Notable Quotes from Dan Lanning's Game Week Presser
Oregon Football head coach Dan Lanning held his first game week press conference of 2024 Monday.
Here I’ll highlight some of the most important and interesting questions and quotes from Lanning’s availability and give my thoughts at the end.
Opening Statement:
“We are finally here. I think as a coach you always enjoy all the time you have to prep and to get ready for games and get your team ready to go out there and play.“
“I think our guys are certainly excited and ready to go hit somebody else. Got a tremendous amount of respect for coach (Jason) Eck and the job he’s done there at Idaho.“
“He’s made them a really solid team and obviously a playoff team last year. They have some good stuff schematically that creates challenges for you.”
“Also really excited to see our fans on Saturday. They did an unbelievable job selling out the crowd, I think we’ll have awesome support.”
On who will start at center for the Ducks on Saturday:
“We’ll see on Saturday. There are a lot of guys I think can play winning football. For me it’s about how many guys can play winning football for us and you could see more than one guy in those situations.”
On separation between quarterbacks Dante Moore and Austin Novosad for the backup spot:
“I think both of those guys had really good fall camps and again I think we have multiple quarterbacks who can play winning football for us.”
On how he evaluates film after Idaho lost many players to the transfer portal following 2023:
“We do a deep dive, we watch a lot of different film. They have a kick returner who played at Weber State last year who’s been really good.”
“You go look at other guys and other places and what their film is like and how it matches up with your team.”
On the availabilities of Jahlil Florence, Dave Iuli, and Gary Bryant Jr. for Saturday:
“I don’t think Jahlil or Dave will be available. Gary I think could be available.”
On where he’s seen improvements from transfers and freshmen from the start of camp until now:
“Just execution. I think that’s always a bigger leap for guys coming from high school to college is the amount of stuff we ask these guys to absorb and do.”
“It doesn’t matter how good a football player you are if you aren’t going the right direction, running the right route, or doing the right assignment.”
“Being assignment-sound and playing relentlessly, that’s what we look for.”
Linden’s take:
I think the most important things to pay attention to from this session are injury updates and scouting of Idaho.
On the injury front, it wasn’t too surprising to hear that Dave Iuli and Jahlil Florence will be unavailable.
Lanning and staff have little to no reason to push players back into action before they’re ready given the scope of this week’s game.
Even though Lanning didn’t rule out Gary Bryant Jr. playing, I’d be pretty surprised if he did.
Oregon has more than enough depth to fill in for Bryant while he gets back to 100%.
As for kick coverage, my money says there’s some kind of internal incentive set up to avoid allowing a kick return touchdown from Idaho.
This would be an unfortunate way to allow points in the first game of the season and I’m sure Oregon is keenly aware of that.
