You never want to lose once, let alone twice, to the same team.
It’s bad enough in basketball to get swept in a season series.
But in football, with the limited amount of games, it’s rare to play the same team twice and then lose twice.
That’s even more of a rarity.
Not only did Oregon lose twice to Utah with the last one coming in the Pac-12 title game, but the Utes crushed the Ducks.
The second dismantling of the Ducks was as hard to watch as the first one.
Oregon went to Utah and lost 38-7 and then in Las Vegas two weeks later, the Ducks were stomped 38-10.
Some speculated that then-coach Mario Cristobal had one foot out the door during that first game, and then the deal was sealed after his team was a complete no-show in sin-city.
In the long run, however, perhaps Cristobal did Oregon an indirect favor with those two humiliations.
And they were humiliations.
The Ducks are not a program that has a ton of no-shows in their history.
Only the 1995 Cotton Bowl and the home loss to Indiana come to mind.
With Cristobal leaving town as quickly as possible, it gave Athletic Director Rob Mullens one more chance to find a coach that looks upon Oregon as a destination job and not a stepping stone.
Mullens has been looking for that type of coach ever since he fired Mark Helfrich after the 2015 season.
It seems as if the third time is the charm with Dan Lanning.
Unlike his predecessors, Lanning quickly shot down rumors linking him with the Auburn vacancy.
“The reality is, the grass is not always greener; in fact, the grass is damn green in Eugene,” Lanning said.
“I want to be here in Eugene for as long as Eugene will have me. This place has everything that I could possibly want. Everything my family would ever want. I have an 11-year-old that’s lived in eight different states. The last thing I want to do for everyone is leave.”
Lanning is a first-year head coach and there will certainly be some growing pains as Duck-nation witnessed against Washington.
But it’s refreshing to know that the first-year coach will eventually be a 10-year coach at Oregon because he’s not leaving.
The Pac-12 and thankfully, Oregon’s fans, better get used to it.
WEDNESDAY PRESSER; DAN LANNING DISCUSSES UTAH