Dan Lanning has found himself at the center of the college football news cycle a few times so far this season. Earlier this year, it was thanks to his rousing pre-game speech vs. Colorado that went viral online. More recently, it’s because of the aggressive decisions that he made on Saturday against the Washington Huskies, ultimately leading to a 36-33 loss in one of the games of the year.
The aggressive decisions were nothing new for Lanning, but rather a consistent approach that he has taken since becoming the head coach in Eugene. Often times, those aggressive calls have paid off, but there are other times when it’s hurt the team — Oregon was 0-for-3 on 4th-down conversions in the loss vs. Washington.
When they don’t work, Lanning is left having to answer for the tough decisions. He did that after the game on Saturday, and again on Monday night in his weekly press conference where he talked about the benefit of hindsight, and looked ahead to another big game this week against the Washington State Cougars.