Dan Lanning reveals what Oregon freshmen must do to have early impact

As Fall Camp continues, teams are getting a good look at all of the freshmen who will be on the roster this season. A lot of freshmen are going to take time to develop, but others will be ready to play this season. Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning knows that it isn’t easy for those freshmen, though.

As Lanning explained, one of the biggest challenges for young players to overcome is the mental side of the game. In particular, moving on from mistakes.

“A lot of it starts with just hitting the reset button and not letting one mistake be the next mistake and the mistake after,” Dan Lanning said. “You’re gonna make some mistakes, especially early, but being able to hit the reset button and keep going on.”

Lanning emphasized that because of team depth and an improved practice format, young players will be ready to go sooner.

“One thing that’s distinctly different this Fall compared to last Fall is we didn’t have the bodies to even go two-spot practice, right, we had to go seven-on-seven on one field and team 11-on-11 practice on the other field. We have that now, we have a deeper team, we have more players who can play and are available. So, that’s allowing those younger players to develop quicker.”

Later, Dan Lanning was asked by the media scrum to share the traits that a true freshman corner would need to show him to see the field in a significant role.

“Yeah, perform at a high level,” Lanning said. “You could put a lot of different things on it — perform at a high level. What’s important to corner? You’ve got to be able to defend the ball. Play it when it’s in the air. Stay on top. Make tackles, right, make plays, but that’s really at any position. The level’s not based on if you’re a freshman or a senior. It’s based on your level of performance. If you perform at a high enough level, you’ll play.

In the 2023 cycle, Oregon brought in a ton of young talent. That includes Matayo Uiagalelei, a defensive lineman who was the top recruit in the class. Meanwhile, Cole Martin had a breakout spring game performance in the secondary.

Dan Lanning shares how he utilizes SWOT analysis

One of the tools that Dan Lanning uses to improve is SWOT analysis.

“It’s really just going through your strengths, weaknesses, right? What are the obstacles in front of you? And what are those threats?” Lanning said.

A SWOT analysis is often utilized in business, more so than in sports. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and the Ducks are using it to figure out where they stand.

“That was really an offseason study. But I would you could argue that we do a SWOT analysis every day after practice, too. So we’re going to go in here and watch this last practice, figure out what we did well [and] figure out what we didn’t do well enough.”