Oregon coach Dan Lanning faced a brutal question on Saturday after his team’s stunning 39-31 loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
Oregon faced criticism on both sides of the ball for playing sloppily, particularly when they took two delay-of-game penalties while trying to mount a fourth quarter comeback on Saturday. That led to criticism of new offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer, while new defensive coordinator Chris Hampton also took heat for giving up 39 points to a team that only scored 10 against Tulsa a week ago.
After the game, Lanning was asked outright if he regretted his new coordinator hires.
“No, I think it’s the easy thing to say if you’re watching, like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s obviously an OC-DC thing.’ No, it’s a combination of the staff, right? The decisions I make, right? The decisions we make as an offensive staff, the decisions we make as a defensive staff, and then execution,” Lanning said, via Lily Crane of SI. “This isn’t a (Chris Hampton), this isn’t a Drew (Mehringer), ‘Oh, that’s the reason.’ Like, no, no. We have to go execute plays. If we were executing plays and they weren’t working, that’d be different.”
The Ducks lost both of their coordinators last year, Will Stein and Tosh Lupoi, to head coaching jobs with Kentucky and Cal, respectively.
The fact that Lanning is getting a question that brutal already certainly underlines the growing pressure on Oregon to turn things around. An underwhelming season could put Lanning himself under fire, though that remains a long way away.
