What Dan Lanning said after No. 4 Oregon defeats Northwestern

EVANSTON, Ill. — No. 4 Oregon defeated Northwestern 34-14 Saturday afternoon at Martin Stadium.

Dan Lanning recapped the third win of the season for the Ducks, who return home to host Oregon State next week (12 p.m. PT, Big Ten Network).

Below are initial live updates from Lanning’s postgame press conference. A full transcript will follow.

DAN LANNING

“I thought we lacked a little killer instinct there at the end. And our standard can’t change. I want to give a lot of credit to Northwestern. I thought they came out here with a good plan. They executed well on their side of the ball and outside of some turnovers I think they were right in this game. But they had a good plan for us, they executed it well. I thought we came up with some answers and were able to create some things there, especially early in the second half, create some of our run game that we needed to have in this game. I thought our quarterback made great decisions. But ultimately those takeaways and being able to score early and play some good defense, more advantageous defense than great defense allowed us to come away with the win.”

On how they handled adversity in the game:

“Good and bad. There’s going to be some film for us to go back and really attack. Again, I think they had some good answers that we have to have a good plan for moving forward. I thought the energy on the sideline was really good. Just disappointed with the last couple of drives on both sides of the ball. We kind of charted that throughout. We knew this was going to be a limited possession game with the way that they play football. They did a really good job of eating the clock. We got to take advantage of every series on both sides of the ball and at times we did that and at times we didn’t. Ultimately, the demeanor on the sideline was great. The playing for each other was great. Guys were focused and attentive but we just didn’t finish the way that I want to finish.”

On Dante Moore’s close of the first half:

“I thought Dante played with poise all day. Even the ball that was picked off, I think he’s making the right direction. Throwing that direction, the wind was a real issue. I think you saw it also on kickoff return for them, they had a long kickoff return. We knew that ball was going to come out; we didn’t do a good job of covering there. But you got to be able to make critical plays like that. We had too many second-and-longs today, too many third-and-longs that we had to convert and to go 7 of 11 on third down is impressive with some of the down and distances that we had and some of the decisions that we had to push to go get. What we’d love to do is avoid htird down all together and that means we have to be more efficient on first and second.”

On the running game:

“Some good, some bad. There was some explosive plays. Was excited to see Dierre (Hill) get in there and create an explosive play. He’s proven to be an explosive playmaker. I thought our backs ran hard. I thought they did a good job of getting extra hats at the point of attack. I thought their guys played well on the edge and made it tough for us to establish some of our run game but we came back with some answers and had some success there.”

On playing multiple quarterbacks:

“We got to create critical moments for everybody on our team. We talk about strength in numbers, like if you touch the field we have an expectation and a standard. For us it’s continuing to figure out how many guys can play winning football for us because you never know when you’re going to have to count on somebody in those situations. Brock’s had a really good camp, done some really good things. Luke’s done some really good things. I thought they both did some good stuff today as well. But ultimately regardless of the position you saw a lot of guys out there play again for us. That’s always going to be the goal and we got to make sure that when we get people in they’re playing to the standard that we expect.”

On not having to go deep into the offensive playbook:

“I don’t know if that’s true. We had plenty of stuff setup but I thought they defended it well. That defense is tough at times to create some of the explosives because of the brand that they play. If they win on first down, they’re able to play cover 2 Tampa on second down and you can’t have success moving the ball, you’re going to have a hard time creating explosives when they’re two high (safeties). What’s that mean? You got to run the ball and be effective on first down. You got to be able to run the ball on second-and-long. At times we did that. I think we started off the second half three series, three scores. That’s what we got to do. I think the same thing defensively; we started of the second half three stops. Ultimately we didn’t get enough stops there at the end. We got the win but that’s not our expectation.”

On a shutout through three quarters:

“I thought they had some sustained drives. We had to put the fire out. They create some success, they converted some short yardage plays. Every one of those I think they shot themselves in the foot a little more than we went and created success but we were advantageous when we had opportunities ot make plays on the ball. Whether that’s Bryce or Jerry, those guys have proven to bre guys that are ball production guys. That’s definitely what we’re looking for. Ultimately I think we can be better before we get to that point.”

On no penalties:

“More than anything you get what you emphasize. We emphasize that a lot: No DBOs (don’t beat yourselves). We don’t beat ourselves, you got a chance to have success. That was a big emphasis this week, it showed up, we operated clean. We have to continue to do that to help ourselves out.”

On linebacker interceptions:

“Ball production; they understand where they need to be. They understand where the quarterback’s going to go with the ball and they take advantage of it. And they bait it. Jerry gets a bunch of those in practice and it’s because he makes you think that he can’t make the play and then he does an unbelievable job breaking on the ball.”

On Boettcher’s interception:

“Commonalities between their success and our success is the turnover margin. We knew that was going to be huge in this game. We had to protect the ball. Obviously we had the one interception that we can’t have but we wanted to win the first quarter. We wanted to make sure that we took care of the ball, we had to create some takeaways on defense and that happened.”

On Malik Benson emerging early:

“We got a lot of guys that can make plays on offense and Malik has certainly done that. I could start naming a bunch of names of guys that have made big time plays and the ball getting delivered to people as well. Good quarterback play helps all those things but Malik’s been great for us.”

On handling the unique venue:

“Different. I thought they handled it really well. Those gave got to be the loudest speakers behind us that I’ve ever heard. That’s false crowd noise. It was annoying. So that’s something they should keep.”

On gauging where the defense is:

“I think I know where our defense is at. I think I know where we got to improve.”

On how he’s handled what’s transpired in the country with the team over the last week:

“I think the U.S. could learn a lot from our locker room. I think the people in this world could learn a lot from our locker room. You walk in that locker room and you’ve got guys of different races, guys of different backgrounds, different religions, and you got a team that loves each other. Like tons of differences. Where they come from, what they deal with and ultimately you got a team that loves each other. I think we’re missing some of that in our country. I recently found out Charlie Kirk was an Oregon fan; I didn’t know that. I hurt for his wife, Erika, and their kids. That sort of evil should never exist in our country. That’s what it is, evil. I remember having to explain that to my family. I remember sitting down with my kids and explaining what happened. They were talking about people talking about it at school, and it’s just sad. But it’s just as sad every day it seems like we deal with some sort of violence that’s going on in country, whether it’s school kids in Colorado, or kids in Minnesota at churches. Life matters. I think we’ve lost sight of that, but I wish the world could learn a little bit of something from our locker room because we got a bunch of people with differences and what you got is a bunch of people with love there. There’s some people that will be disappointed about how much I said about this, and there will be some people that are disappointed that I didn’t say enough, and I really don’t care. What I do care about is if you do disagree with me, if you hate me, if you don’t like me, just know this — I love you. I absolutely love you. And life matters. There’s no way that Charlie should’ve experienced that, his family should experienced that. There’s no way that that evil should exist in this world and we have to continue to identify it and point it out and make sure – it’s absolute evil. There’s no reason in the world that we should be worried about sending our kids to school. It’s our most valuable commodity in the world. They should be protected. The reality is there’s just not a lot of common sense on both sides. Common sense says ‘Oh, it’s mental health.’ Common sense says ‘Oh, it’s guns.’ You know what? It’s both. Like let’s have some common sense. Our kids should be the most protected thing in the world. They should have armed guards at every school. Because there is sick people. There is sick people in this world. And on top of that, sick people need help and it should be really hard for a sick person to have a gun. It should be really hard. And if people can’t see that from both sides, how disappointing is that? But I just know when you see moments like that that exist right now in our country, I just think about my kids. I remember I saw that video. It was disgusting, and I thought ‘I hope my kids don’t see that video’. Like how much does that suck? I hope Charlie’s kids never see that video. Disgusting. We glorify it. We praise it. People are internet warriors and those are sick people. At some point, we need to go look at sports because what our football team has is people on both sides of the fence. There’s fans that love our team that have a lot of different opinions, and the truth is there’s a lot of things Charlie said that I did not agree with at all. There’s a lot of things he said that I did agree with. But what’s disappointing is I can respect those differences and somebody else couldn’t, and they thought that they deserved to be God in that moment, and they didn’t. Nobody should have to experience that. I’ve got a lot of disappointment. We had at Bible study with our team, we talked about it with our team. I think our team feels the same way. Regardless of views, I don’t think they feel anybody ever deserves to experience what some people in our country are experiencing right now. It’s super disappointing.”

On how his kids responded:

“They value life. The kids in our locker room value life. Again, very differing views on opinions, but respect enough to respect life. That’s the part that some of us in this world are missing.”

— James Crepea covers the Oregon Ducks and Big Ten.