Dan Lanning on long layoff between games for Oregon: 'I think that's an excuse'

Byes have not necessarily been beneficial to the three teams in the playoff who have played so far as they’ve all been eliminated. However, as for No. 1 Oregon, using that as any reason to explain their exit is an excuse to Dan Lanning.

Lanning answered a question about the effect of the bye on the Ducks’ performance following their 41-21 loss to No. 8 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl for their quarterfinal in the College Football Playoff. He thinks that would be a bad reasoning for their loss as his team had been practicing and preparing well over their time off in between. It was just that, in the end, the Buckeyes were even better prepared.

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“Yeah, I think that’s an excuse,” Lanning said postgame.

“You know, um, I thought our guys prepared well going in. Obviously, they had a better plan than us, um, but that’s an excuse. You know, that’s an opportunity that we had to recharge,” Lanning continued. “I thought our guys did practice well, you know. I’d tell you if that wasn’t the case. You know, I thought they had great focus. I just don’t think our plan was good enough and I think they had a great plan to attack us so credit to those guys”

Oregon hadn’t taken the field in three and a half weeks since winning the Big Ten Championship on December 7th. That victory moved them to 13-0 overall and earned them the No. 1 seed in the CFP, which earned them that bye ahead of their bowl in Pasadena.

However, the Ducks did start about as poorly as they could have in this coming off that time off. The Buckeyes were blowing them out at 34-0 before they finally scored in the very final seconds of the first half.

In that half, though, Ohio State had all four of their touchdown drives take three plays or less to find the end zone while Oregon had five three-and-outs and a turnover on downs. The Ducks closed that gap to an extent in the second half at 14-7 but the final margin at the end was still one of 20 points.

It’s worth noting since No. 3 Boise State and No. 4 Arizona State also lost with all of the higher-seeded teams with byes now out besides No. 2 Georgia who has yet to play. Yet the Broncos and Sun Devils were also less favored in their matchups, though, against their at-large opponents in Texas and Penn State respectively.

Still, Lanning isn’t absolving themselves from what happened just because of the bye. It didn’t go their way for a lot of reasons but with that time off not being one of them for him.