Dan Lanning excited to start game week preparation

Oregon goes into the 2023 season as one of a handful of Pac-12 teams entertaining thoughts of winning the conference and potentially reaching the College Football Playoff. Game week preparation has begun.

The Ducks will host Portland State on Sept. 2, a season opener that should give the program a good look at what it needs to work on still.

“We’re ready to hit another team,” coach Dan Lanning said. “It’s been a long time, going back to the very end of July to right now where you’re playing the same team every single day. There’s some challenges presented when you get to practice against something you haven’t seen every single day or play against something you haven’t seen.”

Training camp can be a grueling affair, and coming out of it often leads to teams being incredibly amped up going into a season opener. That can lead to problems if you’re not careful, though.

Particularly when you face a team without much to lose like Portland State.

Many times undermatched opponents like that will throw the kitchen sink at their opponent, busting out unconventional formations or packages to try to catch them off guard. It works particularly well in the season opener, when the other team is working off game tape almost entirely from a year ago. That’s why game week preparation is so important.

“There’s a lot we haven’t seen and we get to go out there for another opponent,” Lanning said. “But part of the fun in that is preparing for that. What do you think you might see? What do you think might show up? And then how do you prepare for that moment?”

Oregon has the luxury of having a veteran starting quarterback in Bo Nix. That certainly makes things a little easier. He should be able to produce some offense, even if a few of the looks catch him off guard.

It might be what happens on the other ball that is worth monitoring a little more closely.

What can Portland State conjure up to make things interesting?

For his part, Lanning just wants to see his team go out and prove that what they’ve been working on all of fall camp is taking root. He wants a clean performance, which will be enabled by quality game week preparation.

“It’s just crisp operation, right?” he said. “Like you can’t have the (missed assignments), you can’t have some critical mistakes where not everybody’s on the same page. If you have 11 people playing the wrong call but they’re all playing the same call you’ve got a chance. It’s the same on offense and defense. So we’ve got to be communicating really well going into Game 1.”

The two teams are slated for a 3 p.m. ET kickoff on Sept. 2, with a broadcast slated for the Pac-12 Network.