Ducks Win Over Colorado Is Lanning’s Biggest Win As Head Coach
By STEVEN VAUGHAN, 750 THE GAME
The anticipation was real on Saturday as Colorado was at Autzen Stadium taking on the Oregon Ducks. Coach Prime and the 3-0 Buffaloes were the talk of college football.
Dan Lanning and the Ducks had seen enough and ended up winning the game 42-6.
The takeaways form the national media was more about Coach Prime and what Dan Lanning said pregame. Lanning’s pregame speech was shown on ABC and in it Lanning said “they’re playing for clicks. We’re playing for wins.”
John Canzano says that we are looking into the Lanning pregame speech too much. It was more that he wanted his team ready to play a good Colorado team.
“Oregon wasn’t out to get Colorado anymore than they’re out to get Washington, Oregon State, USC, or Utah in a given season,” Canzano said on 750 The Game. “It viewed Colorado as an enemy. It views Colorado as a threat, especially in the recruiting world. So if you’re Dan Lanning of course you’re looking across the sideline wanting to put it on Colorado in every way that you can, because you think you have better players and there’s a lot of recruits at stake.”
The pregame speech was the most interesting thing about the game. Some people didn’t like the speech saying that it was unnecessary. Canzano thinks Lanning was showing respect to a Colorado program that had been so down the past few years.
“It was a big, big game for Oregon,” said Canzano. “A statement win for the Ducks over a Colorado program that has a lot to be proud of in this short season. It’s a hell of a turnaround going from 1-11 to eight or nine million people watching your football games. It’s a hell of a thing that Coach Prime has already created, and it’s already a victory this season.”
With the win the Ducks moved up one spot to No. 9 in the AP poll. A big win on a big platform. Canzano thinks that not only was this a big win in front of the whole country, but it is Dan Lanning’s biggest as the Oregon head man and also made a statement about the Ducks going forward.
“Not a lot of talk about how efficient, how dominant, and how complete that performance was by Oregon,” continued Canzano. “I thought it was Dan Lanning’s best win yet. You can go back to UCLA last season. You can go to BYU last season. I think after we saw him lose the Washington game at home, lose to Oregon State; I think it was the best, most complete win, and it was the first time I saw identity in the Oregon program. What did that Oregon team look like? It looked like an SEC team that came out and just physically imposed its will, had better players, scattered the ball around the stadium, and took care of business.”
For all the talk around the Colorado game. There is one takeaway that Canzano had that hasn’t been talked about much.
“Oregon might be scary good. That’s getting lost in this whole conversation.”
The Ducks look like they could be competing for a spot in the College Football Playoff. While the Buffaloes look like they will be competing for a bowl game. Two destinations that seem fair.
Next up for the Ducks is a matchup on the road at Stanford. While Colorado goes back to Boulder to host USC and the reigning Heisman trophy winner Caleb Williams.
Listen to the full segment at the start of the podcast below. Catch the Bald Faced Truth with John Canzano weekdays 3-6 p.m. in Portland exclusively on 750 The Game.
