UCLA Football Preview: Lanning Leads a Duck Staff with Bruin Connections
Meanwhile, the Ducks' kicking game is excellent but the return teams leave something to be desired.
After beating Washington and Utah at home, the Bruins will look to stay undefeated when they hit the road to play the #10 Oregon Ducks on Saturday at 12:30 pm PT. It looks to be the toughest game UCLA has played yet. Today, we begin our previews of the Ducks with a look at Oregon’s coaching staff and special teams.
When Mario Cristobal decided to leave Oregon for his alma mater Miami, Oregon AD Rob Mullens decided to bring in Dan Lanning, who had been Georgia’s defensive coordinator since 2019. Of course, Lanning was the defensive coordinator for a squad which won the national championship last season.
So, Lanning’s arrival was a pretty big deal and, in fact, he has Oregon playing good enough to be ranked in the Top Ten in both polls, going into this weekend’s game against the Bruins.
As if Lanning’s pedigree as the defensive coordinator for a national championship team isn’t enough, Lanning brought in Tosh Lupoi who worked for five years at Alabama under Nick Saban and was the team’s co-defensive coordinator when they won the national title in 2017 and the team’s defensive coordinator in 2018.
So, between Lanning and Lupoi, UCLA fans should expect the Ducks defense to be the toughest the Bruins have faced this season.
The biggest weakness from a coaching standpoint on the Oregon defensive coaching staff occurs in the secondary. That’s because Demetrice Martin is the team’s defensive backs coach. Of course, Bruin fans will remember “Coach Meat” from his time in Westwood where his DBs were known for playing with big cushions off the line of scrimmage.
On the offensive side of the ball, Lanning hired Kenny Dillingham to run the offense and coach the team’s quarterbacks. Dillingham has been the offensive coordinator at Florida State, Auburn and Memphis. When Dillingham was at Auburn, he coached quarterback Bo Nix. When Dillingham was hired at Oregon, Nix followed him there and transferred to Oregon. As a result, the Ducks have an experienced quarterback who is familiar with Dillingham’s offense.
Besides Coach Meat, there is one more connection to UCLA’s Jim Mora era on Lanning’s staff. That position group is the offensive line because Lanning hired former UCLA line coach Adrian Klemm. Under Klemm, UCLA’s offensive line was notoriously exposed as one of the weakest parts of the offensive unit under Mora. After leaving Westwood in 2016, Klemm was out of football until being hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers as their assistant offensive line coach in 2019. He was promoted to offensive line coach in 2021. After spending just a season in that role, he joined the Ducks’ staff. It may take some time for the Ducks to show issues with the offensive line, but hopefully, UCLA DC Bill McGovern will be able to create a scheme this week to exploit the offensive line of the Ducks since we know that, while Klemm may be a very good recruiter, he isn’t a very good line coach. He may be a better coach after spending time coaching the Steelers, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
Special Teams
While junior kicker Camden Lewis has been perfect on field goal attempts and PATs this season, he is 30 of 41 on field goal tries in his career and 158 of 161 on PATs. While his career long is 49 yards, he has not been asked to try one longer than 38 yards so far this season.
The only game where Lewis kicked off for the Ducks this season was against Eastern Washington. Junior Andrew Boyle has handled most of Oregon’s kickoffs this season. 24 of his 34 kickoffs have been touchbacks and he is averaging 64.26 yards per kickoff.
The Ducks have used three different punters at different times during the season. Senior Adam Barry and sophomore Ross James have been splitting those duties with Barry punting nine times and James punting eight times. James has a slightly better average with 41.88 yards per punt to Barry’s 40 yards per punt. Twice this season, quarterback Bo Nix has punted as well. He punted once against Georgia and once against Stanford. Now, those could have been quick kicks. I’m not sure, but don’t be surprised if Nix should be asked to punt it away.
Sophomore Kris Hutson has taken most of the punt returns for the Ducks and the only team anyone else returned punts against was Eastern Washington. So, expect Hutson to be the guy. He hasn’t done much on punt returns, though. He’s averaging just 3.29 yards per return and his longest is 15 yards. Former Bruin Chase Cota returned one punt against Eastern Washington for 15 yards and Josh Delgado returned one against them for seven yards.
Seven McGee (yes, that’s his name AND his number!) has returned more kickoffs this season than any other Oregon Duck. He has three returns this season and he is averaging 13 yards per return. His longest this year is 16 yards and his career long is just 20 yards. Hutson has returned two kickoffs, one which went for 25 yards and the other went for just a yard. So neither of the teams primary kickoff return guys seem to be big threats to break one for a big gain.
In fact, the Ducks as a team are only averaging 13 yards per return while their opponents are averaging 25.57 yards per return. That’s a huge difference and it could bear fruit for the Bruins who have come close to taking it to the house on several returns this season.
Go Bruins!!!
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