Everything Dan Lanning said following Oregon's loss to Washington

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning met with reporters following the Ducks’ season-defining loss to Washington.

Here’s a full transcript of everything he said, and a video of his full press conference.

Opening Statement

“Our guys played the entire game, they certainly didn’t quit, they didn’t throw in the towel. You have to give Washington credit; they played a complete game and we made more mistakes at the end of the game that hurt us. This game 100% falls on me. Our players gave a phenomenal effort and I thought we shot ourselves in the foot a few times in the first half and were able to move the ball much better in the second half. That being said, we weren’t able to get a stop defensively. Things we have to attack going forward.”

On what a head coach says to a defensive coordinator that allowed 400 yards

“They’d watch the film, and they’d try to figure out why and then they’d establish a plan of attack to move forward.”

On the message after the game

“The message was ‘I love this team.’ We didn’t finish this game the way we wanted but we’ve been a connected team all year and that doesn’t change because of this result. My love is not based on the result of this game. I love that locker room, I’m proud of that locker room. We didn’t play the way we wanted to play and that really falls on me.”

On the illegal touching penalty

“I was told the guy went out of bounds. I’m anxious to hear more of an explanation, but just that he went out of bounds and came back and touched the ball.”

On second-guessing fourth-down decisions

“We’ve sat in this room and talked about when they worked out and now we’re sitting in this room talking about when they didn’t. The onside (kick), that was my decision. The guy moved a little bit and it wasn’t there, we thought it was there earlier in prep. Then on fourth down we fall and slip, it’s going to be hard to convert in that situation. You can look back and say ‘we should punt there’ but you also feel that if you get that first down, you probably have a chance to go win the game.”

On what went into the fourth down decision 

“We were able to run the ball there in the second half, I don’t know that they stopped us much there, that’s probably the only negative play of the entire second half in the run game. We felt like we were going to fall forward. We’ve been a team that can get a yard or two yards consistently this year and we didn’t get it done there.”

On if he’d kick the field goal had Nix not gotten injured

“To be determined. We had a play ready that we felt like we liked, certainly felt like we could potentially go win the game. When that situation changed, that changed our approach.”

On third down defensive struggles

“We missed some layups early, you know I think we had a free runner on the very first third down; he scrambled, you have to make that play when you have the opportunity. It was a bang-bang play there at the end on the long touchdown. We had a guy that looked like he was right there, didn’t make a play on the ball, we’ve got to get better at playing the ball in that situation. I don’t think it’s one thing here or there, just some moments we have to go and evaluate.”

On halftime protection adjustments 

“Establishing the run game in the second half probably created a little bit more time there.”

On Bo Nix’s status and the decision to bring him back

“We’re always going to think about our players’ health first. At that moment we felt like he wasn’t able to go and wanted to get him evaluated to see where things were actually at with him. He came back and said ‘coach, I feel like I can go,’ I asked if he was sure, the medical staff said he was good, so we went back with him.”

On moving on from the defeat

“We’ve got a tight locker room. I think our players recognize that and this won’t change their approach.”

On considering calling a timeout to get the early jump ball looked at

“There was a thought. At the end of the day, a tie is going to go to the offense when both teams show possession of the ball, so we felt pretty confident it would end up being the same result.”

On correcting repetitive defensive issues

“We’ll have to go look. You’re playing with the same group, you’re playing with the same scheme. At times you have to figure out what you can do better. Obviously we can still get better there.”

On the long drive and high snap

“We were in a good sequence, we had a good rhythm going. That’s going to happen at times, but that’s no excuse. Our guys had confidence going into that drive and obviously did a great job in that series. If you go back and look at this game, you’re going to see a multitude of times that we really just stopped ourselves and weren’t necessarily stopped.”