Deion Sanders isn’t the only one who keeps receipts.
Almost as soon as Dan Lanning’s weekly press conference began, the Oregon Athletic Department’s video team put out a video that showed why this game against Colorado got a bit, shall we say, personal.
Several Buffaloes players said and did things, such as curb-stomping the midfield O logo, that the Duck players didn’t particularly care for. Lanning said his team noticed everything and decided to respond on the field during the game, as they should have.
“Inside that house, they (the Ducks) felt a certain way. They felt a certain way about a group stomping on the ‘O’, they felt a certain way about guys talking to them in the pregame,” Lanning said. “I’m proud of those guys because what they decided to do is talk with their pads. They didn’t want to do anything extra afterward. They wanted to talk with their pads. and they did that on Saturday.”
The result was a dominating 42-6 Oregon win. Considering how the Ducks responded, one can only hope future opponents talk smack pregame, although it’s doubtful.
Lanning also addressed Fox’s Skip Bayless who said Lanning’s pregame speech where he said Colorado is fighting for clicks and Oregon is fighting for wins was bully talk and had “venomous vengeance” against Sanders.
“I’ve watched him (Bayless) enough to know how often he gets it wrong. Ultimately, here’s what I say. We’re playing to win the game and you saw a 15-second clip, from a window view outside the house, and what happens in the locker room,” Lanning said. “I know our locker room. I’m in the house 100 percent of the time. I know how our players felt going into that game. I know what it takes to motivate our players. That’s my job to motivate our players. He has a job, I have a job to, to get out there and perform on the field.”
After that, Lanning’s sole focus was on the upcoming opponent, Stanford. While last week’s atmosphere was a crazy rock concert, this week will be the exact opposite and more like a trip to the library. It’ll be a huge difference, but Lanning expects the result to be the same.
“I see the last time we played on the road (at Texas Tech) we didn’t perform the way we wanted to so it’s an opportunity for us to put a complete game together on the road,” he said. “And just like I said, after the game, you can’t let your highs get too high and your lows get too low. Sometimes after an emotional win, there’s a lot of passion and energy in it. You can have a let-down and we’re certainly not looking to do that. We’re looking to go out and perform again to our absolute best.”
Although Stanford might be the worst team in the conference, the Ducks can still look to just two years ago and the last time they played the Cardinal on the road. Lanning’s staff wasn’t here, but many players on this team were when the then No. 3 Oregon team was upset 31-24. After not playing on the road earlier this season and seeing how he motivates his team in pregame, one can assume Lanning will use that overtime loss as a cause for his team to play its very best.
“It’s no secret and our guys know that. I mean, you (the press) certainly pointed out there are a lot of pieces that can feed into distractions and not playing to your best,” he said. “And like I said, all you have to do is point to the season when we went down to Texas Tech, we didn’t feel like we performed our best. So we’re going on the road and it’s an opportunity for us to prove that we can.”
That’s good news for Oregon and devastating news for the Trees.