Oregon held to fewest yards of Dan Lanning era in loss to Indiana

EUGENE — The lowest output of total offense of the Dan Lanning era, unsurprisingly, led Oregon’s nation-leading win streak to come to an end.

The No. 3 Ducks had just 267 yards in a 30-20 loss to No. 7 Indiana at Autzen Stadium Saturday afternoon.

It was the fewest yards for Oregon (5-1, 2-1 Big Ten) since the 2021 Pac-12 Championship game and just the second time it failed to top 300 yards in Lanning’s 47 games as coach.

“It felt like they had the pen last,” Lanning said. “They had extra hats at the point of attack. In situations where we’re having to throw for it, they did a great job defending the sticks. They were aggressive.”

Dante Moore was 21 of 34 for 186 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions and was sacked six times, leading to just 86 rushing yards for UO on 30 carries.

Combined with converting just 3 of 14 third downs, a turnover on downs, a couple of untimely penalties and a missed field goal, Oregon’s offense was largely ineffective against a top 10 defense from Indiana (6-0, 3-0).

“I felt like we beat ourselves when it comes to penalties, me missing reads and I feel like we didn’t have our routine, from start to end,” Moore said. “They kind of found something in our offense. We both had bye weeks and they attacked that certain area against our offense.

“We had a couple of protection issues, but that can start from me; keying the defense and getting the protection right.”

Outside of a 44-yard touchdown to Malik Benson, Oregon’s next longest pass was a pair of 18-yarders. Jordon Davison had a 26-yard run in which he spun his way off a defender, but that accounted for nearly half of his production and no other run topped seven yards.

“They won the 50-50 balls; some of those are really close as far as connection and how tight they are in coverage but they did a good job being tight in coverage,” Lanning said. “We tried to take the top off a couple of times. They did a good job being on top when we had those moments.”