Dan Lanning goes in depth on Oregon facing a familiar Georgia team in Week 1

The Oregon and Georgia offenses might know a thing or two to expect from each other’s defenses during this Saturday’s bout between the Ducks and Dawgs. You know, considering that new Oregon coach Dan Lanning was Kirby Smart’s defensive coordinator and mastermind behind last year’s historic defensive unit.

While Lanning doesn’t want the story of him vs. his old team to dominate the game, he admits there are some emotions behind having your first game as a head coach come against the guy you just coached under and won a national title with. Lanning expressed as much in a press conference ahead of this weekend’s game:

“Yeah I think a lot of people would sit here and say it’s not about that. Very similar to what I said about. There’s definitely some feelings of excitement for me to go play a team that I care about and was a big part of for a long time. But that’s not the focus, you know. It’s my job, just like it’s the players’ job to to focus on the task at hand. I’m excited to go play a familiar team. There’s certainly some advantages to that. But they have those same advantages.”

Then Lanning was asked if each team will have an “intimate” knowledge of what the other plans to do considering the relationship between the coaches. He answered that perhaps yes, on defense, there will be.

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“Yeah, I mean the biggest carryover is going to be that I probably have a good feel for what they’re going to do defensively and how they’re going to do things defensively. And on the same note, they probably have a good feel of how we’re going to do things defensively, right.”

But at the end of the day, the two coaches will stay on the sidelines while the players decide everything.

“You know, Kirby Smart’s not going to play a single snap on Saturday and neither is Dan Lanning. So it doesn’t really matter what I know. It matters what my players know and what they can execute. And sometimes, coaches try to get too cute.

“It’s going to come down to takeaways. It’s going to come down to explosive plays. Who can out-hit who can out-hustle, who can tackle on the perimeter. You know, that’s what this game is really about. And certainly there’s some going to be a schematic advantage on both sides at times. But that’s not ultimately what it’s about. It’s about who can put their players in position to make plays.”

Sure, the storyline of Dan Lanning v. Kirby Smart is intriguing, but ultimately, the players won’t remember a word about it once they take the field.