Notable quotes from Dan Lanning as Ducks prepare for home stand vs. Washington State
Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning is more than ready to put last week behind him. While he has admirably stood behind his aggressive decision-making in the 36-33 loss to the Washington Huskies, he is now ready to focus on the task at hand, which is playing a good Washington State Cougars team that will come to town this weekend.
A year ago, the early-season game against Washington State served as one of the pivotal moments of the season for the Duck, where they won 44-41 in dramatic fashion, thanks to a pick-six from Mase Funa at the end of the game. It served as a coming-out party of sorts for Oregon, who was still trying to turn around a narrative about their team after losing to Georgia in the first week of the year.
On Wednesday afternoon, Lanning met with reporters for the final time and offered a preview of the upcoming game, and discussed how Jake Dickert is running things up in Pullman. Here are some of the most notable quotes from that interview:
Opening Statement:
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Lanning: “Great competition out there today. Third down and red area like normal. Thought guys had a lot of juice and fire out there on the field and did a great job. We can open it up.”
Effort Level
Question: On Monday you said the effort level had really been ramped up in practice, has that continued throughout the week?
Lanning: “Yeah, I’d say the passion and intensity was a little too much yesterday. And we’ve got to level that out because there’s a, you know, rule of diminishing returns to where when you have so much juice you can’t focus on the job at hand. And today that was much better and now there was definitely intensity out there on the field. But you know, it’s the leveling that out and feeling where that passion is at.”
WSU Offense
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Question: What are your impressions of the Washington State play calling?
Lanning: “Well, they create explosive plays, right? They create a lot of explosive plays. Like I said, this really mirrors a lot of what you know Texas Tech has done in the past. He came from Western Kentucky. He keeps a lot of the things that they did really well last year, as far as system, and they’ve added some new wrinkles but obviously has an elite quarterback and he knows how to distribute the ball.
Kick-Offs
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Question: With Camden struggling a little bit on kick-offs, do you want to see Grant Meadors get some more work going forward?
Lanning: “Grant’s played for us some already. You know, I think Cam can go out there and execute his job at a higher level. And I think Cam will be the first guy to tell you that so it’s happened you know it’s something you got to keep working and improving on and Cam’s certainly capable of doing that.”
Trikweze Bridges
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Question: When a team goes out there and challenges like Washington did with Trikweze, how do you want the player to respond?
Lanning: “Go out there and execute job. Believe in your technique. You know, and we’re always conscientious where people are out on the field. That was a game where there’s good players across the field so guys gotta go out there and execute.”
Mase Funa
Question: How have you seen Mase Funa’s role evolve this year?
Lanning: “I think Mase is playing some of his best football obviously, whenever we go to sub packages he’s playing the outside linebacker spot so he goes to the jack spot and plays there’s for us as well. When teams are big, and they do certain things that personnel we’ll be big to match them when they’re not when we’re gonna change our personnel groups to match that, and Mase has done a good job of that.”
Autzen
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Question: After a couple of weeks on the road, how excited are you to get back into Autzen and play in front of a home crowd?
Lanning: “There’s nothing like playing in front of our crowd here in Autzen and our fans are unbelievable. I know our players love playing in that stadium, so we embrace every single chance we get.”
