Dan Lanning unfazed by preseason hype for Oregon: 'A lot of things that don't matter'

The US LBM Coaches Poll was released on Monday, and Oregon and coach Dan Lanning checked in at No. 3 overall as they enter the Big Ten thanks to conference realignment.

That’s just a number to Lanning, though.

He downplayed the importance of being ranked that high to open the season while speaking on the Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday afternoon.

“You said it, testament to a lot of things that don’t matter, right?” Dan Lanning said of the ranking. “Got to go play the games on Saturday, so try to ignore the outside noise.”

Regardless, expectations are high for Oregon entering Year 1 in the Big Ten. The program landed a game-changing commitment from Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel out of the transfer portal, to go along with a lot of the home-grown talent Lanning has recruited.

That gives the Ducks the potential to be downright explosive this fall.

While Oregon figures to have plenty of answers, it’ll also encounter some new things in its foray into the new league. Dan Lanning said figuring those wrinkles out will be paramount.

“That’s part of what we’ve got to figure out,” he said. “I’m excited to see this conference, the Big Ten is something I have a ton of respect for. There’s some teams that I haven’t got to go against before in my career, so excited to see what those look like. But part of it is going to be learning on the go, especially in Year 1 for us.”

The learning curve might not quite entail things on the field, either. There are a lot of factors that go into traveling to different venues and there’s no doubt having prior experience can help.

To that end, Oregon will likely be asking around to figure out best practices for each location it travels to. Then Dan Lanning and the Ducks will re-evaluate after the season.

“As we travel to a new venue, do we like the hotel we’re in?” Lanning said. “How was the travel to that event? Were we able to get close enough to be efficient with our time? So we’re going to be doing a lot of self-scout and eval as the season goes on and be able to be adaptable as we take the punches and start to throw some.”

Bottom line: Oregon has a whole lot to focus on and almost none of it is the current preseason hype the team is getting. That’s what Dan Lanning is underscoring as fall camp continues.