Dan Lanning Talks Execution, Development Post-Scrimmage

Oregon Football held the second scrimmage of its 2024 fall camp on a rainy Saturday in Eugene.

After, coach Dan Lanning met with media to field questions and discuss what he saw.

Below are notable questions and quotes from Lanning’s media availability as well as my thoughts at the end.

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Opening Statement:

“Still gotta watch the film but overall I thought it was a really good, competitive scrimmage with our guys. Lots of back and forth, some wins on both sides of the ball which is what you want in this situation.”

“Looks much cleaner than last week operationally. Thought guys did a good job of showing great effort and running to the ball, taking care of the ball. We did have a couple takeaways, obviously that’s an area for improvement.”

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On who recorded the two takeaways:

“Brandon Johnson had a takeaway, Dontae Manning had a takeaway.”

On the development of explosive plays:

“More than anything it’s how you play without the ball. When you’re the guy who doesn’t have the ball, are you blocking downfield? Are you creating those opportunities?”

On operational efficiency (penalties, pre-snap, motion, etc.):

“We still had some. We still had more penalties than I want to see but huddle break operation, how quickly we can get to the line of scrimmage and execute a play, a lot of that was cleaner.”

On the importance of scrimmages for freshman and newcomers:

“I think today was extremely important. As far as laying out what the season looks like I don’t think it matters that much because there’s a long, long season and we have to continue to develop players within our program.”

“We gotta figure out who can play football quickly, I think today gives us a great idea of where that’s at and then who we have to develop to get us where we need to be.”

On what he’s seen from guard Nishad Strother:

“That’s part of that competitive depth that we talk about. Nishad’s worked his tail off to put himself in position to help us along with some other guys on that interior line.”

On cornerback Jahlil Florence‘s injury recovery:

“He’s not there yet. Still conservative on what we’re letting him do. Right now he’s not available.”

On transitioning from fall camp into game prep/practice:

“These next three days will still be really working on us. As we get into the weekend we’ll start working more specifically on game one.”

On excitement building amongst players for the season:

“I think they know how much time is left until game one but what we try to do is focus on the day that we’re on.”

On improvements from quarterbacks between Oregon’s first and second fall scrimmages:

“Yeah I’ll need to go watch film to see what it looked like but there were certainly some positives out there today.”

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Linden’s take:

I can’t say there was much that surprised me in this interview.

The biggest things I got from it were the takeaways, operational improvements, and development of newer and younger players.

It was nice to hear that transfer Brandon Johnson is making an impact in Oregon’s secondary as he’ll likely be a critical piece to the Ducks’ pass defense this fall.

Dontae Manning recording a takeaway also bodes well for his senior season as he’s been a consistent rotation player for Oregon but never truly broken out.

Perhaps this is the year that changes.

One would expect crisper execution as far as play-calls and getting set now that fall camp is around its midway point and it sounds like this is happening.

Oregon Football has never had much issue with this under Lanning and I don’t expect that to change this season.

As always, fall camp and practice in general are essential for developing younger players and preparing them to see the field.

My impression has been that the level of depth Oregon Football possesses this season has shown up in contributions from freshmen and sophomores thus far.

Players on the lines of scrimmage as well as in the secondary will need to be ready as the Ducks prepare to take on what could be as long as a 16-game season.

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