WATCH: Dan Lanning Gives Final Updates Before Facing Stanford

Dan Lanning is eager to face a Stanford team that has a great rivalry against his squad.

The Ducks are preparing to go to battle this Saturday against the Stanford Cardinal under the lights at home. With players beginning classes Wednesday, Dan Lanning and his staff are aware of the balancing act that now comes into play for student athletes.

Lanning met with reporters Wednesday to give his final thoughts before facing Stanford in week 5.

Opening statement: "Good day at work. Some good prep for Stanford this week. Red area and third down day. Continuing to make that a focus for us as we work to improve but ready to go play a good opponent.”

Question: "What do you think of the punting competition so far this week?

Lanning: “It’s been good. It's good for our team to you know, compete at every position but continue to evaluate. See what fits best for us on game day.”

Question: "E.J. Smith isn't going to be able to play the rest of year for them at running back, Filkins is the backup and I assume the one who will replace him, just your thoughts on how that changes their offense?"

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Lanning: “Both good players. EJ is a really good player; you hate to see that for a team when they lose a guy. That being said he's had a lot of experience so it's not like a huge change for them and this hasn’t been something that’s really new we knew he's been out a little bit the last few weeks."

Question:"Did you miss the rain?

Lanning: “Yeah. Love it. Love it. Love it. I'm enjoying it. We talked to the team today about the difference in Rocky One and Rocky Three. Rocky Three he's training with all the lights, he's got all the extra attention and the details right and we all know what happened in Rocky four had to go to Russia to get his mind. He had to go train in the woods. So, we want to train in the elements. We want to do it the long hard way. Drink eggs, the whole nine yards. That's what we want.”

Question: "How have you kind of prepared them for this week having to take on classes, also training for a big week, playing at home in front of students? What is your advice kind of been to them?"

Lanning: “Keep the main thing the main thing. And then we check classes, so it's fun to make sure guys are on time and guys are doing what they're supposed to do. It's the reason we all came here is to get that degree obviously you want to be successful on the football field, but it's a big part of being a student athlete is achieving in the classroom.”

Question: "What impresses you most about Tanner McKee, Stanford’s quarterback?

Lanning: “I think he understands their system really well. They do some stuff that requires quarterback reads that's going to be him making decisions based on box count and stuff like that and he does a good job making decisions there. He's a true pocket passer and does a good job delivering it.”

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