Oregon Ducks' 2025 Recruiting Class Makes History: Dan Lanning Evaluates Top Signees

Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning continues to raise the bar in college football recruiting. On Early National Signing Day, Oregon set a school record for the most 5-star recruits in a single class and achieved the highest “rating per commit” of any program in the country.

Nov 9, 2024; Eugene, Oregon, USA; Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning leads his team before the start of a game against the Maryland Terrapins at Autzen Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images / Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

EUGENE – Wednesday marked Early National Signing Day for high school student-athletes around the country. Oregon Ducks coach Dan Lanning and his staff have worked tirelessly year-round to bring in another top-ranked class. Last season, Lanning brought in the No. 3 recruiting class in the nation, according to 247Sports, and this season, he is on track to repeat history.

Oregon coach Dan Lanning after the game against Wisconsin. / Alec Dietz/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

By the end of National Signing Day, the Ducks were ranked No. 2 in the nation for the 2025 recruiting class, according to On3. Oregon also set a school record for the most 5-star recruits in a single class and achieved the highest “rating per commit” of any program in the country.

“I’m pumped about this class,” said Lanning. “That’s our goal. We want to go sign the best, and I feel like this class has done that.”

The Ducks signed many of the country’s most highly touted recruits, including 247Sports’ No. 1 and No. 4 ranked wide receivers, Dakorien Moore and Dallas Wilson. Oregon also signed 247Sports’ No. 3, No. 5, and No. 8 cornerbacks in former Ohio State commit Na’eem Offord, Brandon Finney, and Dorian Brew. These are just a few of the big names Oregon has added to its program.

Dakorien Moore and Dallas Wilson / @trey_mcnutt on X

Oregon’s incoming class is represented across 13 different states and includes eight multi-sport athletes. Fifteen members of the class will join the program in the winter as early enrollees. Lanning also managed to flip seven athletes from other programs in this recruiting cycle.

What Oregon Ducks Coach Dan Lanning Said About National Signing Day:

Lanning on the depth of this class:

"Ultimately, you walk into our locker room, and it’s a melting pot of people from all over the nation, and that’s one of the things that makes Oregon so unique. If you’re looking for the same, this isn’t the place to get that. If you’re looking for different, right? If you’re looking to challenge yourself and really challenge yourself to grow. I know for myself. You know, I grew the most of my career when I left home, right? And that’s when opportunities really came and created themselves for me, personally. And I think a lot of this, the players in our program feel the same way, like coming to Oregon could be the best decision they ever made.”

Lanning on Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele's decision to flip to Oregon from Cal:

“We were really excited, yeah. It’s not very often that you get to this point and you don’t know which way it’s leaning, where it’s at, and we really didn’t necessarily know where it was at. What I did know is where Jaron’s heart was this whole time. And, you know, I think the process started a little bit later here for us. But, you know, his heart was wanting to be here at Oregon, and I’m really excited about him and what he’ll bring to the table for us.”

Oregon commit Dakorien Moore wears a black Ducks uniform during a visit. / @dakorien4moore on Instagram

Lanning on signing two quarterbacks:

“You want to challenge yourself to go take the best players, you know, and I think we’ve got some really talented ones coming in. We like competitiveness across the board. I think when you see great results, we got multiple good quarterbacks on our team right now, but you can’t have one, right? Because when you have one and one gets hurt, you don’t have any right. So it’s really important that we continue to build, you know, strengthen our program, create competition throughout our program. And that’s really that goes with every, every position.”

Lanning on flipping players:

"Consistency and having a clear vision for what you want to be able to create for guys. And I don’t think there’s any secret to that. All these guys have signed up to be a part of what we’re doing here right now. They recognize that they want to be a part of a winner, right? And that’s what you want, right? You want guys that want to go compete, to go win. Every one of these guys isn’t afraid of competition, which I think is something exciting. They all want the opportunity to compete and play, but they want to go compete and play with the best. They weren’t saying, ‘Okay, where’s the easiest spot in the depth chart to go get involved?’ No, they were looking, ‘Where am I going to grow and develop the most, where I need an opportunity to compete for championships?’ And I think that’s true for guys who joined us here as of late, and guys that we were able to hold on to that other teams wanted.”

Lanning on the current team's reaction:

"Yeah, I think they’re excited, but they’re a lot more focused right now on this game that we have coming up on Saturday. And that’s, you know, that’s part of the chaos of college football. You know, what I love about our players on our team is they do as good of a job recruiting talent to our team as anybody, right? Because they tell our story. They’re the ones that, you know, tell these players, hey, yeah, this is a place that you want to be a part of. So think they’re certainly excited about it, but they’re just as excited, or more excited, to get the opportunity to go play Penn State in the Big 10 championship.”

Nov 30, 2024; Eugene, Oregon, USA; Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning celebrates after beating the Washington Huskies at Autzen Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images / Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

Lanning on signing the No. 1 recruiting class in the Big Ten and what message that sends:

“We’re not really concerned about what message we’re saying in our program. Our message is that we want to have the best and compete to be the best, right? So that that’s our goal. You know, here personally, what’s our standard? To go get the best and to build the best class. And I’ve never been around a great coach that didn’t have great players. So this is where it starts. You know, Coach Saban used to always say in the NFL, you get one first round draft pick, right? But in college, you can draft as many of them as you can if you do a great job recruiting, so trying to do everything we can to get as many great players here to come join us and be a part of our vision.”

Lanning on Dillon Gabriel's role in Jaron's recruitment:

"Dillon actually saw Jaron first and mentioned him. When he saw him at the Elite 11, you know, he brought him back and said, ‘Hey, this guy that you guys want to take a look at.’ So I think he deserves a lot of credit for us, you know, getting our eyes on Jaron first and being able to start that relationship, and start building that relationship. And then, you know, even for Jaron to win the Marcus Mariota award there in Hawaii, most recently, there’s just a lot of history that makes this make a lot of sense for him, being able to join our program.”

Lanning on Dierre Hill:

"We see him coming in to play running back. But you know, when you see a guy like that on film, and you know, okay, this guy’s going to help us in special teams. Okay? And you look at how we utilize our personnel already, you know, we already line up running backs at times of wide out and utilize guys as kick returners and punt returners. And, I mean, when you have that flexibility, I think it’s really special. But with the numbers that he’s put up this year, would be crazy not to let that guy line up to the backfield and hand it off to him. I mean, he’s done some really good things.”

Oregon Ducks recruiting target Dallas Wilson and coach Dan Lanning in Autzen Stadium. / atr. dallas / Dallas Wilson / Instagram

Lanning on Dallas Wilson:

“I’m just really proud of Dallas knowing what he wanted. And you know, when you’re a talented player, there’s going to be a lot of people that want you, and Dallas is an extremely talented player, but you know, the relationship mattered. I think his dream, you know, mattered to him, what he wanted to be able to accomplish as a place he’s dreamed about for a long time, and to see his journey to get here through some of the adversity he’s faced is really, really impressive. But there were strong relationships there. I think, you know, it’s a matter of him being able to sit down and think through, you know, all the details, but this guy’s held true and for a long time, really proud of him for being able to do that.”

Lanning on what type of athletes he looks for:

“Really good football players. It’s the number one trait. Really good players with great character.”

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