The Monday Read: Dan Lanning’s fearlessness has burned Oregon before, but it was the difference vs. Ohio State

The Monday Read believes in the truisms of the human experience: death, taxes, and Oregon coach Dan Lanning being aggressive in big games, results be damned. 

Lanning’s built a team who understands that the process of maximizing ways to win a football game outweighs the risk of failure. Process-driven thinking is against popular thought — especially in college football, where the results are binary. Bad results can cost games, championships and jobs. They spawn TV talk show segments with analysts who misunderstand analytics, and therefore misunderstand how teams actually implement them. That creates a negative feedback loop around the topic. 

In reality, there’s a fundamental difference between a coach’s decision and the execution of it by his players. 

Nearly 365 days ago, Oregon played Washington in a shot-for-shot slugfest. In that game, the Ducks went for it on fourth down three times and failed each time. They lost by three (36-33). Against Ohio State last Saturday, Oregon went 1 of 2 on fourth down, with both attempts coming on the second drive of the second half. The attempt that failed was a result of quarterback Dillon Gabriel not finding a wide open Tez Johnson in the end zone. 

Oregon also deliberately went for a 2-point conversion in the second quarter, down 14-12 after botching an earlier extra point attempt. Lanning’s management of this situation is key to understanding how his team cut into its early deficit. The Ducks failed to convert on the 2-point attempt — a swinging gate play — but because Ohio State committed a penalty on the touchdown itself, they opted to take the penalty on the kickoff instead of moving their 2-point try up to the 1-yard line. That moved the kickoff to midfield, and the Ducks attempted…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/the-monday-read-dan-lannings-fearlessness-has-burned-oregon-before-but-it-was-the-difference-vs-ohio-state/

Author : Richard Johnson

Publish date : 2024-10-14 19:04:14

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