Dan Lanning Gives Final Updates Ahead of No. 1 Oregon vs. Wisconsin

Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning met with reporters in Eugene following Wednesday’s practice to give his final updates ahead of a Saturday showdown with the Wisconsin Badgers in Madison.

Below you’ll find a full transcription of his press conference, along with video.

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Opening statement: “Good day today. Yeah good Wednesday. Let’s open it up.”

On why it’s important to him to be creative when providing motivation

Lanning: “The mundane is really important in our sport. You have to be able to do the simple things consistently over and over and over again. I think the challenge for you as a coach is how can you make mundane interesting. How can you continue to say we’re gonna push and do the stuff that’s really simple, but keep it fresh for our players? So that’s always our challenge.”

On coaches he’s studied with regard to his motivation techniques

Lanning: “Anything and everything. We’ll pull from anywhere, anything we see, try to use that as motivation.”

On how the attention to detail has been this week

Lanning: “Today’s Wednesday practice was much better than last Wednesday. But still plenty of room for growth.”

On Matayo Uiagalelei’s impact

Lanning: “He’s an impactful player. I had high expectations for him when he got here and he’s exceeded those expectations with the way he’s worked. It’s a really good room that outside linebacker room. He’s certainly a big part of that.”

On where he’s seen growth on offense and defense during eight-game stretch

Lanning: “Just playing as a team. UNiquely playing as a team. I think there’s been a lot of growth in those moments of having each other’s six, having each other’s back in moments. I think that’s shown up consistently whether it’s the offense bailing out the defense or the defense bailing out the offense or special teams coming up with a big play. And really focusing on the next play.”

On what makes Matayo Uiagalelei such a force, how he’d describe his ceiling

Lanning: “He’s unbelievably talented. It starts there. And I think that room’s really well-coached, but he works really hard to take the details and execute ’em. He has a plan. Our entire front has a rush plan every single week and part of it’s how do we attack it? Number one sack-getter in any league, in any division of football is effort. So you have to have maximum effort every rush ’cause there’s always somebody drawn up to block you. You have to beat that block.”

On if penalties have been cleaner in practice this week

Lanning: “We had five today. We had 13 last Wednesday, so it was cleaner. But it could still be cleaner than it is.”

On how the secondary has been handling penalty issue

Lanning: “They’ve been wearing boxing gloves all week. That’s helped.”

On Jordan James and Jordan Burch

Lanning: “Just continuing to evaluate ’em to see if they’re available. We’ve had those guys out there helping us. So we’ll see what it looks like.”

On what stands out about #94 Elijah Hills

Lanning: “Twitch. He’s got great twitch. And I think again a lot of their production from their defense, it’s hand-in-hand, it works together. Their coverage allows them to get pressure up front and they have some guys that do really good in pick games up front.”

On getting Bryce Boettcher to stop hitting after the whistle

Lanning: “There’s a field goal post on the far far end of the practice fields and he would run around it. Consistently.”

On if he’s been to Madison before

Lanning: “I haven’t.”