Everything Dan Lanning said after Oregon's huge road win at Penn State

Dan Lanning is one of those people who talks quickly, but as we found out tonight, he talks a little more quickly when he's excited.

His Oregon Ducks gave him plenty to be excited about Saturday night as they went on the road to No. 2 Penn State and came out on top 30-24 in an epic double overtime win.

As he says in his postgame press conference, it was a total team effort and it had to be for the entire 60-plus minutes of play. Oregon was up 17-3 in the fourth quarter, but Penn State woke up and scored two touchdowns in the last 12 minutes of action to send the game into overtime.

Fortunately for the Ducks, Oregon made one more play than the Nittany Lions did. The game was over on Dillon Thieneman's interception on the first play of the second overtime period. Here is everything Lanning had to say following what might be the Ducks' biggest road victory since he's been in Eugene.

Opening Statement

Dan Lanning: I think that's the best game I've ever been a part of. Just unbelievable, back and forth. I guess we got four. We had four touchdowns. I have to start counting overtime, right? Overtime was a different animal. But these guys, they fought. We just talked all week. It's about getting a cut, right? And death by a 1,000 cuts. We just had to get another cut. And eventually that cut was going to be a jugular, and that last interception was a jugular. It was as proud as I've been of our team playing well on both sides of the ball. The score maybe didn't indicate that in the first half of our offense, but the defense played really well in the first second half. Offense really picked it up. Defense had some good back and forth and just an unbelievable effort by our players. Unbelievable effort by our coaches. I thought our coaches had a great game plan going in this game against a really tough team. I thought our players handled the crowd. The crowd didn't make a single play, right? Our players made plays today and that showed up in this game.

Defense made big plays when it had to

Question: You said on the radio your defense made big plays when they needed to. Can you speak to that?

Lanning: Yeah, we're just really struggling with the speed motion sweep series, and we felt like they were going to run what we call score route off of that. So we wanted to have a good answer for the speed sweep and a good answer for the score route. If we got it, they ended up throwing the score out, and we intercepted it. So like I said, unbelievable job by our defensive coaches game planning that they can't mean they came out in 12 personnel, and we went nickel, which we hadn't really done all game, and our guys executed really, really well.

Dante Moore's big game

Question: What can you say about Dante Moore and his poise tonight?

Lanning: I think we got the best quarterback in college football, all right? I mean, anybody watches that game? I don't know. I don't I maybe I don't see everybody else, but that guy's composure, his poise. I mean, even the big play at the end there, on the first overtime, you know, we're about to throw a screen in the boundary, he has the wherewithal to not throw it in the boundary, turn around and get it thrown back to the field. Get a fourth and one. I don't know. You guys have to tell me. I thought that was going to be targeting. Looked like it from the field, but we ended up, you know, converting to fourth and one. That's just like one example in that game of the poise that he had, the command he had of our offense. Remember, I came up and talked to him about a, hey, if we go to fourth down here, here's what I'm thinking. He's like, "Coach, let's just get the third down." And he did it, you know. So just tells you a little bit about that guy we got playing for us.

Young players competing in front of huge crowds

Question: This was just a massive place in your freshman playing event in front of 100,000 people, probably for the first time for most of them. What would you say about their composure, particularly 18-19-year-olds olds and handling this?

Lanning: Yeah, I think that's two years in a row. We played the biggest in front of the biggest crowd in Oregon history. That speaks volumes about how these guys can handle the stage. And we said the white out was really going to be a white canvas for us today, we get an opportunity to paint our masterpiece. And those guys did it. Did an unbelievable job of just going out there and executing every play and playing the next play. I thought we had really good composure throughout the game. There's a couple of times we hurt ourselves. The penalty, obviously, late from Harkey, something we got to control. Didn't see it on the field, but obviously it happened. But overall, our players played, you know, their asses off whistle to whistle, and that showed up.

Confidence builder

Question: How do you use this as a confidence builder moving forward?

Lanning: We were really clear before the game, regardless of the result, like all of our goals are in front of us, regardless of what happens. We're coming here to win the game. We're coming here to be aggressive. You know, I thought our offensive staff did an unbelievable job game plan. We had a false start on the first fourth down. Otherwise we would have converted that one. We had a great play call. But we, you know, we went through the Rolodex today, and what did we convert? I mean, we had five of seven, you know, fourth down. So every one of those fourth downs mattered. And yeah, two of those we didn't get, but we were going to be aggressive in this game. They were three for three on fourth down. So those, those extra two for us, mattered in a big way in this game and our coaches, I thought that a great we didn't just go to our normal bag, right? We stepped outside of the box and went to some stuff we hadn't ran this season. And it ended up being winners for us.

Moving on after Whittington's possible fumble

Question: What's going through your mind after Noah's possible fumble?

Lanning: Yeah, hey, regardless of what happens, we're on defense, fellas. Here's what we're thinking. Here's our next but we were focused on the next play the entire time. And you know, those guys handled that moment well. They were so locked in and focused, it's hard to be focused for a 60 minute or an overtime game, right? They were, they were focused for more than 60 minutes today. We needed every one of them. We needed every play, every amount of focus from our team. And that was a challenging game.

Throat slash move

Question: The television caught you doing the throat slash after going up 17-3. Was that what you envisioned?

Lanning: I wasn't saying that. I was saying that's another cut. This game was about 1,000 cuts. We're getting another cut, that's another cut, that's another cut. We're gonna stack as many cuts as we could possibly get, right? And the game ain't over until, until it's over, right? But that was about us stacking cuts. Our players knew we're gonna get as many cuts in as we can, death by a 1,000 cuts. That was the mindset.

Taking it all in

Question: How do you feel in this moment?

Lanning: I'm just really proud for our players that they got to experience what they worked really hard. There's a ton of emotion in a game like that. You put your all you work incredible hours, and players work so hard. So for them to be able to celebrate a moment like they would have been devastating to be on the other end of that, I feel for that team in the under locker room because they busted their ass too. You talk about a good football team that we're probably going to see again, right? We'll probably see that team again. But our guys worked so hard for them to be able to walk out of this with the W is, is really big.

Dante running

Question: Was Dante running the ball more part of the game plan?

Lanning: No, we felt like, you know, this is a game we needed to win, and we were gonna, we were gonna run our quarterback in times, and he took some hits, man. And that guy's tough, man, tough as nails. But we felt like, hey, at times we have to play 11-on-11, where you can't play 10-on-11. There. They're really good defense, you know. So it's in those critical moments when you want the you know, where do you want the ball? Who do you want to have it in their hands? He did an unbelievable job.

Statement game?

Question: When you go out and hold their run in check, hold their quarterback in check, you put up 30 points against that DC. What kind of statement is this about this program when you stuck with your guys?

Lanning: So we believe in each other, and we had work to do, right? We found some flaws in our in our game, and there's gonna be some flaws tonight that we find. And guess what we'll do, we'll go correct them. Right? We got outstanding coaches, players that want to be great, and that's we gotta do. We gotta go attack our flaws and figure out what we can improve. This program is about growth, right? And it doesn't matter if you're a freshman or senior. It doesn't matter if you're a offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, graduate assistant or quality control coach. You got to grow. A head coach, got to grow. I got to get better, right? And I learned from this game tonight. We learned from that game in the Rose Bowl. It's gonna be an opportunity for us to keep learning and for us to keep getting better.

Holding their run game

Question: How were you able to hold that run game in check?

Lanning: I just thought we had a really good plan. The one run, you know, the runs that they had success with became perimeter runs. That's gonna be something we got attacking and have a great answer for. They're really tough when it comes to formations. Think you see tonight that we were lined up with our hand in the dirt a lot more. That was a mindset coming from the Big Ten Championship Game. There's too many plays with ball snap, and we're not in a stance, but we're in a stance tonight that paid off.

Penn State's two fourth-quarter touchdowns

Question: What did you see from Penn State on those two four-quarter touchdowns?

Lanning: Yeah, they had some great power read, power sweep plays that we didn't have great answers for. They were hiding their ex off the ball at times. They were creating, you know, tackle over formations. So something we got to prepare for, figure out we can get an extra hat over there. It's what we did on the last play. We got an extra hat, right? Had pressure on the quarterback, and then if they ran that play, I feel like we would have been in a good position to stop as well.

Growth moment for Dante Moore

Question: What can you say about Dante coming into this environment and delivering the way he did?

Lanning: This is a huge growth moment for our entire team, right? Because, you know that crowd's probably worth seven points, right? And they really weren't tonight, like I didn't feel that. You know, the only time we beat ourselves is when we beat ourselves, right? The only time that we really struggled when we beat ourselves because it was gonna be a battle to figure out what worked, but they handled this environment and ended up not being a factor for our team, even though, like, that's why you play college football, that environment was unbelievable.

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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Everything Dan Lanning said after the Ducks' 30-24 double OT win