Dan Lanning hammers Oregon’s need to play clean football coming off bye week

Dan Lanning is getting ready for Oregon’s season to resume after a bye in Week 4. The Ducks are also coming off their best performance of the young season when they blew out Oregon State in Week 3.

One major aspect to Oregon’s performance was the ability to avoid costly penalties. The Ducks were flagged just 3 times for 36 total penalty yards against the Beavers, leading to an offense that racked up over 500 yards of offense.

Asked about keeping that trend going against UCLA, Lanning said it’s all about how Oregon puts in the preparation work in practice:

“It’s really about the body of work we do this week in practice. It’s got to show up in practice for it to show up in the games,” said Lanning.

The good news is Oregon has shown it can play at a high level when it plays clean football. That will be the challenge for the team on the road.

“I think what has been proven is when we do play clean, we play well. That’s something we’re going to have to challenge ourselves to do,” Lanning explained. “Especially when you’re going on the road, there can be a loss of focus. That’s something we’ve got to maintain during the game.”

While Oregon is middle of the road in penalties through 3 games (the Ducks are 10th in the Big Ten with 56.7 yards per game), the first 2 games were dramatically different than the showing vs. Oregon State. The Ducks averaged 8.5 penalties and 67 penalty yards in 2 close calls to start the year before the clean outing against the Beavers.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.