It was less than three months ago that Oregon finished Dan Lanning’s first season in Eugene with a flourish and a 28-27 win over North Carolina in the Holiday Bowl.
Now the Ducks need to build upon that success and that begins now with Spring Practice fully underway. Oregon has a lot to be giddy about as quarterback Bo Nix is back along with several top performers from the 2022 team and a Top 10 recruiting class ready to make a quick impact.
According to Lanning, the so-called first day of school couldn’t have gone any better.
“Everybody has juice and energy, a lot of enthusiasm. Practice was well-organized … guys were running to the right locations and with a lot of new bodies you hope that’s the expectation,” he said. “Guys playing hard but we don’t really have pads on either. So this is not real football yet in my mind, but guys are definitely turned in the right direction. See some new guys stepping up to be leaders which is positive. And I’m really excited about the direction we’re headed.”
That direction is definitely up as the Ducks are one of the favorites to win the Pac-12 in 2023 and have a chance to finally make the College Football Playoff after what would be an eight-season drought.
In order for the Ducks to achieve those kinds of goals, veterans will need to play to their capabilities, but those former freshmen who are now sophomores will need to make a significant jump in their development.
“A guy that really stands out to me going into Year 2 is (offensive lineman) Josh Conerly,” Lanning said. “This guy’s working his tail off in everything that he absolutely does. The way he stretches and just the way he approaches everything you know, his mentality, and in the classroom as well.”
It’s not only some of the players who are looking to improve in their second year. Lanning himself is in the same boat.
“We take pretty meticulous notes. So we just try not to make the same mistakes twice,” he said. “If we thought last year on Day 1 that we want to start on this yard line for a certain drill and we want to be really on the 15, we saw that and you know, we made sure this year we started the drill on the 15. I took a lot of notes today and stuff that we can still do better. So that’s what we’ll attack next practice.”
Lanning also made it a point to say that he wants his program to be consistent and a well-oiled machine.
“We don’t want to be one-hit wonders. We talked about that today. We’re trying to be consistent. So in our approach, we’re not coming out here trying to have a one-hit song, we’re trying to make sure we put two and stack days one day on top of the other,” he said.
Oregon’s spring practices run through April culminating with the annual Spring Game, which will be held April 29 at 1 pm PST.
It’s early, but so far, so good.