Is Dan Lanning on the Hot Seat at Oregon After the Oklahoma State Upset?
Oregon walked into Boone Pickens Stadium as a 24-point favorite against an Oklahoma State team riding a 12-game losing streak and walked out with a 39-31 loss. The final score is the kindest part of the story.
Oklahoma State outgained Oregon 554 to 281. The Cowboys ran 83 offensive plays and piled up 237 rushing yards. Drew Mestemaker ran and threw all over a defense that was supposed to be one of the best in the Big Ten.
Dan Lanning did not sugarcoat it afterward. “The score was closer than it really was, because it really wasn’t close,” he said, before adding that his team got its rear end kicked. At least he was watching the same game everyone else was.
The fourth-down decision that broke the internet
Down 36-31 with 6:50 left, on his own 33, with all three timeouts in his pocket, Lanning went for it. Oregon did not convert. Oklahoma State turned the short field into points and the game was effectively over.
One national anchor called it coaching malpractice. That is harsh, and it is also not that far off. With three timeouts and nearly seven minutes on the clock, punting there is the obvious move. You force a punt, get the ball back with time and field position, and play for one score.
That was not the only self-inflicted wound. Oregon went 0-for-3 on fourth down and took two delay-of-game penalties on a single fourth-quarter possession. Delay of game twice in one drive, in a game you are losing, is an operational failure that starts on the sideline.
Lanning will not blame the new coordinators
Oregon turned over both coordinator chairs this offseason. Will Stein left for the Kentucky head job and Tosh Lupoi took over at Cal. Drew Mehringer runs the offense now and Chris Hampton runs the defense.
Lanning refused to point at either of them. “This isn’t a (Chris Hampton), this isn’t a Drew (Mehringer), ‘Oh, that’s the reason.’ Like, no, no. We have to go execute plays.”
Credit where it is due. That is the correct answer from a head coach, and it takes the easy excuse off the table. He hired them. He owns it.
But taking responsibility and fixing the problem are two different jobs, and right now Oregon looks nothing like the team its recruiting rankings suggest. Both units were outclassed by a program that had not won in a calendar year.
Was this coming?
Honestly, yes. Oregon nearly lost at home to Boise State in Week 1 and everyone chalked it up to early-season rust. It was a warning, and the Ducks ignored it.
Lanning is 49-9 in five seasons at Oregon, which sounds spectacular until you look at what those wins are worth. One real College Football Playoff run in five years is thin for a program with this kind of money and this kind of roster behind it. He was 35-0 against unranked opponents before Saturday, and now he owns the worst loss of his tenure.
The “fire Dan Lanning” posts are not serious yet. A coach with that record and that recruiting pipeline is not getting moved in September. But the pressure is real, and Oregon has almost no runway to fix it.
USC comes up in two weeks. Lose that one and the conversation stops being about a bad Saturday in Stillwater and starts being about whether Lanning can actually win the games that define a program.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
