Oregon’s takedown of Ohio State proves Dan Lanning can roster-build with the best

Dan Lanning was so fired up you couldn’t tell whether he was looking for somebody to hug or tackle after No. 3 Oregon beat No. 2 Ohio State 32-31 on Saturday night.

As Oregon fans rushed the field to celebrate maybe the biggest Ducks win that 57-year-old Autzen Stadium has ever hosted, their third-year head coach looked as if he would have been comfortable pinballing with the partiers instead of getting a police escort through the sea of humanity.

By the time he got to his postgame news conference, Lanning was still running hot.

“Anybody got a heart-rate monitor?” the 38-year-old said.

The Big Ten’s game of the year, between the league’s most talent-laden perennial power and its flashiest newcomer, delivered in every way. The lead changed hands seven times as the Buckeyes and Ducks traded scores over the final 40 minutes.

“We all knew what we were getting into, you know, a dog fight, two heavyweights going at it,” said Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who passed for 321 yards and ran for a 27-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter.

Oregon (6-0) took down Ohio State in the most straightforward and uncomplicated way possible: with a loaded roster that could go toe-to-toe with the most talented team in its new conference, a testament to modern team building.

Playing without their best defensive player (edge rusher Jordan Burch, the team’s sacks leader through five games), the Ducks simply slid former blue-chip recruit Matayo Uiagalelei into Burch’s role.

“You got me tonight?” Uiagalelei said Burch asked him before the game.

“I got you,” Uiagalelei said he told the senior transfer from South Carolina. Did he ever. Uiagalelei delivered a fourth-quarter sack, a tackle for loss on a third down that stopped an Ohio State drive in the second quarter and two more quarterback pressures.

Then there was Texas A&M transfer Evan Stewart, the former five-star prospect who came into the game as the Ducks’ fourth-leading receiver. Stewart came to Eugene knowing he would be a complement to Tez Johnson, Oregon’s top target, who had seven catches for 75 yards and a touchdown against the Buckeyes.

“As I said, before this season, I was really just trying to play my role,” Stewart said. “Because, you know, A&M, we never really just got to win as much. So I was really just going into the season, like, we got wide receiver one and I respect him. I didn’t want to come in and step on those types of toes, but I did want to come in and contribute.”

Stewart was Oregon’s best offensive player against the Buckeyes, grabbing seven passes for 149 yards and a touchdown. His performance was made even more critical when Ducks receiver Traeshon Holden was ejected from the game in the second quarter after he spit at Ohio State cornerback Davison Igbinosun.

Stewart and Johnson took turns toasting Ohio State’s best cornerback, Denzel Burke, one of several Buckeyes defenders who passed up a chance to be a high-round NFL Draft pick last April to return for another run at Michigan, a Big Ten championship and a national title. The Buckeyes came in allowing less than a touchdown per game and just one completion of at least 30 yards.

“(The coaches) told us this week that (the Buckeyes) haven’t really seen anybody like us,” Stewart said. “And you know, when you look at the film from their past games, like, that’s the truth. So we just went into this game knowing we are who we are, and they ain’t seen us yet, so we want to give them a show.”

When Oregon pegged Lanning as its coach to replace Mario Cristobal after the 2021 season, it was looking for someone who understood what a championship roster looked like. Handing a program like Oregon over to a 30-something, first-time head coach was a move that even Ducks fans wondered about. But Lanning had spent time at Alabama as a graduate assistant under Nick Saban and three years as an assistant under Kirby Smart at Georgia.

When Oregon was pummeled 49-3 by Georgia to start the 2022 season in Lanning’s first game in charge, there was no secret what the problem was.

“They’ll bounce back from this, and he knows we have better players. He’ll never say that, but he knows we’ve got better players,” Smart said back then.

Picking up where Cristobal left off, Lanning went to work building a better roster, but with some new tools: the transfer portal and name, image and likeness money.

Based on geography alone, Oregon is going to have a hard time keeping up with SEC powerhouses and Ohio State when it comes to high school recruiting. But Lanning’s connections and relentless approach have paired with Oregon’s well-run collective Division Street to allow his program to stack talent with the best of them.

“I can’t say enough great things about that team that we just played, that’s an elite football team that we just played. They’re really, really talented. They don’t have weaknesses, but our guys did just enough tonight to edge it out,” Lanning said.

As the questions wound down on a 15-minute news conference, Lanning couldn’t hide his relief: “That’s good because I have to go recruit here.”

The Oregon sideline was loaded with prospects on visits Saturday night, so there was no doubt Lanning’s work was far from over. Those visitors watched one of the best games of the year in one of the best atmospheres in college football. A record 60,129 packed Autzen to see Oregon beat the team that has set the standard in the Big Ten for more than two decades.

The Ducks looked every bit like a worthy new rival. And this looked like a matchup we’ll see again in December in Indianapolis with a conference championship on the line.

As Lanning wrapped up, he had a message for anybody who was listening.

“If you see any good players,” he said, “tell ’em to come here.”

(Photo: Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)