Fiery coach Lanning hypes top-10 Oregon
EUGENE, Ore. – Between his fiery pregame speech and little bit of snark during his halftime interview, Oregon coach Dan Lanning was in rare form Sept. 23.
His team was as well.
With the college football world watching, then-No. 10 Oregon delivered a dominant and unifying performance after spending the week trying to avoid the trappings of hosting an opponent immersed in hype and hysteria.
The Ducks dumped No. 19 Colorado and their popular coach Deion Sanders 42-6 at Autzen Stadium to improve to 4-0 for the second time since 2014.
Much to the delight of most of the crowd of 59,889, the game was never competitive as the Buffaloes (3-1) were no match against Oregon in any phase of the game.
“I think we did exceptional,” quarterback Bo Nix said. “From the start, we were prepared, we knew the moment was going to be really big, we knew the occasion was going to be really big, but we just wanted to go out there and play like ourselves.”
The day began with ESPN camera’s catching Lanning’s pregame locker room speech, clips of which immediately went viral.
“The Cinderella story is over, man,” Lanning was recorded telling his team. “They’re fighting for clicks, we’re fighting for wins. There’s a difference, right? This game ain’t going to be played in Hollywood, it’s going to be played on the grass.”
About an hour before the game, Sanders emerged from the visitor’s locker room wearing a white sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head and sunglasses as he walked the perimeter of the field surrounded by an entourage of videographers, photographers, security and others, stopping only in the west end zone where he appeared to banter with former Ducks receiver Keanon Lowe.
The Pro Football Hall of Famer and media star has brought an unprecedented level of excitement and eye balls to Boulder where he has taken a 1-11 team from 2022 and turned them into a top-20 program. Their game against
Colorado State last week averaged 9.3 millions viewers, making it the fifthmost watched game on ESPN all time.
Last weekend, after Oregon took a 35-0 first-half lead, Lanning told ABC sideline reporter Katie George, “We’re not done yet. We’re not satisfied. I hope all those people that have been watching (Colorado) every week are watching this week.”
Lanning attempted to show some contrition and add some context to his comments.
“I get a little passionate at times. I get a little excited about what I want to accomplish for our team and I just want to say, I need to humble myself a little bit. This is one game, and I’m not satisfied. So as I just told our players, we’re about to go play great quarterbacks, we’re about to go play great teams moving forward and it’s about how great we can become.”
Lanning praised his players for handling the hype with poise and staying focused. He also said that type of pregame speech is hardly new.
“We’ll always have a message for our team,” he said. “Sometimes it’s to get them fired up, sometimes we don’t necessarily need the brimstone. … There is no speech that wins games. Players win games.”
When asked speech, safety
“Which one?”
He added, “(Lanning) “knows how to get us hyped up. He’s a master at what he does. We know every time we step on the field he has our backs and we have his.” about the pregame Evan Williams said,