Jake Russell
@oreojakesters
Dan Lanning: The Master Motivator Made Oregon the Team Nobody Believes In
“7,280 uniform combinations, 0 National Championships” has been a poster at College Gameday for over a decade.
“Nike University” or “Phil Knight merchants” some may call it after the founder claims he’s all in on the team with “unlimited money” in regards to NIL.
Then two weeks ago Mike Gundy, head coach of the Oklahoma State football team essentially funded entirely by the late great T. Boone Pickens and his oil money, contended that they’re merely “paying a lot of money for their team” before their planned loss in Eugene.
Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks have joined the B1G and have heard the detractors. Many pile on his coaching capability for not being able to win the big one, from losing to rival Washington twice in 2024 or to getting the doors blown off by Ohio State in their rematch in the College Football Playoff last year. It certainly doesn’t help when the money is as lucrative and flashy as it is from a source like Nike themselves, clearly rubbing the old heads like Gundy or the little guys that don’t have access to the glitz and the glam and the facilities the wrong way.
Even this year, with the amount of roster turnover, a sour taste in the viewers’ minds after how embarrassing the playoff loss was, and then the injury to star wide receiver Evan Stewart made the detractors ready to have the Ducks take a step back this year.
Lanning has somehow used it all as fuel for the fire. He’s able to turn Nike University into the “Nobody Believes in Us” team. He fires up the team with movie clips of Tarantino movies and brings out an actual baseball bat. He shows Gladiator and Any Given Sunday clips and jumps into pools with recruits. Ever since he got to Eugene with his defensive-minded and tough attitude from the SEC, it’s been a different hard-nosed Oregon rather than the finesse we used to know.
“They’re playing for clicks, we’re fighting for wins!” he said before destroying both a whiteboard and the skulls of the Deion Sanders-led Colorado team last year.
There’s also the Will Stein of the matter- the OC is almost certainly going to get coaching offers in the upcoming offseason, but the man has made it work with the corpse of Auburn Bo Nix and the veteran and undersized Dillon Gabriel, and Dante Moore has done nothing but continue to be the primary example of his developmental prowess as he’s found a home after previous struggles and has led the team with 7 touchdowns, 1 pick, and 657 yards through their dominant wins. It’s looked relatively easy and almost as if they’re saving the actual blows for when they play relevant competition in their B1G schedule.
It’s hard to be seen as the underdog when you’re as flashy as the Ducks are and setting yourself up to be the butt of jokes after it ultimately has ended in coming up short in the playoff, but Lanning is aware of that. It’s only a swoosh-shaped carrot for him that he’s following to build a team that can lift a trophy for the first time in program history.
