UCLA Football Preview: Only Thing Dan Lanning Has Done at Oregon Is Win
Lanning has won 25 of the 30 games he's coached in Eugene.
Since taking over as the Oregon Ducks head coach in 2022, Dan Lanning has done nothing but win. He’s compiled a 25-5 mark since taking over the program.
Of course, winning creates more winning as the team’s on-field performance has resulted in excellent recruiting as well.
It also results in other schools wanting to hire your assistants. That has happened at Oregon as well.
The last time UCLA faced the Ducks was Lanning’s first season and his offensive coordinator was Kenny Dillingham. Based on the success of the Ducks’ offense that year, Dillingham was hired as the head coach at Arizona State.
In Dillingham’s place, Lanning found another young up-and-coming coach in Will Stein. After playing at quarterback at Louisville from 2008 to 2012, Stein became a graduate assistant there before beingpromoted to a quality control coach in 2014. He moved to Texas as a quality control coach from 2015 to 2017. He became the assistant head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Lake Travis HS near Austin in 2018. In 2020, he moved back to the college ranks when he took a job as the passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach at UTSA under Jeff Traylor. He was promoted to co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the 2022 season. Following an 11-3 season that year, he was hired by Lanning to replace Dillingham.
On the other side of the ball, the Ducks have maintained continuity, at least in term of his defensive coordinator. Tosh Lupoi remains the defensive coordinator for the team after joining in Lanning’s first season.
Now, that isn’t to say there has been no other changes on the Ducks coaching staff. Two years ago, I wrote about the UCLA connections on Lanning’s staff. I’m sad to report that both of those connections are now gone. Demetrice Martin, who had been the Ducks’ cornerbacks coach, left for Michigan State after last season.
Meanwhile Adrian Klemm, who was Lanning’s offensive line coach in 2022, was hired as the New England Patriots offensive line coach following one season in Eugene. The coordinator job went to Bill O’Brien and Klemm became the team’s offensive line coach. Interestingly, following the 2023 season, O’Brien left New England to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, but less than a month later, O’Brien was hired as the new head coach at Boston College, creating an opening on the Buckeyes’ staff for Chip Kelly. Klemm doesn’t appear to be coaching anywhere this season. Lanning probably doesn’t know how much he managed to dodge a bullet on that one.
Let’s look at the Ducks’ special teams.
Special Teams
Junior transfer Atticus Sappington joined the Ducks this season after being the primary kicker for Oregon State last season, where he led the Pac-12 last season in field goal percentage with a 92.86% success rate, making 13 of 14 tries. So far this year, he’s been the Ducks’ kicker for all placekicking except for one kickoff.
Sappington has made four of five field goal attempts this season with his only miss coming from longer than 50 yards. He’s made 12 of his 13 PAT attempts this year as well.
He’s averaging 64.6 yards per kickoff, largely as a result 14 of his 19 kickoffs going for touchbacks.
Redshirt freshman Grant Meadors did kickoff once against Oregon State two weeks ago and that kickoff went for a touchback.
Junior Ross James will handle the punting duties for Oregon again this year. He became the Ducks’ starting punter last year after playing in three games as a freshman in 2022. This year, he’s punted 10 times for 496 yards with two touchbacks, two fair catches, two inside the 20, and four punts longer than 50 yards. Against Boise State, he had a career-best 69-yard punt.
Senior wide receiver Tez Johnson has fielded all seven punt returns for the Ducks this year. His return average is boosted significantly by the fact that he broke one punt for an 85-yard touchdown. On his other six returns, he’s gained just 22 yards, but that touchdown means that the Bruins need to be careful, or Johnson will make them pay.
Oregon has only returned three kickoffs this season. Redshirt junior running back Noah Whittington is the Ducks’ dangerous return man on kickoffs. His longest this year was a 100-yard return for a touchdown against Boise State. His other return was a 20-yarder. Sophomore running back Jayden Limar returned Oregon’s third kickoff for 26 yards.
Go Bruins!!!
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Yikes. This one could be ugly for our Bruins. At least we won't have to worry about traveling to a bowl game this season.
Off-topic, but what's going on with the Jackie Robinson Stadium?