Dan Lanning reveals what changed when Oregon moved from Pac-12 to Big Ten

Oregon flirted with its first conference championship since 2020 last year. The Ducks are already doing the same this year, except they’re in a different league, of course. Like USC, UCLA and Washington, Oregon waved goodbye to the now-practically-extinct Pac-12 and said hello to the Big Ten this offseason.

Fast-rising Oregon head coach Dan Lanning joined “The Triple Option” podcast — hosted by former NFL and Alabama running back Mark Ingram II, longtime commentator Rob Stone and three-time national champion head coach Urban Meyer — Wednesday and discussed the Pac-12-to-Big Ten transition.

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“A couple small changes, nothing huge,” Lanning said. “I still think winning football’s winning football, regardless of what conference you’re in, and when you want to play where we want to play at the end of the year, it’s going to take big teams up front. You have to win in the trenches. You have to have great skill outside, and you have to play as a team. You have to be playing disciplined football. That certainly exists in the Big Ten. That’s something I’m excited about, the traditions there.”

Lanning added: “I do think it opens up our footprint for recruiting. There’s some places that we weren’t playing before and that we’re playing games now — that’s going to create some opportunities for us to be able to go attack, so I’m certainly excited about that.”

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Oregon currently has the seventh-ranked recruiting class in the 2025 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, but the average prospect rating of the Ducks’ 15 commits is 91.93, which is good for second in the country. Of Oregon’s 15 commits, 13 are four or five-star prospects, according to the On3 Industry Ranking.

Plus, to Lanning’s point, Oregon’s 2025 recruiting class currently includes commits from Big Ten territory, such as safety Trey McNutt (Shaker Heights, Ohio), cornerback Brandon Finney (Owings Mills, Maryland) and running back Dierre Hill (Belleville, Illinois).

Lanning also noted that, while the program already scheduled its non-conference games for the near future, he can see the Ducks scheduling non-conference games closer to home in the far future, given how much they’ll have to travel for league play.

On that subject, Lanning was asked about the distance his team has to cover this season. Ingram threw out the number 2,300, when referencing the milage total for the Ducks’ average round trip this season, although a study from bookies.com earlier this summer tracked Oregon’s average round trip at 2,504.72 miles for its five road games in 2024.

The point is, Oregon has to travel a long way in its new conference, much further than it had to in the Pac-12, and this is a year in which the Ducks’ road games are against their closer Big Ten foes, minus the trip to Michigan.

“Well, if you walk into our locker room, Mark, you’re not going to see a lot of guys from Oregon,” Lanning said. “So everybody was always traveling to come play here. And to be honest, I mean, we traveled to Texas Tech last year. We had some long trips. I don’t think the game’s that different. … I’m shocked to hear it being 2,300 miles, I honestly didn’t know that.

“You know, the reality is, we go to Wisconsin, we go to Purdue, we go to Michigan. Those are our long road trips. For the most part, we’re still going to be playing a kind of relatively close schedule. We go to L.A., we went to L.A. before. … So does a lot change? No. The one thing I did do is visit with some NFL staffs about when you’re traveling multiple time zones. OK, do we want to travel a day earlier? Do we want to make that look a little different? But I don’t think it’s going to be huge. It’s different in football. Now other sports, I think it’s a big deal, right? But, you know, for us, I don’t think it’s going to be drastically different.”

Lanning said Oregon will, in fact, fly a day earlier for some of its road trips this season. That’s one of the logistic adjustments the Ducks are making post-realignment.

As far as game philosophy goes, Lanning isn’t changing much. It helps that he’s got a roster capable of winning the league right away.