Dan Lanning takes ‘100-percent’ blame for loss vs. Washington

Dan Lanning wasn’t pointing fingers following Oregon’s 36-33 loss to Washington on Saturday. Instead, the Ducks’ head coach accepted full responsibly for the team’s shortcoming.

“Both our coordinators prepared our guys to executed well. I think this game is 100% on me,” Lanning said. “I don’t think you guys got to look anywhere else besides me. I think everyone of us can look at the decisions that were made today.

“If you could make some of those decisions different — if you kicked the field goal before the half, if you kicked the field goal somewhere else — that game could’ve been a different result. You never know how the rest of the game is going to play out, so you make those decisions based on the information that you have.”

Lanning was forced to make a few difficult decisions on Saturday. Perhaps his most controversial decision came with 2:11 remaining in the fourth quarter when Oregon went for it on fourth and three on Washington’s 47-yard line.

Oregon quarterback Bo Nix dropped back and looked to wide receiver Tez Johnson. Load. Fire. Incomplete. Just two plays later, Washington took a commanding 36-33 lead with just under two minutes left in the game.

Dan Lanning looks back on more than one play

The decision wasn’t Lanning’s only questionable call. Oregon turned the ball over on downs two other times in the loss. The pivotal moments are obvious in box score. Oregon recorded more total yards, first downs, less turnovers and a higher offensive efficiency than the Huskies.

Nonetheless, the Ducks flew away with nothing but defeat. Lanning was the first to admit he isn’t above critique.

“I’ll always go back and evaluate myself and say, ‘OK, what can I do different?’” Lanning said. “That being said, from a probability standpoint, how we felt about looks that we were getting, we felt like we had a chance to have success and both situations — really all of the situations today where we went for it on fourth. We had an opportunity to call timeout if we didn’t like what we saw.

“There was some confusion on the last play that was handed off. We actually had a check that didn’t get checked or executed properly. So didn’t get that mastered. But I’ll certainly go back and evaluate myself. It’s about adapting. The game is about adapting and figuring out where you can be better. You take one of those field goals early on and we are looking at probably a little bit different situation.”