ATLANTA – The Oregon Ducks’ 56‑22 loss to the Indiana Hoosiers in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Peach Bowl ended their national championship dreams, leaving heartbreak in its wake.

The defeat brought flashbacks to last year’s season-ending 41‑21 Rose Bowl loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes, who went on to win the National Championship. Overreactions are rolling in as frustrations boil. While Oregon’s chances at winning its first-ever National Championship may be over, the sky isn’t falling in Eugene.

Indiana beat Oregon in all three phases, and the Ducks looked clearly inferior to their Big Ten foe. Still, amid the humbling loss, Oregon coach Dan Lanning and his team demonstrated leadership and resilience. Lanning didn’t bash his players or dwell on errors… instead, he led in the locker room, turning this lopsided loss into a potential turning point – a learning experience- that this core group of Ducks can utilize next season.

The comment section can be a rough place the day after the game. Some of the once-Oregon mighty turned quickly on the coaching staff and even some of the players.

Emotional responses are natural after back-to-back lopsided playoff losses, but Oregon’s program under Lanning remains strong. The facts speak volumes.

The 39-year-old has compiled a 48‑8 record, notching double-digit wins in each of his first four seasons. He ranks fourth all-time in wins among Ducks head coaches and has guided Oregon to consecutive College Football Playoff appearances, a Big Ten Championship, and victories in the Orange, Fiesta, and Holiday Bowls. Oregon is the only FBS team to win 13 games in each of the past two seasons, tying the program record set in 2025, 2024, and 2014.

Dan Lanning enters his fifth season as head coach at Oregon. It took Dabo Swinney nine seasons to win his first national title at Clemson before becoming a perennial contender. Kirby Smart captured his first championship in his sixth season at Georgia.

Lanning’s loyalty to Oregon has been clear amid the constant coaching carousel – something Ducks fans shouldn’t be quick to forget.

Dan Lanning’s Leadership Under Pressure

There are two moments that illustrate Lanning’s leadership from Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The game couldn’t have started any worse for Oregon quarterback Dante Moore. On the very first play, Moore threw a pick-six. As Indiana teammates ran to congratulate cornerback D’Angelo Ponds on his big play, Lanning didn’t flinch. The coach found his quarterback, and immediately picked him up. Lanning spoke to Moore for a good 20 seconds after the turnover delivering a message amid a stadium full of Hoosiers fans in a frenzy. Lanning provided the calm in the chaos.

The next drive, Moore seemed to regain his composure, leading the Ducks on a 14-play drive and throwing a 19-yard touchdown to tight end Jamari Johnson.

It was a brief highlight but an important one that shows the true colors of Lanning when the chips are down.

Another moment came after the loss. In his postgame press conference, Lanning was asked what Moore can learn from the lopsided loss. Lanning took the opportunity to shield Moore from singling him out. He instead focused on how the entire team can learn from the experience.

“I think every man can learn from adversity,” Lanning said. “I just told that whole locker room, right, this is going to be about how you respond in life. This is going to be a life lesson that a lot of people never get. We just got our butt kicked. Right? That’s going to happen in life, right, and not just Dante. Every single person in the locker room, every coach, every person can learn, ‘Hey, how do you respond to that?’ Some people crawl into a hole, right, don’t face the music.”

“Some people say, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out. Let me challenge myself so I can be better. Let me be an example of how you handle moments like this.’ I think there is a way to handle that. Dante has been exceptional. Bryce, these guys have been exceptional, stewards of what we wanted to look like all year long. And it’s gone right for us 13 times. Didn’t go right tonight. And you can’t let that overshadow,” Lanning said.

MORE: What Dan Lanning Said After Oregon’s Loss to Indiana

MORE: Instant Takeaways From Oregon’s Playoff Loss to Indiana

MORE: Dante Moore NFL Outlook Comes Into Focus After Peach Bowl Loss

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Turning The Defeat Into A Life Lesson

Oregon’s team is led by mostly underclassmen. Moore is 20 years old, and freshmen like Dakorien Moore, Jordon Davison, Brandon Finney, Aaron Flowers, and Dierre Hill Jr. play prominent roles. The Ducks’ youth was evident, yet it also presents an opportunity: Oregon ranks second nationally behind North Texas in touchdowns scored by both true freshmen (26) and all freshmen (29). This season, 35 true or redshirt freshmen have taken the field.

On the other side, Indiana fielded a much older team, with an average age around 23 years old. If the Ducks’ inexperience was their Achilles heel this season in the playoff, they certainly got a lifetime of experience in 60 minutes vs. Indiana and coach Curt Cignetti.

Lanning did his part by helping his team process the loss without letting it define them.

“Every one of us has unbelievable disappointment. Learn from it. But there’s a lot of lessons to be learned for everybody in life, and we’ll learn the hard lessons here. And you know what, most people will never be in the position where they get to learn that lesson that we get to learn on. These guys were in that position,” Lanning said.

Experience Matters In The Playoff

A trend is emerging in the College Football Playoff: the most experienced quarterbacks often find the most success. This year’s National Championship game will feature Miami quarterback Carson Beck and Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza. Beck, 23, has played 54 college games over six seasons. Mendoza, 22, has played 35 games over three seasons.

Moore has played 29 games, but this was his first season as a full-time starter. If he returns to Oregon for 2026 instead of taking his talents to the NFL, he will join the ranks of the more experienced quarterbacks in college football.

The Ducks are losing integral players to the program in linebacker Bryce Boettcher, running back Noah Whittington, kicker Atticus Sappington, receiver Gary Bryant Jr., offensive linemen Isaiah World, Alex Harkey, Matthew Bedford and Emmanuel Pregnon… to name a few. Lanning made sure to highlight the contributions of the seniors after their final game as a Duck when he described the hardest part of being in the locker room after the loss.

“You hurt for those guys because the world is going to judge everybody in that room based on the result tonight. I’m going to judge those guys on the kind of fathers they become someday, the kind of husbands they become someday. But in this moment, you feel like a failure, right, for them, and they’re not. They’re not failures. These guys won a lot of damn ball games. They’ve had a lot of success. They’ve changed some people’s lives, but right now, that moment is going to hurt,” Lanning said.

“And the hard part, you know, you got guys like Bryce (Boettcher) that they don’t get to be a Duck anymore. They will be a Duck forever, but he does not get to go wear that uniform and go play a game for us again. I really wanted that for them, really wanted them to be able to enjoy that and experience that, and they don’t get to,” Lanning continued.

The Ducks fell short of their National Championship goal, but the guidance of Lanning and the lessons learned by Oregon’s young core set the stage for next season.

As the Utah Jazz look to take on the Charlotte Hornets for their second of two meetings for the season, it’ll mark the first time that a familiar face, Collin Sexton, returns to the Delta Center since his offseason trade to the East Coast.

Earlier in this past offseason, Sexton was sent to the Hornets along with a pair of future second-round picks in exchange for veteran center Jusuf Nurki. It was a deal that was a bit criticized from Utah’s perspective upon initially going down, but in the time since, has seen both players find their way into notable roles with their new squads.

While Nurkic is listed as questionable to suit up for the action against his former team, Sexton seems ready to go against his, and could even start back in Utah after having previously done so in the Hornets’ latest game against the Indiana Pacers; a game they fell short in 112-114.

So, not only will Sexton be looking for a bounce-back win off a loss, but he could have an extra chip on his shoulder to perform well against his former team as well.

Collin Sexton Returns to Utah as Jazz Take on Hornets

Sexton was a part of the Jazz for three seasons from 2022 to 2025 after initially coming aboard as a part of the extensive Donovan Mitchell and Lauri Markkanen trade as a sign-and-trade acquisition, and for the tenure that he was in Salt Lake City, was a pretty significant part of the roster––playing a total of 189 games, starting in 120 of them.

In that time, Sexton averaged 17.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists while shooting 48.8% from the field and 39.8% from three, being a consistent offensive piece in the backcourt next to a growing Keyonte George and, at the time, his fellow veteran guard, Jordan Clarkson.

However, the Jazz, during their latest offseason, made the inevitable shift to focus on their young talent in place of Sexton after three good years of being a core rotational piece, sending him to Charlotte for his third team since being drafted to the Cleveland Cavaliers back in 2018.

Since being in Charlotte, Sexton has remained about as steady as he was in Utah––averaging 15.2 points a night on 48.3% from the field, paired with 2.0 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game, filling in once again as a valuable locker room add and veteran teammate to help bring along the Hornets’ developing roster.

Last time he went up against the Jazz, it was on his new home floor in Charlotte, making for a pretty brutal game from the Jazz, as they were blown out by Sexton and the Hornets, 103-126 at the beginning of November, which also made for the first time Utah was without Walker Kessler after he was ruled out for the season due to shoulder surgery on a torn labrum.

The Jazz will try and even up their season series, looking a bit different from that two-month span, and will be forced to do so without the services of Lauri Markkanen (rest) and Ace Bailey (hip), thus giving a brighter green light for Keyonte George to have another explosive night scoring the ball, this time against his former teammate.

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