Dan Lanning talks major trash following Oregon Ducks huge win over USC Trojans, all but locking in College Football Playoff spot
Coach Lanning makes fun of the SEC playing cupcake teams in November as Oregon Ducks dominate top notch USC team.
The Oregon Ducks are 10-1 following their win over USC Saturday, with their only loss on the year coming to number two ranked Indiana. Their spot in the College Football Playoff should be all but locked up at this point, but crazy things can happen when the sport relies on an extremely imperfect selection committee to get things right.
Even if Oregon loses to Washington in rivalry week they’ll still be 10-2 with a fairly strong strength of record and schedule, but that didn’t stop Dan Lanning from getting asked questions about the playoff, the committee, and where his team stands. In true Lanning fashion, his answer was absolutely hilarious as he talked some trash about SEC scheduling and how Oregon’s taking care of business in November.
Dan Lanning talks trash about SEC schedules following Oregon win over USC
The Oregon Ducks absolutely crushed the USC Trojans on Saturday, 42-27, and the score doesn’t do the level of dominance justice. They have been destroying their entire schedule all season long outside of the game against the undefeated Indiana Hoosiers. If there’s even a sliver of doubt about the Oregon Ducks being locked into the College Football Playoff, then there’s really no reason to even play the games. The committee might as well just pick the teams out of a hat to begin the season, otherwise. However, when asked about the playoff committee and their perception of the Ducks, Lanning had this to say following the game Saturday:
“We just played a really good team and beat them. A lot of times we play really good teams that become unranked all of a sudden. That’s not our fault — or maybe it is our fault — but all that we’re worried about is playing the teams that we play and doing the job that we need to do. And we did that job today. I think the proof is in the pudding. We played a good team, we beat them. All we can do next week is try to do the same thing. This conference is a really good conference. It’s competitive. We didn’t play Chattanooga State today, like some other places. We competed. That being said, it’s tough playing nine conference games. It’s tough playing in this league. And we got to take advantage of playing a good team today, attacking that.”
Oregon has outscored their opponents 432 to 164 this season as they’ve averaged nearly 40 points per game through 11 contests thus far. Their schedule has been extremely tough, and they’ve handled it with ease for the most part. Lanning’s comments directed towards the cupcakes that the SEC plays in November every year (Mercer, Samford, Eastern Illinois, for example on Saturday alone), highlight the strange state of college football scheduling.
The Big Ten plays nine conference games, and even their out of conference schedules (at least Oregon’s) are typically pretty strong too. Even the FCS team that Oregon played to open the season was actually a tough one in Montana State (who generally competes for FCS national championships and would beat half the Group of Five). The SEC and Big Ten both consistently have the toughest schedules in the nation, but it is funny how the SEC gets the benefit of the doubt more so than their more national counterparts.
Hilarious work from Lanning, as always. Oregon fans should feel safe knowing that after a win against USC there’s really not going to be any doubts to be had about the schedule or the Ducks’ case to be in the College Football Playoff. Now they just have to take care of business against Washington and they’ll be hosting a home playoff game here soon.
We’ll be back with more Oregon Ducks coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!
