SEATTLE — Dan Lanning is the guy who takes a card in blackjack with 18 showing. Then he’s surprised when he busts the hand. Over and over and over.
There is aggressive coaching, which is very much in vogue. And then there is foolhardy coaching. Lanning has crossed the Rubicon into recklessness.
The Oregon coach has become the fourth-down dunce of college football, repeatedly going for it when a kick—a field goal, a punt, just send out the kicking team, Dan—would be the smarter play. He earned a spot in game-management infamy last year against Washington, blowing it by going for a fourth-and-1 at his own 33-yard line in a tie game with 1:26 left, gift-wrapping field position for the Huskies’ winning field goal. Then he tripled down on dumb this year against Washington, with a trio of fourth-down decisions that all backfired.
The score last year: Washington 37, Oregon 34.
The score this year: Washington 36, Oregon 33.
The Lanning Factor in both outcomes: huge.
At the end of the first half Saturday in a deafening Husky Stadium, trailing 22–18, Oregon drove to the Washington 3-yard line. Having been handed that final possession by an interception of the great Michael Penix, and with the Ducks receiving the kickoff to start the second half, common sense said to kick the field goal on the final play of the half. Common sense shouted it. Screamed it. But that message never got inside Lanning’s headset.
Oregon tried a sprint-out pass from Bo Nix into the boundary. It was broken up. Washington went into halftime on a high. That was Blown Call No. 1.
On their second possession of the second half, now trailing 29–18, the Ducks drove to the Washington 8-yard line. Again facing a fourth-and-3, Lanning again left the field-goal unit on the sideline and and again went for it. Nix threw a pass too low for Troy Franklin, and the Huskies held again. That was Blown Call No. 2.
But Gamblin’ Dan wasn’t done yet. After his team mounted an impressive rally for a 33–29 lead, the Ducks marched to Washington’s 47-yard line with 2:16 left in the game. Once again, they faced a fourth-and-3.
Maintaining possession with a first down and ending the game is clearly the ideal scenario. But fourth-and-three had proven hard to convert for the Ducks on this day. The more prudent move was to try to punt the ball deep and make the Huskies execute the two-minute drill across 80 or 90 yards with no timeouts. Washington had scored just once in the second half, was coming off three straight empty possessions and Penix was hurting after taking some hits to the midsection. Punt the ball, Dan.
Instead, Lanning said go for it one more time. Nix half-rolled to his left and threw an incomplete pass into heavy coverage one more time. Washington had great field position to go win the game.
There is a reason why coaches love calling deep shots near midfield, and the Huskies did that immediately—Penix sent Ja’Lynn Polk on a fly route down the sideline and hit him for 35 yards. On the next play he fired to Rome Odunze for the touchdown.
As was the case last year in Eugene, Washington actually scored too quickly and gave Oregon one more chance. The Ducks moved to the Washington 25, but kicker Camden Lewis was wide right for the tying field goal on the final play. All that was left at that point was a purple field storm and a lot of pointed questions for Lanning about being addicted to risk.
“There’s some decisions we probably could have made differently,” Lanning acknowledged before the questions began.
On the first-half decision to go for it: “We felt that was an opportunity for us to get a touchdown, and a touchdown changes the game. The one before half is one we would have gone back and said, ‘Let’s take a field goal.’ It’s something I’m going to assess, go evaluate for me. We checked to see if we liked the look, we liked the look, and we just didn’t execute.”
On the fourth-quarter decision to go for it: “We felt like our defense was playing well. We felt like we had an offensive play that could be successful. They covered it well. At that point they’d proven to be an explosive offense no matter where they got the ball. … We got it back with a chance to go score. That being said, it didn’t work. So that will be second-guessed.”
Yup.
“I think I’ll always go back and evaluate myself, what can I do different?” Lanning added. “That being said, from a probability standpoint, how we felt about the looks we were getting, we felt like we had a chance to have success in all the situations today where we went for it on fourth.
“It’s about adapting, the game’s about adapting and figuring out where we can be better. If you take one of those field goals early on, we probably are looking at a little bit different situation.”
Analytics have shed a different light on fourth-down decisions in recent years, leading to far more coaches going for it. The 37-year-old Lanning, in his second season as a head coach, knows the probabilities in various situations when it comes to fourth downs.
He’s plenty willing to turn fourth down into a go-for-it down. Oregon led the Pac-12 in fourth-down attempts last year with 32, converting 20 of them (that 62.5 percent success rate was fourth in the league). Before this game, Oregon was 8-for-10 on fourth-down conversions this season.
But dig into those numbers a little and they are a bit hollow. All but two of the fourth downs Oregon had attempted were two yards or shorter to gain a first down, and one of the longer ones (fourth and four against Colorado) was a fake punt. The Ducks also missed a fourth-and-5 against the Buffaloes.
Aside from a failed fourth-and-1 against Texas Tech, Oregon’s other fakes were all with leads against manifestly inferior opponents: two against Portland State, two against Hawaii, four against Colorado, one against Stanford. There wasn’t a lot of stress on Oregon in those situations.
Here Saturday? Plenty of stress. Slightly longer distances to get the first down. Better opponent. And insufficient execution by Oregon.
Fans love gambling coaches. Fans rarely want to see the field-goal unit or punt team take the field. But you know what they love more? Winning games. And sometimes a coach needs to play more conservatively to avoid beating himself.
Dan Lanning hasn’t gotten that memo. Instead he’s gotten a pair of gut-busting losses to a rival, and his decisions played key roles in both defeats. With Oregon good enough to contend for a College Football Playoff spot, the fourth-down dunce and his offensive staff need to figure it out, or start sending his kicking teams on the field in key situations.
