Dan Lanning, Oregon Head Football Coach

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Discover Bank, member FDIC. Alrighty, we continue. This is Zach Gelb's show Coast to Coast on CBS Sports Radio. The Oregon Ducks have been one of the better stories in college football this season. They are 7-1 coming off a big-time win at Utah over the weekend, 35 to 6. This weekend they have Cal and now joining us is the head football coach at Oregon in Dan Lanning. Coach, always appreciate the time.

Thanks for it. How are you? I'm doing good, Zach. Thanks for having me. Well, a little birdie told me that you guys had a little Halloween fun yesterday in the facility, but you dressed up as the big bad werewolf and you scared some children yesterday on your coaching staff. Yeah, I got a rough time last year because I wasn't dressed up. I wasn't wearing anything, so I had my wife. I said, hey, go grab me a mask or something. You know, a Halloween store, and she went pretty aggressive. The big bad wolf, and it was a hit, but not really when a three-year-old walks around the corner into my office. It's a little too scary, so I got to reassess that for next year.

Always learn. What is your favorite candy item, by the way? I'm probably a gummy guy. You know, they had some of these, what are they, like Life Saver, like gummy ring deals or whatever.

Those are pretty legit, I'd say that. My image of you is just crushing candy in the office and then a lot of energy drinks. Is that fair? You know, I'm coffee and I've been pretty good this year about not doing too much candy, but there's a bunch of candy in my office right now because of this Halloween deal yesterday, so I got to figure out a way to get rid of it. But more coffee than energy drinks.

Every once in a while, I'll hit a Red Bull, you know, a sugar-free Red Bull, but for the most part, it's coffee. And I would imagine your real coffee is just getting on that football field because when you get in that locker room and you give those epic pregame speeches or you're on the sideline, you just get in a zone, coach. And I mean this in like the most polite way possible and I want this for my football coach, you just have that look in your eyes that like you're all in on football when you get on your sanctuary. I mean, how great is this sport? Like, how fun is this sport?

And I loved playing it. I was never talented enough to play at Oregon, but this is like the closest thing to that six. There's no feeling in the world better than getting to coach football.

Talking to Dan Lanning right now, the head coach of the Oregon Ducks. That team last week, what you did in a tough environment was so impressive. I thought you guys were gonna win the game.

I know you can't touch on the gambling side of it, but I laid the six and a half points with you, but I didn't even think it would be that much of a blowout. What does that win say about your team, coach? Well, just that we can play a complete game, you know, and there's obviously a lot of season left, so you can't get too caught up in the moment because the next game is now the most important game. And our guys went out and performed kind of in all three phases, but I'm probably more excited that our guys walked away saying, oh man, what if we were to execute this better?

So a lot of room for growth for us moving forward. Now, this is only your second year at Oregon. It's your first time being a head coach. When you hear that from your players, where they walk away from what looked like a perfect game, but they think they could do more, that's got to be a signal to you. What you and your staff are doing is really working that they're understanding your guys's mentality.

Well, I think it's a signal more than anything that our guys live in reality, right? And people, media, and everything else that exists out there, they're gonna create highs and lows for your team that really have nothing to do with your team. And the reality is, we do need to get better. We do have a lot of things that we can improve and I'm glad our guys see that. Were you surprised with the way that the game played out?

Because we all know how much respect people have for Kyle Whittingham and what he's been able to do at Utah the last two years, back-to-back Pac-12 champs, to see it be that lopsided, that catch you by surprise. I thought our team could perform well and match up well and you know, for the brand of play that they have, it's hard if they get down for them to, you know, convert to a different brand of play on offense. So I felt like that was something if we, you know, the same things that he preaches, like if you take care of the ball and you win the line of scrimmage, you're gonna have an opportunity to control the game. And we were able to do that on Saturday and that's probably what led to success. The last two weeks coming off that crushing defeat up against Washington, which was my favorite college football game of the season.

It was awesome to see both teams play the way that they did and unfortunately for you guys, you just lose right at the end and don't get to go to overtime. But I was wondering how your team is gonna respond the following two weeks coming off a tough loss like that in a big national stage. These last two weeks, not only on the field because we've talked about on the field, but in practice, what kind of hunger did you sense from your guys? Yeah, our guys are hungry and that's just because they're competitors. You know, one of the best things you can do for your team is make sure you have guys with competitive spirit on your team and we got a bunch of competitors on our team. We just, I just actually got off the practice field with our guys today, a Tuesday practice and it's it's physical practice that I've been a part of in a long time with guys competing and you know, I think that's the secret to having great success is guys that embrace the strain of what it takes to be successful. Let me get to your quarterback.

Like I don't even know what else there is to say. It's all praise, praise, and praise. You get to see him day in and day out.

You've known him for a while. What do you enjoy the most about coaching Bo Nix? Well, his competitive spirit is certainly where it starts.

His ability to execute and I say it all the time, but get us in the right looks in the right place. He's really good at that, but he holds himself to a high standard and the people around him to a high standard which makes us better. Why has it worked at Oregon? Because it was a little up and down at Auburn and the last two years he's been one of the better quarterbacks, if not the best quarterback in the country.

I can't speak to what didn't work before, but I can speak to what Bo's done here and I think everybody can see what the success that Bo's had here. He's obviously a great quarterback. I went against him when he, you know, when I was at Georgia and I was always fearful playing Bo because he has big playability at all times. His legs are a weapon as well as his arm and I think what he's done here is just been able to show everybody else what he's capable of and what he can do. Do you feel like you have the best QB in the country? Yeah, I certainly do and I don't get to coach every other QB, but again I don't know if everybody realizes the value of everything else this guy does for us and I mean I spend as much time talking to Bo throughout the week as I do anybody on our coaching staff and you know any of our players. His preparation is unmatched, his intelligence, his work ethic.

I just never been around anybody quite like it and then for him to go out and perform the way he does on Saturdays is really impressive. You know in my business we spend so much time talking about the coach, talking about the quarterback through this season so far where you guys are 7-1 in the top 10 looking like a college football playoff team, potential Pac-12 champions. What else has really impressed you outside of the quarterback with this team?

Well all that stuff's so far away and it's really about focusing on where we're at right now. What I'll say is I think there's a lot of outside noise and a lot of questions about a lot of places and pieces on our team and I think that our players have responded well and saying they can eliminate the outside noise by just going out there and doing their job. There's a lot of questions around our offensive line going into the season. You know we're running the ball really well and we're protecting the quarterback.

A lot of you know questions about some of the defensive pieces we had and you know what that was going to look like moving forward and those guys are executing a high level but again it has nothing to do with the next week and it's about what you do now and what's next. So we got to continue to improve and continue to grow but I'm really happy with where our team's at so far. Well I saw a quote that you gave and it's music to my ears because I'm very strict in calling a team great and you said since the summer we talked about the process of good to great. We're a good team right now.

What you do in November will determine if we're a great team. You've been around great teams. You've been around Alabama.

You've been around Georgia. Are you seeing signs from your team so far that suggests alright this team's ready to take that next step and be a great team in the final two three months of the season? Well time will tell.

You know time will tell. Like you said I've been around great teams but I'll say at this moment with every one of those teams that I was a part of I don't think you knew yet. You still don't know and it's it's still about going out there and executing within the game. It's still and each one of those teams face adversity too. You know at the end of season great teams that I've been a part of they still experience some adversity that they had to overcome so we don't know that yet. You know we're good and but I don't know if we're great you know for our performance in November will tell us that. How are you a different coach from last year to this year just wondering?

Maybe a little more patient and you know just my thought process and I'll say this last year you know you expect the unexpected but I don't know if I always knew how to react in the unexpected and this year I feel like with the unexpected I know exactly how I want to react because I've kind of played that out in my mind before it before it happens. Before we let Dan Lanning run the coach of the Oregon Ducks I want to ask you this. You know we've seen coordinators get tabbed as like that next guy in college football some succeed some fail it's the nature of the business. Through the first two years you've had a lot of success. Why when you got the opportunity to be a head coach were you ready for the moment? Well because I've had the opportunity to be around phenomenal coaches before I got there.

You know I always talk about in coaching it's really not about years of experience it's about quality of experience and if you look at the people that I got to work with and work for and the players that I got to coach I had really quality experience to get to be a fly on the wall for guys like Kirby Smart and Nick Saban and Mike Norval and Todd Graham and Casey Keeler the coaches the plethora of coaches that I got to work for I learned a lot from each one of them things that I wanted to do things that I wanted to do different but I always learned and as long as I continue to have that growth mindset for me I think I can continue improve and be a better myself. I know the first college football playoff rankings come out tonight do you care where you guys land or is it too early? Just win. If we win we take care of the rest takes care of itself well it doesn't really matter what what that says just win. Last thing I'll ask you and there's some irony in this because I'm dressed up as Connor Stallions right now that's my Halloween costume how do you react to everything that's going on at Michigan and the sign stealing scandal in the sport of college football right now? Well I think that'll take care of itself obviously that the operation there is you know that was different and the more that comes out I think the more people realize that's not the way it's supposed to work it's not the way college football is supposed to work but that'll all take care of itself that's that's not on my plate which I'm glad it's not. And then one more bonus thing that I'll ask you how about Cal this upcoming weekend what do you see when you scout them? Well it's a night and day team from last year their efficiency on offense is really impressive they've all put up points I think they're getting more and more comfortable which is hard you know and you're one with coordinator you know coordinator change coach Pavol has done a really good job and obviously coach Wilcox has done a good job for a long time but this team can create explosives they're one of the best running backs in our league using NFL back you know and they do a good job distributing the ball and making sure that they're always in games with the way that they play and the points that they're able to score so it's gonna be a really unique challenge for us we have to go out there and play really sound football and the things that win every week in college football still still win we got to take care of the ball we got to create explosive plays and prevent explosives. Well coach your team's been a joy to watch so far good luck and good health the rest of the way and always do appreciate when you carve out a few minutes for us on CBS Sports Radio. Absolutely thanks Zach for having me have a good one.