Tag: Oregon recruiting

Dan Lanning on QB Austin Novosad: ‘He has elite arm talent’

Oregon Ducks quarterback Austin Novosad has impressed Dan Lanning so far, and will learn a lot from Bo Nix and Ty Thompson in 2023.

The Oregon Ducks pulled off a massive recruiting flip in late December, stealing 4-star quarterback Austin Novosad from the Baylor Bears as a way to replace the loss of 5-star Dante Moore – who flipped to UCLA earlier that week.

Novosad has a long-standing relationship with new offensive coordinator Will Stein, and now he’ll have a chance to compete alongside Bo Nix and Ty Thompson in Oregon’s talented and experienced quarterback room.

Dan Lanning, speaking to assembled media after national signing day on Wednesday, believes being around those talented quarterbacks will help Novosad develop in his first year in Eugene.

“I’m really excited about what what he brings to our program,” Lanning said of Novosad. “I think he has an elite arm talent. And I think we have a mature quarterback room around him. And Ty and Bo both, I think will really pour into him to help him, you know, be great moving forward.”

Lanning admits he hasn’t had much time around Novosad since he arrived on campus, as he’s been out on the recruiting trail, but he’s excited to get more time with his team – newcomers and returners – as they prepare for another run through the Pac-12 and potentially into the College Football Playoffs.

“These guys have been grinding really hard the last month really with our strength coaches and the guys that are on the team,” Lanning said. “So that’s maybe the thing I’m most excited about as we approach the month of February is to get to spend more quality time with the players that are on our team.”

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Ranking the 20 best recruits to sign in the Pac-12 during 2023 cycle

Which Pac-12 school had the most top-20 recruits in the conference? To no one’s surprise, two teams dominated the rankings.

The Pac-12 not only saw a nice resurgence on the football field this past year, ranking as one of the best conferences in the nation with a tie for the most teams in the top 25 rankings at the end of the year, but they also saw a nice year in the recruiting world as well.

With the 2023 cycle now behind us, we can sit back and assess how each school did, and how each conference did. While every coach has his own knack for developing talent, and one team may do more with less than another, one of the easiest ways to judge talent is by looking at recruiting stars and rankings.

Of course, the SEC dominates in the recruiting world, continually stacking to national rankings with double-digit 5-star prospects staying in the south. However, behind them, the Pac-12 made a nice push in 2023, rivaling the Big-12 (7) for the next highest number of 5-star players (5).

So who made up those 5-stars in the Pac-12, and what other players went down as the highest-rated recruits in the conference during this cycle? Here’s a look at the top 20 guys who signed out west in the 2023 cycle.

Comparing Dan Lanning’s first recruiting class to past Oregon head coaches

Dan Lanning impressed during his first full recruiting cycle. How does his inaugural class at Oregon compare to other first-year head coaches in Eugene?

What Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks were able to do in the 2023 recruiting cycle was impressive by many measures. Not only did the Ducks manage to sign the No. 8 ranked class in the nation and up the level of talent on the roster two-fold over the offseason, but Lanning also etched his name in Oregon lore with one of the top-ranked recruiting classes in school history.

What makes all of that more impressive is the fact that this was Lanning’s first full recruiting class in Eugene. While his fingerprints were on the 2022 class that ranked No. 13 in the nation, Lanning was forced to play from behind a year ago after Mario Cristobal’s late departure left several top prospects to reconsider the Ducks and go elsewhere. The 2023 class was Lanning’s from start to finish, and we finally got to see what he could do with a full year to go to work.

That got me to start thinking about how Lanning’s first year compares to the first recruiting cycle for other coaches in Oregon history. There have been great recruiters in the Ducks’ past, but do their first cycles as head coach stack up to what Lanning was able to do this past year?

Let’s dive into that. Here are the top five “inaugural” recruiting classes for Oregon coaches over the past couple of decades.

Dan Lanning believes California is critical to Oregon’s recruiting success

Oregon Ducks coach Dan Lanning continues to find success recruiting in the state of California, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

The end of the 2023 recruiting cycle saw the Oregon Ducks make one more big move, landing 4-star CB Rodrick Pleasant out from under the nose of Lincoln Riley and USC.

Pleasant is from the Los Angeles area, another big win for Lanning in the state of California – a place he made it quite clear he plans to heavily recruit in while he’s leading the Ducks.

“We’re always gonna play games in California,” Lanning told assembled media on Wednesday. “I think that’s important for us and we always want to find the best players from the West Coast. You know, ultimately, we want to find the best players everywhere, right? But if you can win in your footprint and our footprint, certainly, you know, California is part of that. We want to have success there. And I think this year, we’ve proved that we were able to do that.”

Pleasant is not the first big-time recruit Lanning has landed from California, with 4-star corner Jahlil Florence (San Diego) joining the Ducks in 2022 and 4-star EDGE Matayo Uiagalelei (Los Angeles) coming in 2023 – both picking Oregon over USC.

Lanning’s footprint in California is a huge bonus for the Oregon Ducks and their ability to land high level talent, and continued success on the football field will only help this program’s recruiting going forward under Lanning and his staff.

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Where Oregon Ducks stands early on in 2024 recruiting class rankings

It’s time to start looking ahead. Here’s where Oregon currently stands in the 2024 national recruiting rankings.

With the 2023 recruiting cycle now in the rearview mirror, it doesn’t mean that we are done talking about recruiting in the world of college football. It simply means that we are now looking ahead to the 2024 class instead.

For fans of the Oregon Ducks, there is ample reason to be excited about the upcoming cycle. Head coach Dan Lanning has proved quickly that he is capable of recruiting with the best in the nation, and the Ducks’ top-10 class in 2023 was close to looking a lot more impressive than it ended up, with a handful of 5-star prospects just passing on Oregon in the very end. It feels safe for fans to have confidence in the fact that some of those elite prospects will end up choosing the Ducks down the road.

Might that be in the 2024 class? There’s a good chance, and Oregon already has a great head start on things with 5 commitments already, headlined by 4-star WR Jordan Anderson (No. 83 player in the nation) and 4-star WR Tyseer Denmark (No. 87 player in the nation).

Here’s where the Ducks’ 2024 class stands right now:

Dan Lanning explains what he’s learned at Oregon over the past year

Oregon Ducks coach Dan Lanning learned a lot about recruiting for the Oregon Ducks this year, including what makes the program so special.

Dan Lanning’s first year as the head coach of the Oregon Ducks was an overwhelming success. The team not only contended for a spot in the College Football Playoff for most of the season, their prowess on the recruiting trail will pay off in Eugene for many years.

Lanning admitted he learned a lot in his first season, including what it takes to be a head coach at a program like Oregon and how it’s not always easy to make the right decisions.

“I think you learn lessons every every year,” Lanning told assembled media on Wednesday. “It takes the right person, you know, to come here and be in Oregon, right? This is a prideful program that provides a lot of opportunity and resources for people to be great. But sometimes you have to step on a limb you know, to make that happen. It’s not always going to be the closest most convenient option but a lot of times it’s going to be the best option.”

Lanning continued Oregon’s string of recruiting the best class in the Pac-12, making it five straight years after securing a top ten class in 2023.

The head coach wasn’t shy about expressing how dynamic his program can be, and his belief that this team can sell anyone on the opportunity to come to Eugene and don the green and yellow at Autzen Stadium.

“Oregon is an opportunity that a lot of people want to be a part of,” Lanning continued. “And they see the innovation they see what exists here and makes this place so great. And that’s what excites me. I feel like we can go anywhere in the nation and go get the best players when people see this for the right thing.”

So far so good for Lanning, who will get a chance to run it back with Heisman Trophy candidate Bo Nix as well as an extremely talented recruiting class for the 2023 season.

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Dan Lanning named among biggest winners of 2023 recruiting cycle

With a full cycle under his belt in Eugene, Dan Lanning was named among the biggest winners in the 2023 recruiting world.

After spending a little more than a year on the job in Eugene, Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning now officially has put a stamp on his first full recruiting cycle as a head coach. Of course, he was around for the latter half of the Ducks’ 2022 cycle, turning a fledgling class around after Mario Cristobal’s departure and securing an impressive top-15 finish, but 2023 marked a recruiting cycle where Lanning had complete control from beginning to end.

So it should be encouraging to Oregon fans that their guy was named by ESPN among the biggest winners of the cycle when it comes to first-year head coaches having an impact early on.

With the commitment of 5-star Jurrion Dickey, the No. 2 WR in the nation, and a handful of other top-100 players in the nation, it’s clear that Lanning increased the talent level on the Duck’s roster by a large margin. On top of the recruiting haul that ranked No. 8 in the nation, per 247Sports, Lanning also brought in a group of transfers that will have an instant impact on the team.

Here’s what ESPN had to say about Lanning’s first year recruiting in Eugene:

Even after losing five-star QB Dante Moore before the early signing period, Lanning did an excellent job. The Ducks snagged ESPN 300 QB Austin Novosad, landed ESPN 300 defender Matayo Uiagalelei from California (a key recruiting footprint) and kept active nationally with signings out of Florida, D.C. and Mississippi. On signing day, Lanning brought in top-100 cornerback Rodrick Pleasant, whose blazing 10.14 100-meter speed will help in the secondary and possibly the return game. After a three-year run of signing the Pac-12’s top class, the Ducks fell to fourth in the 2022 cycle, but with a full year on the trail, Lanning returned Oregon to the top of the conference’s recruiting rankings.

Of course, depending on which recruiting service you are loyal to, you will see different rankings. While ESPN may not have had the Ducks atop the Pac-12 recruiting rankings in 2022, Lanning’s impressive close a year ago made it so Oregon’s No. 1 ranking out west this season locked up a five-year run as the top team in the conference when it comes to recruiting.

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Ducks crack top 10 in final 2023 recruiting rankings for third time in school history

Dan Lanning is just the second coach in Oregon history to sign a top-10 class nationally. Check out where the Ducks’ 2023 class stands after signing day.

The 2023 recruiting cycle came to a close on Wednesday, and Dan Lanning made sure that the Oregon Ducks went out on a positive note.

While the Ducks were unable to land a second 5-star in the class, they picked up one of the top available players left on the board — 4-star CB Rodrick Pleasant — and solidified what is the best recruiting class in the Pac-12 conference for the fifth straight year.

Lanning was also able to do something that only one Oregon coach has been able to do ahead of him — sign a class that ranks inside the top 10 nationally. For just the third time in Oregon history, the Ducks have a class that is in the top 10. Only Mario Cristobal has been able to do that in Eugene, landing the No. 6 ranked class in 2021, and the No. 7 ranked class in 2019.

So where did Lanning’s first full class at Oregon rank nationally? Take a look.

Major takeaways from Oregon Ducks strong close to the 2023 recruiting class

Oregon sits atop the Pac-12 for a fifth-straight year, and Dan Lanning’s knack for stealing players away from USC in California continues.

The 2023 recruiting cycle has officially come to a close for the Oregon Ducks, and Dan Lanning made sure that his squad finished on a high note with the addition of 4-star cornerback Rodrick Pleasant.

While the day started with an unfortunate and unexpected loss for Oregon — 5-star ATH Nyckoles Harbor committed to South Carolina when many expected him to end up with the Ducks — Oregon was quickly able to recover and land a top-100 prospect in Pleasant, stealing him away from the USC Trojans’ backyard to make it even sweeter.

So with the 2023 class behind us, and eyes now set on 2024 and beyond, we wanted to take one last look at things on Wednesday. Here are some of my biggest takeaways from Wednesday’s National Signing Day for the Ducks:

Notable quotes from Dan Lanning at national signing day press conference

“We did a great job of keeping the best talent on the West Coast.” Dan Lanning recapped another successful signing day for the Ducks.

It was another banner day for the Oregon Ducks football program. Dan Lanning and his staff made more waves in the recruiting world with the addition of four-star cornerback Rodrick Pleasant, one of the best available players remaining in the 2023 cycle.

Lanning held his signing day media conference to discuss the new signing, touch on transfer portal commitments, look at the offseason as a whole and the give his outlook for the program entering the biggest stretch of the offseason.

Here are some of the most notable quotes from that press conference: