What Dan Lanning Said After Oregon Beat Washington State

The Ducks have now won five straight games against the Cougars.

Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lannin met with reporters in Eugene following a 38-24 win over the Washington State Cougars on Saturday.

Find the full transcript of his postgame press conference below.

Opening Statement:

“Well, it was a battle, I still don’t feel like we’ve played a full game at this point how we finished in the fourth. I thought there were some big momentum swings, some big fourth-down stops, some big runs for our offense and a lot of battling down the field. What I feel is our team plays for each other and you really saw that today the way those guys competed. Washington State had a good plan they came in and they executed, and their quarterback is a special player but so is ours and I think that showed up today.”

On describing Bucky Irving’s style of running the football:

“I would say his heart is pounding out of his chest, this dude is so passionate, he cares so much for his teammates and never goes down on first contact. Really selfless player, and I think that really shows up when you see this guy play on the field.”

On Irving’s back-to-back touchdowns:

“It’s huge. When you can be explosive in the run game, it sets up everything for you in the passing game. Even though they were able to stay on top of some shots, we were able to check it down and create some big plays, as well. Runs and passes, Bucky has proven to be a good player for us across the board and I’m proud of his performance today.”

On Jestin Jacobs’ first game and first sack of the season:

“Some good, some bad, I think he’d tell you the same thing, but the guy plays hard, he loves football I’m glad to see him out there and healthy and competing and he certainly makes us a better team when we can use him.”

On the offensive line play:

“Just looking at what I saw today, obviously I’m going to watch the film, but I thought we moved bodies. That’s where it starts when you can move bodies up front, create some big runs, you have some backs that run hard, that sets up for success. They also did a great job protecting the quarterback, you know, Bo held it back there for a little bit back there at times looking for stuff to extend and they battled. Certainly want to clean up the penalties, you know there’s a couple of those that really hurt us.”

On the slow start and not finishing drives early in the game:

“Yeah, we got stymied a couple times there on drives and even coming out after half we moved the ball, and then again same thing. So, we have to clean that up I have to look at the film to be able to give you a good answer of why, but ultimately, I think we’ll get that taken care of.”

On Trikweze Bridges getting the start at corner:

“It’s a product of the work we do every single week. Every practice matters, every play matters, and he’s proven that can be a player that can play for us. Obviously, we played a couple guys back there today, and when you have multiple guys that can play, it gives you a chance. Now I’ll say this, we can play better than what we did. We’ll watch the film and we’ll see some of that. Not speaking towards Trikweze, but speaking towards our entire team. We’re going to find out where the warts were and how we can go attack them.”

On what he saw coming into the game and how UO could get Irving involved in the passing game:

“Yeah, just we knew there were some shots, like I said that we want to be able to take. If we felt like the shots were covered, that our check-downs were available. I think that’s probably where you saw the majority of his passing yards today. I know he had a couple of out-of-empty, where he was the uncovered option, but ultimately that’s generally the rule with shots: if there is somebody on the back, then the quarterback’s legs are alive, but if there is nobody on the back, then you have the checked down available.”

On Irving’s qualities and what people don’t see in games:

“I don’t know that anybody wants this team to be more successful than Bucky, right. He cares about his team. He cares about his teammates. He loves hard. This guy, I won’t go into detail on his backstory, but the adversity that this guy has faced for him to be the remarkable young man that he is, it is really impressive. I have three sons and I hope they can grow up and be like Bucky Irving.”

On how he would describe the way the group bounced back after last week’s result:

“I think they came out and took a team’s best punch. Washington State played really hard today, too. They had some big moments within that game. I don’t think their guys ever got rattled, they stayed focused in the moment and that’s really what playing great football is about and playing focused. But I know this, there’s a lot of things that we want to get right and I think that we can do better. I know the quality of players that we have in that room, we have to execute at a higher level moving forward.”

On Patrick Herbert’s block on Bucky Irving’s 42-yard touchdown catch and run:

“No, I didn’t, but I absolutely loved it. That’s football, right. When you can just steamroll a dude, take their will, punch it in. That’s 11 guys playing for each other. Pat wasn’t carrying the ball, right, but he was blocking for a guy that was. That was a really impressive play.”

On the defensive line’s ability to get pressure against a unique player in Cameron Ward:

“There were times when the fatigue showed up and that’s where these strength in numbers really matter, we got to have guys out there. At times we executed really well. There’s some good, there’s some bad. I think we can go evaluate ourselves, too, from a scheme standpoint of how you handle a quarterback like that. He’s a tough one to handle. It’s hard to have great answers if you want to play coverage. You’re not going to be able to finish on the QB, if you want to pressure, well now you’re creating a lot of one-on-one's on the outside and he’s a guy that can take advantage of it. We will evaluate it, but I thought our guys played hard. I thought they understood the plan. We just got to evaluate the plan if there are some other things we can do to execute better.”

On if Oregon Pressured Cameron Ward enough:
“It's probably unfair for me to say without watching the tape. At times we made an impact and at times we didn’t. I don’t know how many sacks or tackles for losses we ended up with, but I know he had some successful plays that are going to eat at that I make sure we attack.”

On giving up passing plays in first half and limiting chunk plays:

“Communicating what routes we were getting and how we wanted to match those in certain coverages. When a quarterback extends plays, all those routes go to the side. It becomes scramble drill. He’s one of the best when it comes to scramble drill. You have to stay on your man. You have to trust the guys up front to get the rush. There were times that we had really good coverage, but we didn’t have great rush lanes. There were times when we had great rush lanes, but we didn’t have great coverage, so we have to marry that together and get it right.”

On clicking towards end of first half and continuing momentum into second:

“Our coaches had to coach. They had good answers coming in for some of the stuff that we wanted to attack and we did a great job answering and coming off of that. I thought our offensive staff did a good job creating some motions and shifts that allowed us to have numbers in the run game. At halftime, we just talked about if you can taste blood don’t let go, keep biting. I think our guys did that, especially coming out of the third quarter.”

On freshman performances:

“If you’re good enough, you’re old enough, we’ve said it before. I think 15% of our snaps right now are freshmen. I think that speaks to us developing talent and us recruiting great talent. I have high expectations for them, so we’re focusing on some of the positives.”

On Jordan James and the backfield that him and Bucky Irving have created:

“How they run, I think they take on the personality of their coach. I think Coach Locklyn coaches those guys hard, and you get great results from that. Every day the standard is the standard. You guys get to see it on Saturdays, but I get to see it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and the way those guys practice, the way they run, the way they work, really carries over from that practice after games.”

On Bucky Irving's Injury:

“I haven't gotten an update, but he went in for the last play of the game, so I think he’s going to be ok. Obviously, we want to be smart, and I’ll get an update from our medical staff.”

On Bucky’s pass-catching ability out of the backfield:

“Once he gets to practice, he plays catch, and we see that and say hey that guy can catch, it let’s throw it to him. It's pretty simple from that standpoint.”