This historic win for Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning may not be quite as sweet considering what happened a week ago, but it is historic nonetheless.
With a blowout 84-0 victory over the Portland State Vikings on Friday night, Lanning officially notched his 50th win as a head coach for the Ducks, which puts him in an elite club in program history.
The milestone may not come with a banner or a trophy, but it puts him in rarefied air in Eugene; the last Oregon coach to cross 50 wins was Mike Bellotti, back in 2001, his seventh year at the helm.
Since Bellotti, coaches like Chip Kelly, Mark Helfrich, Willie Taggart, and Mario Cristobal have all fallen short of the mark that Lanning just in his fifth season. In Oregon history, only three other
coaches have crossed the 50-win mark: Bellotti, Rich Brooks, and Len Casanova.
Chip Kelly notably had 46 wins in four seasons as the Ducks' head coach.
Oregon has won a lot of games since Lanning took over in December of 2021, but it's entertaining to look back over the years and remember how things started in Week 1 against the Georgia Bulldogs — a 49-3 career-opening loss for Lanning. A lot has changed since then, from the preparation to the average result.
"Light years of changes, I don't think I could pick one thing," Lanning said last week, looking back at his time in Eugene. "You're drinking out of a fire hose at first. Like I said, I don't think we even did the warm-up right in our first game. I think the band's taking the field and we're still trying to kick an extra point. Obviously, the first game result was pretty poor. So we're a little bit different team since then, for sure. Certainly, I'm a lot different."
With 50 down, and hopefully many more to go, the next one may be the most important for Lanning. Sitting at 2-1 and holding very little room for error, the Ducks go on the road to Los Angeles next week for a top-25 showdown against theUSC Trojans. It's a game that could, in large part, help define Lanning's legacywith the Ducks.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Dan Lanning joins Oregon coaching legends with 50th career win
