CHICK-FIL-A KICKOFF GAME: OREGON VS. GEORGIA

September 3, 2022

Dan Lanning

Oregon Ducks

Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Press Conference

Georgia 49, Oregon 3

DAN LANNING: Tough game, obviously, credit to Georgia. They did a phenomenal job preparing their team for us. They out-coached us. They out-played us today. They did a really good job.

That being said, I think our players, that locker room, is hurting a little bit, but they're ready for an opportunity to grow, anxious to get back on the practice field. Certainly a lot of things that we can clean up and fix.

You talk about Game 1s, it comes down to turnovers, it comes down to penalties, it comes down to missed tackles. We really lost a lot of those battles tonight.

Didn't have a lot of success stopping them. They did a really good job on the perimeter, and their players played really well. Stetson played really well. They have good guys.

You can't afford to play poorly against a good team. That showed up today.

Q. When you speak about not beating yourselves, two interceptions, particularly the second one when it's a 14-point game, and you guys are heading into the Red Zone there at that point and that swing. And then 9 of 10 on third down when that was such a point of emphasis in terms of not beating yourselves and we could argue that you really did beat yourself when it was competitive?

DAN LANNING: Both those things obviously really hurt us. The take-aways were bad, and they dominated us on third down.

We just weren't able to get up the field. Obviously, the take-aways, that was the second take-away is one that Bo would certainly want back. They were playing buzz coverage into a quads look and forced a throw we don't need to force. Bo knows that. He knows that the minute he walked off the field.

On third down we have to do a better job preparing our guys. Again, they got the ball in the perimeter, and we didn't have great answers for it.

Q. On the coach's show you mentioned missed tackles, penalties, and turnovers are the three things early that show up. I think all those things bit you early kind of. What's the teaching moment there in terms of correcting tackles, in particular?

DAN LANNING: I think the biggest thing for our team is seeing that. We have to go back and be great self-evaluators. We have to pull up the film and evaluate exactly how we perform.

I think every one of our players will tell you they have more in the tank and they can do a little bit better. Same with our coaching staff.

This is 100% on me and our coaching staff to do a better job preparing our guys, but we have to create those moments in practice. If you don't do it in practice, it's not going to show up in the game. So, we can do it better in practice.

Q. You just said it was kind of a tough locker room in there, but I'm just curious, how are you feeling, especially with all of the lead-up to this game? People have been talking about it for months. Just how did it feel to meet Kirby midfield there and just have this one under your belt now?

DAN LANNING: Everybody knows I have a ton of respect for Kirby. I told our coaching staff before this morning, before we ever played the game, we had a staff meeting, and I said every single one of our goals is going to be ahead of us regardless of how this game comes out.

Win, loss, draw, every one of our goals is still right here in front of us. Our players feel the exact same way. Tough locker room because we have competitors. Not a bad locker room. A tough locker room because we have competitors that want to win.

Those guys are hungry to go get better. I think if you asked our players, they would go right back out to the practice field today because they want to compete. There was no quit in them, but certainly getting to go against a good team, it's a great gauge of where you're at. They're a good team.

Q. Coach, you kept the quarterback competition pretty hush-hush. You go with Bo. You kept him in there the entire time, even as the point spread started to jump away from you. Can you kind of speak to what you saw in camp from Bo and why you kept him in for the entire game today?

DAN LANNING: Bo is a leader. I think if you go back and look at our offense, they really moved the ball well. We didn't cap off our drives. Obviously, the turnovers is something we don't want to have, but we moved the ball down the field at times. We just didn't finish drives.

You get down to the red area, you have to go score touchdowns, not kick for field goals. We had a couple of chances down there that we didn't capitalize. Bo is going to go evaluate himself. We have other quarterbacks on our team that obviously can compete as well, but Bo is our quarterback. Bo did a good job today of handling some adverse situations, but he is also going to figure out how can he improve, just like we can as a staff.

Q. You had plenty of conversations with the players coming off the field after touchdowns given up to Georgia. Can you talk about what you were saying to guys, like Noah Sewell and stuff, as they're coming off the field, feeling kind of defeated?

DAN LANNING: Love you, buddy. I'm proud to be your coach. Us playing poorly doesn't change the way I feel about you, doesn't change the way that I want these guys to feel about the direction of our program, where we're going. Noah -- the composure of our guys throughout the game even though playing poorly was next level, those guys handled it well. We're not satisfied. We've got to go get better. We have to go improve, but every one of those guys is ready to do that.

Q. Dan, can you talk about the scheme in terms of what you wanted take away? It looked like Stetson had to make some plays. He scrambled and got loose and threw a touchdown. Pretty deep third down out-route. Looked like you forced him into some things. Brock Bowers was relatively held in check. How much of a priority was that for your defense?

DAN LANNING: We certainly emphasized Brock. I think Stetson did a good job of being able to move the ball on the perimeter, and he is elusive. So even when you do pressure at time, you're not able to always get home.

I felt like we wanted to do a good job of making sure the ball got outside. Unfortunately, they were able to get it outside. They won on the perimeter more than we won on the perimeter.

We have to do a better job of recreating that in practice for us, but they had a lot of success, and that's credit to them.

Q. What did you learn about your team in terms of how they match up with the best? You know the talent on that side. Coming off a lopsided game like this, where do you feel like they are relative to where you guys want to get to?

DAN LANNING: I'm taking our team. I'm taking our players. We have to do a better job as coaches of coaching our guys and growing them and developing them, but let's not discredit Georgia.

They have a lot of talent. They have a lot of talent. They've been recruiting there and building a program for a long time. I won't take anything away from them, but we have guys that we can play winning football with, and we have to grow this team to do that.

Q. Dan, in a game like this, what are some of the positives that you can take away from this experience?

DAN LANNING: We're really going to have to go back and look at the film. I think one of the biggest positives, like I said, is we have a locker room that's hungry to go get better. There's not a bunch of finger-pointing going on in there. You don't see guys throwing trash cans. That's not the team that we have.

You have a team that's frustrated that wants to improve, but I think we walked away saying, how can we get better?

Q. Dan, in sticking with Bo, particularly late in the fourth quarter, why not go to Ty? What would it take? Basically the fan base is going to ask. They wanted to see Ty at times even last season. Even today, all right, maybe not every mistake, every issue is Bo's fault certainly, but why not go to Ty? What would it take to turn to Ty in a game at this point?

DAN LANNING: I think we wanted to give our offense an opportunity to drive and get in some rhythm there. Obviously, they moved the ball down the field there on that last drive. We didn't capitalize it with a score, but give them an opportunity to get in rhythm and get a feel for the game.

We have a lot more football games to prepare for beyond this one, and just moving on just in this game wasn't the only answer. It was grow as a team right now for the next game here.

Q. Dan, you mentioned there's areas for you guys to improve. I realize maybe you haven't watched the film yet. Off the field immediately, what are those areas that come to mind that you feel like there needs to be a jump between now and Week 2?

DAN LANNING: I think we need to create some more explosives offensively, and defensively we have to stop those. We have to tackle much better. We didn't tackle well enough on the perimeter. We didn't get off the blocks well on the perimeter.

I think they were able to take advantage of some of our rush. When we rushed up the field, they were able to put the ball back behind us, and we have to do a good job of retracing with relentless pursuit on defense. Obviously, third down kind of on both sides. I think we were a little bit better on offense than we were on defense.

We weren't good at all right now today on defense, so that's going to be an emphasis for us.

Q. Does that surprise you defensively that you weren't good on third down?

DAN LANNING: They're a good team. Do we want to play better? Absolutely. We didn't play as well as we want, but again, credit to them for having a good plan and doing a good job.

It's also, I mean, an indication of when you talk about third and short compared to third and long, it's a little easier to convert.

Q. Are there moments in your career in terms of -- this is obviously a shortcoming, a tough loss. Are there moments not as a head coach that you can draw from in terms of how to respond and what the next couple of days look like and maybe walk us through early on in your career when you weren't a head coach.

DAN LANNING: I have been a part of a lot of wins. I have also been a part of a lot of losses, and I've seen great coaches handle situations like this before. I was a part of one of these last year.

We felt pretty deshambled last year walking off an SEC Championship game that we didn't win and didn't play well, and we turned that into an opportunity to get a lot better.

I've seen the best do it, whether it be Coach Smart or Coach Saban or any other coach. We have to take our team, look for our opportunities to improve. And guess what, regardless of the result today, we would have to do the same thing. It's about what can you go fix and how you can improve.