Oregon Ducks College Football Pregame Quote, 11/11/2024

Opening statement:

Lanning: “I want to start off by acknowledging a legend passing in the game, and always sad to see somebody leave that meant so much to our sport in John Robinson. Want to recognize him, obviously, legendary coach, but got his start right here with the ducks. And thinking about him and his family, our entire organization are tonight. Also want to acknowledge I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it’s Veterans Day and how grateful we are for the people that serve this country. And you know, with that being said, exciting weekend for the Ducks; basketball off to a hot start did really well this weekend. And obviously our football game, we learned a lot of great things from that, but we can open it up to talk about Wisconsin.”

Q: What do you think of the job Luke Fickell has done at Wisconsin?

Lanning: “Yeah, I think Coach Fickell’s a great coach. Actually had to play against him when I was at Georgia, and he was at Cincinnati in the Peach Bowl, and he had a really, really good team there. I think he’s proven that he can develop teams. We came down to a field goal barely to be able to win it, and it speaks just to the kind of culture he can create. And you see pieces of that coming together for him now at Wisconsin. I think he’s doing a good job.”

Q: Your thoughts on Wisconsin QB Braedyn Locke?

Lanning: “Yeah, has the ability, you know, to make you hurt. I mean, he’s a good football player, and it’s all based on opportunities and what that looks like. But certainly has that ability.”

Q: What have you seen from Wisconsin’s offensive line this year?

Lanning: “I mean, they’re big, right? It’s one of those ones where you look at them and you say, ‘Okay, that’s what an offensive line is supposed to look like.’ That great size up front. They have the ability to move you, you know. But when you look at it, you’re like, ‘Okay, that’s what a Wisconsin offensive line looks like.'”

Q: Why do teams steer away from Wisconsin DB Ricardo Hallman? And how confident are you to use your passing game?

Lanning: “Yeah, I think that that’s probably smart, right, as a football coach, not to throw a guy that’s gonna make a lot of plays at the ball. Meanwhile, how many picks did he have last year? Seven? You know, guy had seven picks last year. And, you know, why not throw the other direction? That makes a little bit of sense, that being said, you know, I think it’s much more challenging for a defense whenever you can work the entire field, but there’s a reason people aren’t testing him, because he’s a talented player.”

Q: What did you see from the film on the penalties? And how did your team respond today at practice?

Lanning: “They responded well, and yes, some of them were warranted, for sure, and I wouldn’t say that there was, like, egregious ones that were missed. There’s reasons. So we can improve in our technique. There’s execution we can do better. And you know, again, on Wednesday last week, we had some in practice, so that usually shows up in the game, so we have to do a good job of addressing it, making sure we eliminate them.”

Q: What do you make of Wisconsin’s safety duo?

Lanning: “Well, they’re good tacklers. They do a great job disguising coverage, and they have some good mix ups there. But, yeah, I think this is one of the more talented secondaries that we’ve seen. I think they play really well together. Understand how to handle adjustments, which I think is always important in football. You see that show up with them.”

Q: What do you see from their running back, Tawee Walker?

Lanning: “I don’t know if he reminds [me] of anyone, but, I mean, just plays a level of toughness and effort. I mean, I think those things show up on film. You know, how hard you play, I think speaks to, you know, how much you appreciate your teammates, and you know that certainly shows up with those guys.”

Q: What was your assessment of how Dave Iuli and Kawika Rogers performed?

Lanning: “I think they both had different strengths and weaknesses within the game. Both, I think, played winning football where you have the ability to have success with them on the field, which is great to see them prove that. I think both are in the opportunity to be able to see what that looks like in the future.”

Q: What were some of the things that showed up from this past weekend on film?

Lanning: “I won’t get into, like, great specifics, but I think just technique and this part of the season, a lot of places you’ll trim down and eliminate, individual time to work on fundamentals and technique. And the reality is, this is when it matters the most, right? So we have to be fundamental, you know, sound in the scheme, but just as important, how you disengage off a block matters, how you play slot cover matters, how you tackle matters. And I think some of those things showed up for us that we could do better.”

Q: What could Daylen Austin done differently on that roughing the kicker penalty?

Lanning: ” mean, when they’re in the pocket, which is the question there is, like, is he in the pocket? They’re protected, right? So we’ve actually shown a clip before. A couple years ago, Missouri, Auburn, played the ball snapped over the head, the balls picked up and kicked, and the guy’s still within the tackle box, so he’s protected. And the guy hits the punter. It’s a very similar situation we’ve shown. It’s one of those ones that you talk about. But I don’t know that we emphasize that enough as coaches, but ultimately say, go for the ball in that situation. Daylen was close enough to make a play. You know, coaching point is to go for the ball. Can understand his confusion at that moment, and if he’s just a foot left, you know, we’re probably not even talking about it, and it looks like a completely different play.”

Q: Any update on Tez Johnson?

Lanning: “He’s doing well. Continue to evaluate where he’s at, you know, for us, but doing well.”

Q: Any updates on Jordan James and Jordan Burch?

Lanning: “Continue to evaluate, get those guys back. Right now, early in the week, we’ll take a lot off of them and then see, you know, how they feel, but, you know, I anticipate that we should be able to see them.”

Q: Are there any holes in this Wisconsin team that you feel you can exploit?

Lanning: “Do you want me to tell you our game plan is what you’re saying?Like, hey, this is how we’re gonna attack them. I’m not telling you that.”

Q: With some of the directional kickoff problems this year, why bother with them?

Lanning: “I think the one we kicked out of bounds was a deep left kick. When we kicked it deep right, it was a touchback.”

Q: There’s been four to six other kicks that have been out of bounds this season. 

Lanning: “And which ones were deep right that were out of bounds? So we kick it deep left every time, and then a couple of them went out of bounds left, and then we kick it deep right, and we got a touch back? So don’t kick it out of bounds. Yeah, we’re not telling them to kick out of bounds; we’re telling them to kick it deep left. It’s supposed to be the same location every time deep left. They’re not getting it to that location. Crappy kick.”

Q: How do you feel like the team is approaching the end to this eight-week window without a bye?

Lanning: “Yeah, I’m not done, right? Our guys are enjoying the work. We’re still having a lot of fun come up here every single day to get better and find ways to improve. And the challenge of this new conference and the travel and some of the teams we have to play has been a lot of fun for us, but we got more work to do.