Bo Nix credits Dan Lanning for work he did in 2023 season

Bo Nix saved his best season of college football for his last. But he couldn’t do it alone.

According to the Ducks’ signal caller, Oregon head coach Dan Lanning was the cause of their team’s success in 2023. In fact, Nix says the success comes from every inch of the program.

“I played good football this year because of the opportunity and the situation that I was in,” Nix said after winning the Fiesta Bowl. “It wasn’t difficult to go out there and play with the guys that I was around. Coach [Dan] Lanning can say what he wants, but a lot of it is because of him that we were in the situation we were in. He coaches us extremely hard, and he gets the best out of us. That’s what you want out of a head coach.

“His humility is going to give it to the players, but we wouldn’t be here without him and his leadership. I’ve learned so much from him over my time, over two years. Like I said, I wouldn’t be here without him and the coaches that he’s put around us as players. As a team, I felt like we set the bar really high. We had a standard, and we just wanted to go out there and match it every Saturday.”

As Lanning infamously said before beating the ability to win out of Colorado — Oregon was never fighting for clicks, they’re fighting for wins. If a couple plays bounced the Ducks way instead of Washington‘s during the only two losses Oregon faced all season, it could have been the Ducks that await Michigan in the College Football Playoff Championship game.

Nix and company aren’t living in the past, however. He has to be content with his collegiate career as his eligibility has been used up and is head to the NFL Draft this April.

He’ll go down as one of the most prolific quarterbacks in college football history. This season alone he passed for 4,508 yards to go with 45 touchdown passes compared to just three interceptions.

In five total seasons in college, including three at Auburn and the final two in Eugene, he compiled 1,286 completions in 1,936 attempts (66.4 percent) for 15,352 total yards and 113 touchdown passes. He’s also a 1,000-yard rusher in his career, putting up 38 additional touchdowns on the ground including 20 over the past two seasons.