Everything Dan Lanning said in his weekly Monday press conference

This doesn't happen too often.

Oregon Ducks

head coach Dan Lanning met with the media as scheduled in his weekly press conference on Monday night, but this one is different. The Ducks are coming off a disappointing loss to Oklahoma State, where they were three-touchdown favorites. Practically nothing went right for Oregon in the 39-31 loss in what could be qualified as one of the worst losses in recent memory.

It resulted in a testy press conference for Lanning, with some tough questions to answer.

With the defeat, question marks surround the program. Now it's being reported that the Cowboys knew what kind of play the Ducks were running from the placement of quarterback Dante Moore's feet. Even with that sign, Moore missed a lot of open receivers

where a good throw would have mattered a ton, and his foot placement wouldn't have been an issue.

The Ducks will now take on FCS Portland State, where they can correct some things just in time for the big game at USC in less than two weeks. A contest with the Vikings is possibly exactly what the Ducks need, as Oregon has a lot of things that need to be corrected.

Here is everything Lanning had to say before the Ducks face Portland State.

Opening Statement

Dan Lanning: Obviously, you go back, and you analyze the film after the game, and it really looks very similar to what it felt like on the field. You know, we did not perform at any level that was winning football. You know, I think the only area of the game that we probably played winning football in was in special teams, but we certainly lost on offense, certainly lost on defense. It was a great environment there at Oklahoma State. They did a great job preparing their players. We did not, as I said from the beginning; I take complete accountability for that. Everything that happens in the organization, and we have to perform better as players, as coaches, as an entire unit, and I know our guys are ready, ready to be able to do that. But you have to prove it. You can't just say it. You've got to show it. So that's how we can open it up.

Tipping off plays

Question: An Oklahoma State player said that your offensive line had a tell for whether you guys were running or passing. An Indiana player from last year said that they approached the game similarly. I'm wondering, is that a self-scout problem for you guys, and how will you assess that?

DL: You know, in general, you have tendencies at times; they'll show up. We have to do a better job policing that for sure. Something we have to search for and make sure we do a good job of. You know, that's something we have to be better at, right? Really simple. You know, on the same note, there's going to be times, based on looks, that you have more tells than others, and sometimes you can take advantage of and use those. So you want to sell you want to sell certain looks for certain things. But I'd say that's something we can be better at. You know, one of the things we definitely addressed after the game.

Moore not talking after loss

Q: Do you believe the star quarterback should speak to me after tough losses? And what was your reaction when Dante chose not to?

DL: Well, I don't think he chose not to. Did you know he's getting an IV? He's getting two IVs after the game. He's dehydrated. He'll be speaking to you guys tomorrow. Any questions you want to ask him, you can certainly ask him. But I don't know if you've ever given an interview while you're getting an IV at the same time and getting treatment.

Does that make a little more sense? Yeah, that would make a lot. And then there's a bus and a flight you're trying to catch as well. But Dante will be here tomorrow. You can talk to Dante, right? But he's cramping up on the field. I think the first thing that we're going to do post-game is get treatment, right? Have any of our players never like not been available to talk?

Player-led team

Q: You talked a lot this fall about this being a player-led team, and I'm curious how that manifests itself now this week, coming off a loss like that, and moving forward, and just kind of rattling the rough block.

DL: I tell you, at this point, there's been a lack of leadership, right? Myself included, right? I think so. One, it starts with accountability, but it's got to show up. So again, can't talk about it. You got to see it, right? You have to see it. So we haven't seen it to this point. Saw it at practice, right? We got to see it consistently, right? We didn't practice well enough last Wednesday to think we're gonna have a great performance on Saturday, right? Mistakes you make in practice gonna show up, and somebody has to speak on it, right? Yeah, coaches have to speak on it; they have to demand it. Players have to do it, right? And we all own that. We all wear that. So hopefully, leadership will start showing up, right? Or we won't have the result that we want.

Brandon Finney at Nickel

Q: You got to look at Brandon Finney and Nickel. It looked like during the game, just what makes him a good fit there. How did he perform?

DL: Yeah, Brandon's a good player, really, regardless of wherever he lines up, and he had some plays that he certainly needed back. You know, in that game too, some eye discipline issues. He played a lot of snaps on defense, and that's partially because we didn't control the ball on offense the way we needed to control the ball. We weren't efficient. You know, partially that's because we didn't get stops on defense, or when we did, it was a you know a face mask, right, or a penalty or an explosive play that kept a drive going, but Braden's proven that he could play for us. We felt like we were getting hurt at times in the slot. He moved in there and provided some, you know, you know, some help there, and then was also really good in some series overall. Whether he was a blitzer or covered in the slot, he did a good job there.

Weekly prep

Q: You said after Boise, you liked your prep during the week. This week doesn't sound like prep wasn't good enough for Oklahoma State. What's the disconnect that's not carrying over to Saturdays?

DL: Yeah, sometimes you got to learn hard lessons through hard performances, and this is by far the worst performance that we've had since I've been here. You know, in my career. I mean, we've had bad performances, right? Teams have bad performances. We've always had one side of the ball, pick up the other side of the ball, and even in this game, you know, we're ahead in the fourth quarter with an opportunity to be able to have success and win this game. So maybe the hard lesson for us comes from the loss, and maybe that's where the response will come. You know, I felt like our players did respond today. Again, you'll see what that looks like on Saturday. All we know how to do is go to work, right? And that's exactly what we did today. As soon as we landed here, we're back here at work, back up here early. Guys put in a lot of time and effort to get it right, and it has to change on the field. Or again, there's accountability for that, right? For me in my position, for every coach on our staff, for every player in that room, it's got to be, you know, it's got to be a certain way.

What I will say is we have capable players, and they do care, right? But you have to hold them accountable in the field to do what you're asking them to do, and then we have to make sure we have a good enough plan, which we didn't have. So when all those things collide, right? That's when you have a bad result like that game. And there's no excuses. It's never okay for us to perform the way we performed. That's not the right way to perform. That's not the right way to go. But we got to go attack it and fix it. What I know is you don't let something that goes wrong affect you again down the road. You learn from it. The great things that come from losses are learning lessons. We had a lot of learning lessons on Saturday. Hopefully, we take advantage of them.

Team identity

Q: What do you think the identity of this team is through two weeks? The pass and run have been inconsistent. Both lines have struggled. The defense has given up 31 points per game. What's the identity so far, and what do you want the identity of this team to be?

DL: I think one of the big clear ones is we don't win on first down, and we don't win on first down on defense or on offense. You put yourself in bad situations on second and third down, right? So we have to be more efficient as a team on first down overall. We've got to be creative in the run game and be able to set that up. We've been kind of a feast or famine on offense when it comes to our explosive play, you know, outside the two explosive passes, really on Saturday, a couple runs by Dierre, there's not a lot that really pops out to you that we did successfully. So we have to do that defensively. We have to be able to tackle, and we have to create different looks up front to create some negative plays because we haven't created negative plays. That's scheme, right? That's also on both sides of the ball. That's also performance and execution. But playing ahead of the chains is a good place for it to start. You know, I haven't been a part of a lot of games where you have two takeaways that you're able to create. One, you know, defensive score, and you're not able to have success. And I think that's just an indicator of how poorly we play, really, on both sides of the ball.

Discipline issue?

Q: Through two weeks, you know, given as it relates to penalties, is there a discipline issue still with 17 penalties, 156 yards? Obviously, you won't agree with every penalty, but is there a discipline issue, and how does that get addressed going forward?

DL: Well, if you get penalties one week and they hurt you the next week, I think that's an indicator that we're not resolving the problem. You know, when one guy jumps offsides in one game and then turns around and jumps offsides in the next game, his level of focus isn't where it needs to be. A lot of things can contribute to that, but it has to be better. And that being said, there's going to be aggressive penalties within games. There are things that we can coach better. Right, some of those happened at times. Like the facemask grab by Finney. That's kind of a fluke deal that happens, you know. But to have an offside on a fourth and one when you spend extensive time on it, that's unexcusable. A freshman jumping offside on a short-yardage situation, in a new environment, first road game. Sometimes that's going to happen, but you have to be able to overcome those circumstances. Ultimately, you know, we can't have that. We can't be penalized like that and expect to have great success.

Fourth down decisions

Q: After looking back at the film the whole game, do you feel like you regret the fourth down decision and the opportunities?

DL: "Absolutely. It's always easy to go back and say after the fact. I wish we were able to create a more fourth-down-advantageous play before the bad decision, and numbers might say, 'Hey, that's the right decision.' It's the wrong decision; it didn't work. We were punting really well all day. What we weren't doing was stopping the other team we were playing all day; they would have been probably more fourth-down advantageous to go for it on their side of the ball if we did flip the field, and then ultimately, why you go for it on fourth is what happened, right? They end up kicking a field goal. You're down one touchdown and a two-point conversion, and you still have a chance to go win the game in two minutes if we don't fumble the ball. But did that work out good? No, absolutely not. Wrong decision on my part. You and so I learned too."

Injuries

Q: Carl Williams left the game with a kind of scary injury. I'm wondering if you have an update on him and also the availability of Jamari (Johnson) for this week.

DL: Still evaluating it with Jamari. We'll see what that looks like. I think I mentioned last week it might be down for a few, so we'll see. You know, if he's able to, you know, get back to where he's able to perform. Carl had a, you know, got nicked in the game. I won't speak on what it is, and we'll see again. Same thing, evaluation. Unfortunately, Trent Ferguson's probably going to be done for the year. Had a knee injury, so you won't, we probably won't get to see him again. You know, feel bad for that kid because he's worked really hard.

The lack of pass protection

Q: In general, how would you describe the pass protection, especially an offensive tackle in that game?

DL: Yeah, poor, really poor, and I think again, you want to create opportunities to help, but especially when you talk about three-man rush losing, right? It's not good. But when teams drop eight, there's not a lot of open windows to throw the ball, right? And that's where you have to have a better one. We have to have a better plan, but you have to hold up in protection in those moments. And they were able to take advantage of our tackles. We weren't able to get enough help from our guards. We got to get more in-and-out protection from our guards to help on the tackles. You know, Poncho's (Iapani Laloulu) played a lot of winning football. We got to put him on an island a little bit more, right? We also got to chip and protect at times. But yeah, it wasn't good enough. And then again, that all goes back to first-down execution, where you're not forcing yourself to throw it on 2nd-and-10 ... 3rd-and-11, right? All those things add up, and then giving a chance, you know, for a team to tee off. Not to mention if you're throwing or showing, you know, tendencies on what looks like a pass or a run."

Getting back on track

Q: After Saturday, you said every goal is still attainable for this team, and it's true. Everything is still available for you guys, but I think it's also fair to say if this team's not playing close to what the standard is, what makes those goals achievable? What do you feel like can lead you to that?

DL: A good performance today. Like, stop looking in the future. Everybody wants to make a prediction before the season starts. You know, it doesn't matter until you play the games. We've seen it every year with teams that are supposed to be good but aren't good. We have the capability to be good. We have good enough players. We have good enough coaches. I haven't coached them well enough. I haven't done a good enough job, so I know I can do better. So that's where it starts. And guess what? If I do better, I bet this team gets better, right? And if this team gets better and we play like we're capable of playing, then we could have a team that could be pretty good. But it doesn't matter unless we focus on today. Let's stop worrying about tomorrow. Let's stop worrying about the end of the season. Let's worry about today.

Halftime adjustments

Q: You said on Saturday that they did some things defensively that you weren't expecting, and you guys needed to find adjustments. That's kind of been a theme in some of the losses over the past two years. Where do those halftime adjustments come from? What needs to change? What needs to be better for you guys to see what they do in the first half, adjust, and come out better in the second?

DL: You got to make sure that you have answers to the test too, right? So when leverages change, you have to have schemes that you feel confident in that are going to be able to adapt to what they're doing, you know, as well. And again, a lot of it starts with our ability to run the ball and our ability to stop the run, right? Because you make people play left-handed when you can make sure that you're winning in those situations, and in neither one of those situations we won.

It wasn't that they did something extremely exotic. It's about, okay, this is open. We got to make sure we hit it, right? How do we make sure it gets delivered? It's about making sure, like, this block has to be made, right? But yeah, there's some stuff they did that was different, right? And they had some success. And some of the stuff they did in the second half, they didn't show in the first half. So it's not so much an adjustment; it's about being able to play out your camp rules and take advantage of what's there.

More 4th down failures

Q: We talked about the last fourth down play call, but overall, you guys are 0 for 6. I know every every situation is different given field position timing. Is the major concern execution or play calling? How does that get addressed?

DL: We have to be a team that can convert in those situations, or we have to not put ourselves in that situation and go for it, right? So it's those two things. I mean, we all saw fourth downs that could have been completed and had success, right? They weren't. So you have to live in the reality of: are we able to execute on fourth down and convert when we're not? Eventually, that's going to affect your aggressiveness in the way we play and could have and should have probably affected mine sometimes, but it's hard for me to say on a fourth and one or fourth and two now, fourth and eight? Yeah dumb. But fourth and one? We've converted a lot of those and had a lot of success in my time here. Goes back to execution. Goes back to having a great plan and being able to execute in those situations.

Leadership after the loss

Q: It sounds like you've seen good leadership since Saturday. I'm curious. Did you feel that way leaving Saturday in terms of how has the team responded?

DL: I think everybody wants to go to work. I didn't see enough leadership in the game. Right. I didn't see it. There wasn't enough. And again, obviously, the result speaks to that. So it's easy to find, you know, a lot of things that weren't right, and that there were a lot of things that were wrong. We have players that absolutely care, right? I didn't watch the game and say, "Man, there's no effort here." I didn't watch the game like this guy's trying to screw up. I didn't watch that.

So again, it goes back to us as coaches making sure that we are accountable, right, as coaches for what our plan is, and again, our players are accountable for what their job is, or somebody else needs to be on the field if they aren't. But we have guys that care. Being careless and caring are two different things. Being careless at moments that showed up in the game, and then leadership has shown up, but it's got to show up more.

Playing true freshmen

Q: Second half started with Hudson Lewis and Messiah Hampton both on the field making plays. Thoughts? Your thoughts on just how they performed? Is that a sign of guys being held accountable if you're not going to do your job?

DL: No, it's more of a sign that you have guys that can play winning football. They go out and play winning football. Messiah did a great job. Hudson did a good job when they're in there. You know, again, in that environment, hot game, right? You're going to be able to play guys that are fresh and able to run. You know, at a high level, those guys performed in practice, so then they would go out and execute a game. And I thought they both had some really solid plays while they were in there.

Short week beneficial?

Q: Obviously, really taxing game with the heat and the delay. Usually, you want a lot of rest after that. Is this a strange situation where you're actually happy to have the short week and get out there and get your players on the field again and show what they can do?

DL: I'm anxious to go play. I think all of our players are anxious to go play. You know, you got to pack a lot into a short week, but you know, I'm certainly anxious to get our guys back out on the field. We've enjoyed being able to get out to practice, right, and go attacking, get back to work. And a lot of times, when you're focused on okay, where do you have to improve? The best thing you can do is go right back to work. So, been pleased with that process so far. There's still some time left in this week to be able to go do that, but having the turnaround Friday will be a big positive for us from that standpoint.

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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Everything Dan Lanning said in his weekly Monday press conference