university of oregon ducks football dan lanning

Alright, let’s get this out of the way: The Rose Bowl absolutely sucked for Oregon fans. We now must know what Florida State felt like a decade earlier.

It also doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to figure out that the difference in the game was coaching. This is not a matter of talent disparity, like it may have been in the past. Oregon’s players were up to par with Ohio State’s.

But the Buckeye’s coaching staff took Oregon’s to the woodshed on that sunny New Year’s Day in Pasadena. They were completely prepared. They made all the necessary adjustments. They capitalized on what Penn State did successfully.

It was an embarrassment, and a double one for yours truly, who crowed the week prior about how Oregon had just as much of a chance to advance as Ohio State did.

Wrong. They didn’t. They had no chance.

Ohio State was just too well-prepared and the Ducks ashamedly under-prepared.

Emotions run high after something like that for those of us who bleed Green and Yellow, and rightfully so. But let’s not let emotions ruin what I believe is a fact: Dan Lanning is the guy for Oregon.

All week I’ve been astounded at the number of Oregon fans calling for Dan and his staff’s heads. Can we please just take a second and look at the entire picture?

Yes, the coaching job in the Rose Bowl was inexcusable and humiliating. It was also one game.

This season was not a failure.

2016, a 4-8 season highlighted by the worst loss in Autzen Stadium history ( you know which one I mean), was indeed a failure.

13-1, a conference championship, and a Playoff Berth is not a failure for a third year coach who is 38-years-old. To think so is just nonsense.

Lanning had never even been a head coach before. The team he inherited was reeling from an embarrassing end to 2021, which included three blowout losses and their head coach marching off into the Miami sunset.

Lanning guided that team to a 10-3 record and a Holiday Bowl victory. The following year he went 11-2 and won the Fiesta Bowl. 10-3, 11-2, 13-1. See a pattern here?

He also hasn’t failed to bring in a Top 10 recruiting class since he arrived. When Alabama came knocking, Lanning said the grass was damn green in Eugene. When NFL rumors started swirling, Lanning said publicly he wasn’t interested.

The guy wants to be here. And after one terrible game, we should still want him to be here too.

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

It stinks to think you can win the National Title and then be proved wrong in beat-down fashion. But you think Lanning won’t keep Oregon in contention moving forward? Pretty hard to say he won’t.

Teams that have come back from disastrous single games to have incredible success? Too many to name. For me, the 2009 LA Lakers, 2019 Virginia Cavaliers (basketball), 2015 Denver Broncos, and 2022 Kansas City Chiefs all stick out. So do the 2009 Oregon Ducks…in the same season.

Also take this little bit of math into consideration: if Lanning coached for 13 more seasons, he would STILL be younger than Nick Saban was when he won his very first National Championship.

There’s definitely things to fix, and accountability to be had.

Lanning’s quote after the game when he said it wasn’t Oregon’s day, just like it wasn’t Ohio State’s day against Michigan, was perceived by some as a bitter post-game dig.

I don’t think so.

I think he was pointing out that Michigan had NO business winning that game, and that if they played nine more times, they may well lose all nine.

If Oregon played Ohio State ten times this year, which of the two games would probably be the most likely to happen each time; October 12th, or January 1st?

We all know the answer to that.