Dan Lanning further explains inflatable duck at Big Ten Media Day

Dan Lanning credited the marketing department at Oregon for the giant inflatable duck that perused around Big Ten Media Days.

In case you didn’t see, it was a larger than life duck that had to be stories high. It was floating in the White River in downtown Indianapolis, towering over a bridge.

Lanning wished he could bring it everywhere, but said his program had to make a splash in a new conference.

“Yeah, it’s not gonna fit on the plane,” Lanning said. “I don’t know how you build that thing.”

But if any department can make it happen, the marketing team can. Lanning is a big fan of Oregons innovation after all.

“I’ve said it a few times, but it’s kind of like the first day of school, you don’t want to just walk in with new shoes, right,” Lanning said. “We certainly want to come in and make a splash and I think our marketing team does an unbelievable job of making sure that Oregon’s recognized nationally. They’ve always done a good job from a branding standpoint.

”But we have to go out there and win games that has very little to do with that but it creates excitement for our fans and certainly excitement for the Big Ten and Oregon joining that.”

And given the success for the Ducks this century, the move to the Big Ten this upcoming season and the way Lanning has supercharged recruiting since becoming the head coach, he could’ve taken the answer in a number of directions. He chose a forward looking one, instead, calling the Ducks an innovative program.

“When I think of Oregon, and before I ever took this job, you know, outside looking in, you see a place that’s innovative,” Lanning said. “And that’s really kind of been the mantra this program, you know, especially for the last 25 years of, ‘How can we be on the cutting edge? How can we do what other people don’t do better? How can we be different?’”

Lanning goes into Year 3 at Oregon this fall with a 22-5 record. The team finished No. 6 overall in the AP Poll with a Fiesta Bowl win.

“I feel indebted to this program and the people that support this program that I want to be able to get down and create here,” Lanning said as to why Oregon is home. “So I never like leaving a place where I feel like there’s more left on the table and there’s a lot left on the table here at Oregon.”