtedly one of the fastest men in collegiate athletics. At practice on Tuesday, we got to see the Olympian field some punts before the team broke off into individual drills.
After practice, head coach Dan Lanning met with media members to discuss the addition of Williams, while also touching on the improvement of Kyler Kasper, and what Jeffre Bassa can provide for the defense this season.
Here are some of the most notable quotes from that interview.
Opening Statement
Lanning: “Alright, a lot of good work today. I would say the offense kind of got the better half of the defense today. But yesterday, the defense probably got the better half of the offense. So it’s good when you have some back and forth, certainly a lot to clean up. Gotta continue to work to be a tough team. You know, we see flashes of it. We have to be consistently tough, but can open it up from there.”
Micah Williams
Question: How did the addition of Micah Williams come about?
Lanning: “Micah wanted to play football, and we wanted to give him a chance to see if he can. It’s been a long time. He hasn’t played since his freshman year in high school, but you can’t coach fast, right? He’s fast. We’ll see what he’s able to do out there for us.”
“Jerry, he’s a team guy, right? Jerry and I talked before and you said, Yeah, this is something he wants to do. And this is something we want to let them do. You know, it’s our job to see if it’s going to be a fit for him because he’s obviously got a long career ahead of him in track. That doesn’t change. And that’s certainly his first priority, but right now gives her an opportunity to see what he can do.”
Kyler Kasper
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Question: What improvements have you seen from Kyler Kasper from last year to this year?
Lanning: “Well, today he had a big catch in two minutes. There was kind of a tip ball had a big catch in two minutes to keep the drive alive and give the offense a chance to go down there and put in and field goal to win. Kyler continues to improve. He continues to become more and more consistent. He’s certainly worked really hard and looking for him because you’re doing big strides moving forward.”
Question: How beneficial was that early enrollment year for him?
Lanning: “I think anytime you can get here and get work, it’s gonna give you a chance to be better. And so Kyler is certainly somebody who benefited from that.”
Evan Williams
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Question: How have you seen Evan Williams become more of a leader now that he is more comfortable?
Lanning: “Just more vocal. And you know, you don’t always have to lead with words. Sometimes you lead by action, right, and the way that you do things. But I guess I would say this for anybody that’s entered our program, I’m not looking for anyone to take a back seat to someone else. When you’re in our program, I don’t care if you’re a freshman or a senior, you get the opportunity to lead by what you do every single day.”
Offensive Line
(Photo Courtesy of Zachary Neel | USA TODAY)
Question: How have you seen the offensive line working together and getting more comfortable so far?
Lanning: “Yeah, they’ve done a really good job there. I think Coach Terry’s done a really good job. You know, Coach Cav and Coach Cutter working all together have done a really good job of building that unit the way it’s supposed to look.”
Physicality
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Question: How was the physicality in full pads today?
Lanning: “Yeah, we’re bangin’, we’re bangin’ a little bit today. We were kind of had an emphasis too on celebrating and there was a lot of celebrating going on the sidelines, which is a positive. Yeah, we had physical practice.”
