Everything Dan Lanning said on National Signing Day 2024

The Oregon Ducks were one of the big winners of the early 2024 signing period back in December when they flipped multiple blue-chip prospects and inked the No. 4 class in the nation.

In that sense, Feb. 7 was always going to be a relatively quiet afternoon for Dan Lanning and his staff as they had already signed 26 of their 27 commits coming into the week. On Wednesday, 5-star receiver Gatlin Bair made it official and signed a National Letter of Intent.

With NSD, essentially, in the books, Lanning spoke with the school’s radio crew — Jerry Allen and Joey McMurry — and shared his thoughts on the Ducks’ signing class and outlook for the upcoming season.

Here’s a full transcript of everything he said.

Is the hay in the barn coming into today?

Lanning: “Well, we started working on the next crop. The hay was in the barn for a lot of the class of 2024. But we got a good jump on 2025 and the future of our program.”

What are you looking for in a player when you are recruiting them?

Lanning: “I don’t care about stars. You have to check the box as a player first, as far as your skill set. Is it something that we can use to go win football games? And then I think that’s when the deeper dive in the work really starts. It’s evaluating character, evaluating the home life with you know, the program that these guys are coming up and where their ceiling might be comparative to where they’re at right now as a player, and then just making sure that they’re a great fit, you know, for for what we’re building here.”

How do players help with recruiting other players?

Lanning: “I think you know, our players are our best advocates, you know, when they’re able to speak about their experience here at Oregon, what it’s been like for them with the coaching staff and their dynamic is, you know. I think that’s when you get the truth, you know, the players are always going to tell the truth.”

What’s the process like building the culture here?

Lanning: “Yeah, it just starts one step at a time. And it’s it starts with surrounding yourself with great people. I’m really blessed to have unbelievable people in our organization, in every facet of our program, so those great people you know, do a great job of their job and identifying the people that can fit us and then you know, the players that I think they speak to the culture themselves.”

Is recruiting ever done?

Lanning: “I mean, you’ll still have your phone on you, and it’s still working. But, like Saturday and Sunday, we’re not coming to work Saturday or Sunday. Don’t look for us. We’re not going to be in this building. So we’re pretty excited about that.”

Talk a bit about what Eugene and Oregon mean to you

Lanning: “Yeah, I’m in love with this spot. It’s a great place. It’s the kind of place where you can accomplish all your goals. And it’s exciting the direction that it’s headed.”

How has the transfer portal changed recruiting?

Lanning:“It’s given an opportunity to add some great additions to your program. Some guys that you feel like again, can plug holes and be able to compete, and create the competition that I think everyone so desires to be the best version of themselves. So it’s been a great piece for us and I think it also speaks volumes about you know, what we’ve been able to do within our program as far as what we don’t lose to the portal. And we’re not losing guys because we have great relationships. And I think that that really matters.”

And you have some portal guys that can come make an impact right away

Lanning: “I mean that’s the goal. We want to build the roster from the ground up. We want to start with high school players that we think we can develop that can come make an impact. But at times you want to supplement that with the portal. I think we’ve done a good job of that.”

How do you feel about the changing landscape of the recruiting schedule

Lanning: “I think our staff has done a really good job of being, you know, malleable and adaptable in this process, because that’s what you have to be in college football. It’s probably going to continue to change and as it continues to change, we got to continue to adapt.”

What is your outlook on your 2024 roster?

Lanning: “I think you know, we gotta go play games and see how we play as a team, but we have a lot of talent on this roster. It is the most talented roster I’ve had since we’ve been here.”

How do you keep players from transferring?

Lanning: “Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to how you treat people and how you take care of the guys that you have on your roster. And we do that extremely well here.”

Is this a championship roster?

Lanning: “I think we’ve got a lot of work between now and then. Right? But I do think that we have the pieces to the puzzle that are gonna allow us to have a really good team and what that looks like you know, time will tell. It’s gonna be about our offseason work. You know, you don’t win a game on paper. You’ve got to go practice you got to become a team and that’s the process over the next few months for us is building a team.”

On the benefits of players enrolling early

Lanning: “Yeah, I mean, anytime you can get acclimated, get into the process, you know, start early as far as learning the substance of the playbook. And learning you know, what’s it like to be a college student all those things that it gets is really valuable time.”

What is the biggest adjustment for freshmen?

Lanning: “Well, just your schedule in general. It can be pretty taxing when it’s starting off with football in the morning and finishing the class in the afternoon and possibly having a meeting after night. So it becomes really important how you manage your time.”

What are the players doing now?

Lanning: “Yeah, they’re working. They’re working in the weight room. And you know, working in the classroom. So we’re doing team runs in the morning. Our strength staff do a really good job, Coach Wilson Love and his staff’s done a really good job of getting these prep, you know, go through different phases in the weight room and right now it’s about building some bulk and getting stronger in that weight room and our guys are doing a good job of that.”

On the changes that Oregon’s move to the Big Ten present

Lanning: “Yeah, the process is really the same for us as a coaching staff. We’re kind of, at this point you haven’t had a chance to really go back and revisit what happened within the season. So we’re evaluating us first. It’ll start with where can we get better? Where can we improve what we do really well? What do we not do so well? And then attack that and then we’ll probably get with some staffs and try to plug some ideas that we think might fit and then starting to deep dive a study of what we’re going to be facing moving forward and what those teams look like.”