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Head coaches of major college football programs are rarely happy. There is always something to improve on, and Oregon's Dan Lanning is also this way. But after the team's first scrimmage of the fall camp preceding the 2026 season, Lanning sounded like a confident coach who knows that while there is still work to be done, he has a special group on his hands capable of doing some pretty special things this year.
Lanning touched on a variety of topics following this latest scrimmage, such as staying healthy, making sure those special teams are indeed special and the progress of some of those young freshmen who could play an important role right away for the Ducks.
The season is just three Saturdays away with Boise State kicking off this year's schedule. But Oregon isn't preparing for the Broncos just yet. Right now, it's just getting themselves ready for the season, locking down some details and getting ready for a grueling season that awaits the Ducks.
Here is everything Lanning had to say to the media after Oregon's scrimmage that was closed off to the press and public alike.
Dan Lanning: All right. Overall, good scrimmage. The thing you're always hoping for as a coach in this moment is you want to test physicality, the ability to tackle and break tackles, but you also want to walk away healthy. We were able to do that today. Some overall really good reps from both sides of the ball got to do a better job when it comes to ball security at times. Got to clean up some special teams play to make sure we're able to get the kicks that we need to be able to get. But overall, that's a solid performance. Got to go back and evaluate the film. I told our players there are really two things we're looking for when we grade a scrimmage. Are you accountable and are you capable? Right? Do you do your job when you're asked to do your job, and are you capable of doing the job we ask you to do? If you're not, then you're going to get limited reps. If you do, then you'll continue to grow on this team. So those are the things we're going to evaluate as we watch the film.
Question: You said on media day that you asked your players to look at 365 days ago and where they were and where they've grown. Curious for this team. 365 days ago, that scrimmage. Where has this team grown since then?
DL: I mean, this morning we're watching clips of Noel Winnington and Bryce Betcher making plays in the scrimmage. Can you see making plays in this exact same scrimmage, and obviously those guys now are making plays right in the NFL. So there's some guys that weren't making plays last year that were making plays in the scrimmage this year. There's some guys that have made some really big strides, but again, we'll evaluate the film and see what it looks like. Overall, was pleased with the energy throughout practice, but the film is going to be something we assess really hard.
Q: I know you have to watch the film, but as far as your feelings coming out of a first scrimmage, can you compare it like good, bad, and different to other first scrimmages? And then also the ball security. How much of that also was the defense making a good play and forcing turnovers versus guys just being sloppy?
DL: There's always a combination of both. You know, tip balls that we have to be aggressive with. When we had a tip ball interception day, Peyton Woodard had one. We had balls on the ground where it's not. It wasn't necessarily controlled by defense as much as it's controlled by offense and the way they protect the ball. But yeah, there are moments where we're attacking it really well. I think this is the best fall camp we've had as a defense, as far as attacking the ball, which is good. Our offense needs to see that. As far as the feeling from this scrimmage to other comparison scrimmages, I don't have a widely different feeling from others. You know, I'm always a pessimistic guy whenever it comes to how what the performance looked like because I want us to be the best version of us, and we're not we're not the best version of us yet, but we're making strides.
Q: We got a chance to talk to Bleu yesterday and learn a little bit about his journey from Morgan State to here. And I'm just curious, you what he's done this fall to carve out a spot in that linebacker run?
DL: Yeah, just work, just work every day. Come in here and take a step forward and get a little bit better and a little bit more. You know, early on we do a lot on that second ball, so you got to learn a lot. He's been a guy that's put in the time to learn a lot, and there's still a lot of room for improvement. But he's proven he can be a guy that can help us.
Q: You've talked a lot about how this is very much a player-led team, one of the most player-led that you've had in your time here. Curious, what characteristics of leadership you've seen from the players, especially in a scrimmage as you have?
DL: We finish off with some conditioning, and normally the conditioning speaks for itself. Like it happens in practice, but a lot of times on Saturdays we'll add some additional conditioning because guys have a recovery day tomorrow. At the end, the guys are asking for more, right? I think that's a great example of guys saying, "Man, we just went through an entire scrimmage. My body's telling me no, right? But my, you know, my mind is telling me yay, right? You know the song, right? That's what these guys are doing. They're pushing for more, right? It's the other way around, obviously in the song, but you get the idea.
Q: Coach Hampton said that early in spring or in fall practice, you guys throw a ton of scheme at these players to kind of see what sticks, and then pare it down as you realize what works. How valuable is the day like today in finding out what works?
DL: Yeah, today is not necessarily that day. The day is let's call stuff that we know our guys can execute, so we can figure out who's the guy that's best at blocking, who's the guy that's best at tackling, who's the guy best at breaking tackles. But now, what we will do is take what we have, figure out what fits our players best, and then find the tweaks that we can add and remove. You know, with us being able to do a lot in the offseason, these guys are light years ahead of what it used to look like. You know, four years ago, five years ago, when I first got here, so how much time you have, you know, take advantage of. Those guys have taken advantage of it, so there's not a lot that gets thrown in that's brand new. It's just a matter of, okay, can I get in the right play? If we have a check on it, if we can, I get in the right play, you know, with a certain tag that we might throw on a play on both sides of the ball, and then can I execute? So again, am I accountable, and am I capable of doing that?
Q: Can you tell us how long the scrimmage was, play-wise or time-wise, and then secondly, Dylan Raiola said that things were a little shaky for him in the spring learning the system, but he felt like he learned a lot over the summer. It felt better. Did you see growth from him today?
DL: Yeah. And then I saw some moments that he can certainly get better. It's around 120-play scrimmage, maybe a little bit more or less based on special teams play as it plays out. But yeah, Dylan's gotten a lot better. He looks like a night-and-day different player from when he got here in the spring. That being said, there are moments already I know from today that I'm like, okay, this is something we got to improve, right? Something we have to attack, and that's the case for every single player on our team, right? Not just Dylan. Every single player has something that we can get better at, and if we execute at a higher level, we'll be performing really well.
Q: You mentioned some maybe shortcomings on special teams. Can you expand on that a little bit? And with these, was this an outlier day? Has it been clean? And today was maybe different.
DL: Yeah, just a small thing. We tested our guys today. We tried to kick a long field goal. We didn't make a long field goal. We had some poor kicks on kickoff. We have to we have to be able count those guys to have great kicks on kickoff. You know, punt locations. You know, we had some balls that were out of bounds. So in special teams, you get one play to be right, right, and they have to be right. So they weren't all right today, and really, it's no different than how you want a great offense or defense. But there are just limited opportunities. You're talking about somewhere between 14 to 20 percent of the game. When we do it, it has to look a certain way, and I think that could level up.
Q: How do you walk that line of trying to make things hard and intense on players in a scrimmage setting to try and see what they can handle, but also make sure that they're up to speed and that confidence is there?
DL: Yeah, you know, I think they generate the confidence by them doing their job, and when it happens, you have to celebrate it, right? And I think so often in coaching, a lot of times we point out the negative because that's the easy fix. But what you also have to do is point out when it's done right, and when it's done right, you have to celebrate it, like celebrate it like crazy, and you know lean into those moments, right? Because that's going to give you an opportunity for a guy to reflect and say, okay, what can I still improve?
Q: You talked about wanting to see if guys tackle; can you break tackles? How do you balance that, keeping that physicality while also making sure that everybody stays healthy? Is there anything specific to make sure that you balance both of those?
DL: I mean, in football, you've got to play right a certain way. Now, to me, there's a limit on okay, how much live tackling do I need in this scrimmage? You know, we weren't doing live tackling the entire scrimmage today, but there has to be some of that that occurs. And then there's a level of player that's played a certain number of snaps where there's an expectation of what that looks like, but you can't go out and tiptoe in football and say, "Okay, we're going to be healthy, because that's actually when guys are going to get hurt. Is when you kind of try to say, "Oh, hey, keep yourself out of this pile. You just can't do that. You have to play football the way it's meant to be played.
But we do as good a job as anybody of protecting our players. Our players do a great job protecting their teammates. You know, we don't take cheap shots across the middle. We're not looking for highlight hits in practice, right? We're looking for guys that, hey, I see you, you see me. Who's going to win, right? And there's a little bit of a difference from that than just hitting somebody when they don't see you.
Q: I know you're probably not going to unleash the demons on your own quarterback, but Coach Hampton talked about the desire to improve the pass rush, only 30 sacks last year. Could you tell anything from today's scrimmage before you watch the film that you saw some elements of maybe an improved pass rush?
DL: We got to the quarterback a couple times a day. I think at times that's on our quarterback to make sure that they're getting out of the pocket. So it's like a double-edged sword for me, right? If you get a sack, then you're excited about the defense, but upset about the offensive line or the timing that the quarterback had. But we've had good rush. We've done some different drill work this year that we haven't done in the past. I think's improved that. We have some different stuff schematically. We brought in Coach Rip (Rowan) and Coach T (Tony Tuioti) and Coach (Kamran) Araghi. All those guys are working really hand in hand with making sure that we've got dynamic guys on the field that can impact the quarterback. But you also earn that opportunity by how you stop the run. So I'm seeing glimpses of that, you know, through fall camp, but we'll continue to look for that to improve.
Q: Today was the first chance to see some of these young guys in a scrimmage setting when they weren't here in spring. Manny (Immanuel Iheanacho) and Jalen (Lott), in particular. Just curious, kind of your thoughts on seeing them fly around in this kind of more game-like setting.
DL: Yeah, some of it's like deer in the headlights looks at times, and then some of it's like, okay, that's why we brought them here, right? So I think it's a combination of continuing to refine it for them, figure out what they're capable of doing, and making sure we're asking them to do that. But I think there are some flashes that you really saw that we got the right guys on this team.
Q: Mixon, I imagine, is still someone you guys are trying on to maybe replace Bryce as a leader. Did you sort of see him today operate in a certain way that made you feel like he can be that guy in the middle?
DL: Well, none of it's based on just today, right? I've seen what Jerry's done throughout fall camp. I still would love to see and hear more of Jerry's voice. I think it carries a lot of weight with the players. That being said, you know he stepped up in that role. He's done a good job. I don't want him to come be Bryce. I want him to be the best version of Jerry, right? I want him to be the best version of him. And again, I'll have to go back and watch the film. You can't watch 22 players at one time, but Jerry's had a good fall camp.
Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.
This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Everything Dan Lanning said after Oregon's first fall scrimmage
Continue reading...
Lanning touched on a variety of topics following this latest scrimmage, such as staying healthy, making sure those special teams are indeed special and the progress of some of those young freshmen who could play an important role right away for the Ducks.
The season is just three Saturdays away with Boise State kicking off this year's schedule. But Oregon isn't preparing for the Broncos just yet. Right now, it's just getting themselves ready for the season, locking down some details and getting ready for a grueling season that awaits the Ducks.
Here is everything Lanning had to say to the media after Oregon's scrimmage that was closed off to the press and public alike.
Opening Statement
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Dan Lanning: All right. Overall, good scrimmage. The thing you're always hoping for as a coach in this moment is you want to test physicality, the ability to tackle and break tackles, but you also want to walk away healthy. We were able to do that today. Some overall really good reps from both sides of the ball got to do a better job when it comes to ball security at times. Got to clean up some special teams play to make sure we're able to get the kicks that we need to be able to get. But overall, that's a solid performance. Got to go back and evaluate the film. I told our players there are really two things we're looking for when we grade a scrimmage. Are you accountable and are you capable? Right? Do you do your job when you're asked to do your job, and are you capable of doing the job we ask you to do? If you're not, then you're going to get limited reps. If you do, then you'll continue to grow on this team. So those are the things we're going to evaluate as we watch the film.
365 days since
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Question: You said on media day that you asked your players to look at 365 days ago and where they were and where they've grown. Curious for this team. 365 days ago, that scrimmage. Where has this team grown since then?
DL: I mean, this morning we're watching clips of Noel Winnington and Bryce Betcher making plays in the scrimmage. Can you see making plays in this exact same scrimmage, and obviously those guys now are making plays right in the NFL. So there's some guys that weren't making plays last year that were making plays in the scrimmage this year. There's some guys that have made some really big strides, but again, we'll evaluate the film and see what it looks like. Overall, was pleased with the energy throughout practice, but the film is going to be something we assess really hard.
Overall feelings
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Q: I know you have to watch the film, but as far as your feelings coming out of a first scrimmage, can you compare it like good, bad, and different to other first scrimmages? And then also the ball security. How much of that also was the defense making a good play and forcing turnovers versus guys just being sloppy?
DL: There's always a combination of both. You know, tip balls that we have to be aggressive with. When we had a tip ball interception day, Peyton Woodard had one. We had balls on the ground where it's not. It wasn't necessarily controlled by defense as much as it's controlled by offense and the way they protect the ball. But yeah, there are moments where we're attacking it really well. I think this is the best fall camp we've had as a defense, as far as attacking the ball, which is good. Our offense needs to see that. As far as the feeling from this scrimmage to other comparison scrimmages, I don't have a widely different feeling from others. You know, I'm always a pessimistic guy whenever it comes to how what the performance looked like because I want us to be the best version of us, and we're not we're not the best version of us yet, but we're making strides.
Bleu's progress
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Q: We got a chance to talk to Bleu yesterday and learn a little bit about his journey from Morgan State to here. And I'm just curious, you what he's done this fall to carve out a spot in that linebacker run?
DL: Yeah, just work, just work every day. Come in here and take a step forward and get a little bit better and a little bit more. You know, early on we do a lot on that second ball, so you got to learn a lot. He's been a guy that's put in the time to learn a lot, and there's still a lot of room for improvement. But he's proven he can be a guy that can help us.
A player-led group
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Q: You've talked a lot about how this is very much a player-led team, one of the most player-led that you've had in your time here. Curious, what characteristics of leadership you've seen from the players, especially in a scrimmage as you have?
DL: We finish off with some conditioning, and normally the conditioning speaks for itself. Like it happens in practice, but a lot of times on Saturdays we'll add some additional conditioning because guys have a recovery day tomorrow. At the end, the guys are asking for more, right? I think that's a great example of guys saying, "Man, we just went through an entire scrimmage. My body's telling me no, right? But my, you know, my mind is telling me yay, right? You know the song, right? That's what these guys are doing. They're pushing for more, right? It's the other way around, obviously in the song, but you get the idea.
Schemes and more schemes
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Q: Coach Hampton said that early in spring or in fall practice, you guys throw a ton of scheme at these players to kind of see what sticks, and then pare it down as you realize what works. How valuable is the day like today in finding out what works?
DL: Yeah, today is not necessarily that day. The day is let's call stuff that we know our guys can execute, so we can figure out who's the guy that's best at blocking, who's the guy that's best at tackling, who's the guy best at breaking tackles. But now, what we will do is take what we have, figure out what fits our players best, and then find the tweaks that we can add and remove. You know, with us being able to do a lot in the offseason, these guys are light years ahead of what it used to look like. You know, four years ago, five years ago, when I first got here, so how much time you have, you know, take advantage of. Those guys have taken advantage of it, so there's not a lot that gets thrown in that's brand new. It's just a matter of, okay, can I get in the right play? If we have a check on it, if we can, I get in the right play, you know, with a certain tag that we might throw on a play on both sides of the ball, and then can I execute? So again, am I accountable, and am I capable of doing that?
Dylan Raiola's growth
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Q: Can you tell us how long the scrimmage was, play-wise or time-wise, and then secondly, Dylan Raiola said that things were a little shaky for him in the spring learning the system, but he felt like he learned a lot over the summer. It felt better. Did you see growth from him today?
DL: Yeah. And then I saw some moments that he can certainly get better. It's around 120-play scrimmage, maybe a little bit more or less based on special teams play as it plays out. But yeah, Dylan's gotten a lot better. He looks like a night-and-day different player from when he got here in the spring. That being said, there are moments already I know from today that I'm like, okay, this is something we got to improve, right? Something we have to attack, and that's the case for every single player on our team, right? Not just Dylan. Every single player has something that we can get better at, and if we execute at a higher level, we'll be performing really well.
Special teams progress
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Q: You mentioned some maybe shortcomings on special teams. Can you expand on that a little bit? And with these, was this an outlier day? Has it been clean? And today was maybe different.
DL: Yeah, just a small thing. We tested our guys today. We tried to kick a long field goal. We didn't make a long field goal. We had some poor kicks on kickoff. We have to we have to be able count those guys to have great kicks on kickoff. You know, punt locations. You know, we had some balls that were out of bounds. So in special teams, you get one play to be right, right, and they have to be right. So they weren't all right today, and really, it's no different than how you want a great offense or defense. But there are just limited opportunities. You're talking about somewhere between 14 to 20 percent of the game. When we do it, it has to look a certain way, and I think that could level up.
Scrimmage balancing act
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Q: How do you walk that line of trying to make things hard and intense on players in a scrimmage setting to try and see what they can handle, but also make sure that they're up to speed and that confidence is there?
DL: Yeah, you know, I think they generate the confidence by them doing their job, and when it happens, you have to celebrate it, right? And I think so often in coaching, a lot of times we point out the negative because that's the easy fix. But what you also have to do is point out when it's done right, and when it's done right, you have to celebrate it, like celebrate it like crazy, and you know lean into those moments, right? Because that's going to give you an opportunity for a guy to reflect and say, okay, what can I still improve?
Tackling, but staying healthy
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Q: You talked about wanting to see if guys tackle; can you break tackles? How do you balance that, keeping that physicality while also making sure that everybody stays healthy? Is there anything specific to make sure that you balance both of those?
DL: I mean, in football, you've got to play right a certain way. Now, to me, there's a limit on okay, how much live tackling do I need in this scrimmage? You know, we weren't doing live tackling the entire scrimmage today, but there has to be some of that that occurs. And then there's a level of player that's played a certain number of snaps where there's an expectation of what that looks like, but you can't go out and tiptoe in football and say, "Okay, we're going to be healthy, because that's actually when guys are going to get hurt. Is when you kind of try to say, "Oh, hey, keep yourself out of this pile. You just can't do that. You have to play football the way it's meant to be played.
But we do as good a job as anybody of protecting our players. Our players do a great job protecting their teammates. You know, we don't take cheap shots across the middle. We're not looking for highlight hits in practice, right? We're looking for guys that, hey, I see you, you see me. Who's going to win, right? And there's a little bit of a difference from that than just hitting somebody when they don't see you.
Improving the pass rush
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Q: I know you're probably not going to unleash the demons on your own quarterback, but Coach Hampton talked about the desire to improve the pass rush, only 30 sacks last year. Could you tell anything from today's scrimmage before you watch the film that you saw some elements of maybe an improved pass rush?
DL: We got to the quarterback a couple times a day. I think at times that's on our quarterback to make sure that they're getting out of the pocket. So it's like a double-edged sword for me, right? If you get a sack, then you're excited about the defense, but upset about the offensive line or the timing that the quarterback had. But we've had good rush. We've done some different drill work this year that we haven't done in the past. I think's improved that. We have some different stuff schematically. We brought in Coach Rip (Rowan) and Coach T (Tony Tuioti) and Coach (Kamran) Araghi. All those guys are working really hand in hand with making sure that we've got dynamic guys on the field that can impact the quarterback. But you also earn that opportunity by how you stop the run. So I'm seeing glimpses of that, you know, through fall camp, but we'll continue to look for that to improve.
Young guys
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Q: Today was the first chance to see some of these young guys in a scrimmage setting when they weren't here in spring. Manny (Immanuel Iheanacho) and Jalen (Lott), in particular. Just curious, kind of your thoughts on seeing them fly around in this kind of more game-like setting.
DL: Yeah, some of it's like deer in the headlights looks at times, and then some of it's like, okay, that's why we brought them here, right? So I think it's a combination of continuing to refine it for them, figure out what they're capable of doing, and making sure we're asking them to do that. But I think there are some flashes that you really saw that we got the right guys on this team.
Mixon the leader
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Q: Mixon, I imagine, is still someone you guys are trying on to maybe replace Bryce as a leader. Did you sort of see him today operate in a certain way that made you feel like he can be that guy in the middle?
DL: Well, none of it's based on just today, right? I've seen what Jerry's done throughout fall camp. I still would love to see and hear more of Jerry's voice. I think it carries a lot of weight with the players. That being said, you know he stepped up in that role. He's done a good job. I don't want him to come be Bryce. I want him to be the best version of Jerry, right? I want him to be the best version of him. And again, I'll have to go back and watch the film. You can't watch 22 players at one time, but Jerry's had a good fall camp.
Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.
This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Everything Dan Lanning said after Oregon's first fall scrimmage
Continue reading...
