Dan Lanning recapped the Ducks’ second loss of the season. Here’s the transcript from Lanning’s postgame press conference. DAN LANNING Opening statement “Our guys played the whole game, they definitely didn’t give up, they didn’t throw in the towel. You have to give Washington credit. they played a complete game and we made more mistakes at the end of the game that hurt us. This game falls 100% on me. Our players put in a fantastic effort and I thought we shot ourselves in the foot a few times in the first half and were able to move the ball a lot better in the second half. That being said, we couldn’t get any stops defensively. Things we need to attack in the future.” On what Nick Saban or Kirby Smart would say to a defensive coordinator who allowed 400 passing yards and big touchdowns “They would watch the film and try to figure out why and then come up with a plan of attack to move forward.” In the message after the game “The message was ‘I love this team.’ We didn’t finish this game the way we wanted to, but we’ve been a tight-knit team all year and that doesn’t change because of this result. My love is not based on the outcome of this game. I love this locker room, I’m proud of this locker room. We didn’t play as we would have liked and that weighs on me.” For the illegal touch penalty “They told me the guy went out of bounds. I’m looking forward to hearing more explanations, but just that he went out of bounds and came back and touched the ball.” In the second guess fourth down decisions “We sat in this room and talked about when they worked out and now we sit in this room and talk about when they didn’t. The onside (kick), that was my decision. The guy moved a little bit and he wasn’t there, we thought he was there earlier in the preparation. Then on fourth down, we drop and slide, it’s going to be hard to convert in that situation. You can look back and say, ‘we’ve got to hit there,’ but you also feel like if you get there first, you probably have a chance to win the game.” About what happened in the fourth decision “We were able to run the ball there in the second half, I don’t know that we were stopped a lot there, that’s probably the only negative play of the entire second half in the run game. We felt like we were going to fall ahead. We’ve been a team that can consistently get a yard or two this year and we just didn’t make it there.” If he would have kicked the field goal if Nix hadn’t been injured “To define. We had a game ready that we felt we liked, we definitely felt we could win the game. When that situation changed, that changed our approach.” On third down defensive struggles “We missed some layups early, you know I think we had a free runner on the first third down. scrambled, you have to play this game when you get the chance. It was a bang-bang play there at the end on the long touchdown. We had a guy that looked like he was there, he wasn’t playing the ball, we have to get better at playing the ball in that situation. I don’t think it’s one thing here or there, it’s just that at times we have to go and evaluate.” In half time protection settings “Establishing the run game in the second half probably created a little more time there.” On the status of Bo Nix and the decision to bring him back “We will always think about the health of our players first. At that point we felt he couldn’t go and we wanted to assess him to see where things really were with him. He came back and said ‘Coach, I feel like I can go,’ I asked if he was sure, the medical staff said he was good, so we went back with him.” Moving on from defeat “We have a tight dressing room. I think our players recognize that and that won’t change their approach.” About calling a timeout to see the premature jump ball “There was a thought. At the end of the day, the tie will go to the attack when both teams show possession, so we felt pretty confident that it would come down to the same result.” To fix recurring defense issues “We’ll have to go and see. You play with the same team, you play with the same formation. Sometimes you have to figure out what you can do better. Obviously we can still get better there.” On the long route and the high clasp “We were in a good order, we had a good pace. This will happen sometimes, but that is no excuse. Our guys were confident and obviously did a great job in this series. If you go back and watch this game, you’ll see a lot of times where we really stopped ourselves and didn’t necessarily stop.”
