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Dazed - that was the best post I ever read. You did not call for an executioner. You identified the problems and outlined the solutions. There is an old saying in college football: it's not the x's and o's, it's the Jimmy's and Joe's. Well, it is also about the X's and O's as well. Same offensive players as last year minus a few O line transfers. The TE position is about the same. Stewart has been back. I would add that what Indiana and Ohio St figured out concerning Will Stein's offense, so has everybody else in 2026 except for USC (and Portland State). On the flipside, this year's defense (except for some blown assignments) is what I will call as the BEST DEFENSE OREGON EVER HAD. At least as long as I have been watching the past 20 years. So I agree that not just a new OC is required, but an offensive minded partner to Dan's defensive prowess. And yes, let him run his side of the show however he wants to.

I think for most Duck fans, we are sucking it up. Licking our wounds and looking for better days. The firing of Meh' was right on time. I don't think you can just kick a guy to the curb before attempting at fixing the issues. Lanning did that. Meh' got a win last week so he got another week. I mentioned in the game chat that Lanning looked like a whipped dog. By the end of the game he looked better, like he finally knew what the next step was. He took that step this morning. It had to of been difficult at a personal level. Keep grinding Dan. Oregons true fans will back your play from here.

I mentioned on another thread that i cannot support those that advocate for a HC change at Oregon. This is far fetched and wishful thinking. Unless there are behind the scenes, underlying problems we are unaware of. The AD did not make a mistake in hiring Dl..... He doesn't need to panic and rethink that hire. GEEZ.... Fans panic, not leaders in charge. Man, this is a tough crowd. Does anyone on this Forum see anything good about the Duck program? DL won almost 50 games in 4 years.....he has earned some leeway. I am grateful that he is the Duck coach. And he and his staff can recruit at a high level. The highest level! Let's look back for a minute...... CK got us to a Natty because defenses had not caught upto his offenses. But by 2013, defenses caught up. Helfrigh was truly handicapped with sanctions. I love Mark but he drove the Ferrari off the cliff. Did Mark have any previous HC experience? He got us to the Natty with CK's players but could not maintain replacing the players.. Taggert more BS than anything else. Very shallow and no substance. Cristobal had head coaching experience but with a losing overall record. He started slow but recruited well, made lots of mistakes, learned on the job. He utilized the high profile Duck name and parlayed it into his dream job with his alma mater. MC has improved as a HC and is well positioned to win a Natty. DL improved recruiting and brought in the most experienced QB's in college history. Back to back and them got DM. He missed on Seaton in the portal and that was impossible to overcome with freshmen lineman. But DL recognized what was needed. He just missed on Seaton. Is that a fireable mistake? Hell no.... Take out the front 4 on defense, 2 offensive lineman and our TE and this is a freshmen/sophmore team that needs coaching and leadership. Is it DL's fault that the press, media and Duck fans had such an over inflated projection for this season? All this chaos makes for great threads and lively discussions in the Forum. DL made his coaching change decision. The new OC will probably make a few more changes. D&C is spot on that DL and the decision makers need to decide what offense they want to run. Then go get the OC they want. Then go get the players they want. Oregon is a destination school, not a stepping stone. The player cuboard is not bare..... Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. Go Ducks.

Okay... but while accurate, he does seem to be enjoying writing this piece a bit more than I would prefer. Except for the fact that Dan didn't actually do a literal belly flop off of a high dive, I cannot think of one FBS team that has done a greater face plant this year than our beloved Ducks. While the hyperbole is a bit much, the facts are sadly rather accurate. Fortunately, the repair work has begun, and the search for a new OC is underway.

I'd enjoy a little cheese with my whine.

You're right we are spoiled. And we have high expectations and the last time we were looking at a season this awful (and this one might not turn out as bad in truth) was 2016. 10 years!!! So we can all suck it up and see what the future holds. Granted with the firing of Mehringer I'm actually feeling more optimistic right now than I was a week ago and that was after a win.

Lanning's regular season tenure since year one. 11-1 Lost Pac12 championship to eventual championship game team. 12-0 Won BIG10 Title game. Lost to eventual National Champs. 11-1 Only loss to eventual National Champs losing again in playoffs to same team. 4-3 Bad OC hire and position coach promotions derail the season. One bad year is a correctable mistake. You want to see a trainwreck, look no further than SUC where their yearly implosion is in full swing. Fuskies also say hello.

I like pro spread at this point. But we need a dynamic offense that is hard for an opponent to key into a few things and slow or shut it down. This is an opportunity to upgrade for Lanning. I don't think the current offense was going to make it to a national championship. It was too simple and easy to shut down. We need a dynamic offense with a top notch play caller who can twist the opponent into knots and dance to the tune they are playing.

Okay, so we have lost three games this year that we shouldn’t have. Only one with our starting QB. Of those, two are to now ranked teams and the other loss is now in the first non-ranked loss of Lanning’s career. Do you know how many other fan bases would kill for that. Last count 135 out of 135. Lanning has now made one bad hire, promoted from within. Promoting within will get you good assistants that think they have a chance to advance as opposed to avoiding you since you don’t promote from within. And I’m sure once bitten, Dan has now learned a lesson in regard to searching outside also. This is the year to have a Mulligan year, the last year of the 12 team playoff. Only four teams made the first two 12 team playoffs: Georgia and Indiana which will probably make it three in a row, Oregon and Ohio St. which without Sayin will probably go the way of the Ducks and sit this year out. Many of us Grey Beards longed for just a bowl game in the ole days. So, even with a disappointment this year, it is still a GREAT time to be a Duck. So, if you are thinking about getting off the Oregon or the Lanning bandwagon, don’t let the rear wheels hit you on the way off . . . Better yet, go ahead and let them hit you.

This move was necessary, but I still don’t think this situation is entirely on the coaching staff. We know Lanning knows he didn’t hire the most qualified coordinators available. He hired for continuity believing his veteran players would shoulder the load - think Bo Nix getting better from Dillingham to Stein. His miscalculation is that he didn’t need continuity to get over the hump, he needed reform. On top of all that, I believe there is a character gap with the composition of the team. I’m not talking about terrible character, just not the character traits that win championships.

All this " fire Lanning" hype is pretty interesting. You've got a coach that's 52-10, 84% win record, and was considered an up and coming star for 4 years. He could be coach at any school during those years. In six weeks, he suddenly doesn't know how to coach? He has obviously made some bad hires to coach this year, and it sounds like he owns that, and is working to remedy the problem. There are a lot of winning coaches who have been on the hot seat for losing a few games, Day and De Boer for example. Did they forget how to coach? If Lanning were fired, who could you expect to get that would do better? I understand past performance doesn't guaranty future results, but give the man some time to solve the problems the team has.

Lannings fingerprints are all over this defense. He was hired as a defensive coach. He rightly handed the offenses to Dilly and Stein. They were great hires. He missed with Meh'. 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Chances are he hits a Home run with whoever is next. He will have to lick his wounds and move on. Try and learn from this failure. To call for Lanning's head is premature and irresponsible imo.

I cant believe that I am saying this...but Oregon State has the NATIONS #3 offense and the the NATIONS #1 passing offense. Let that sink in...and maybe a new OC is just up the road. His name is Mitch Dahlen. Just saying.

I did read it. This is how it starts In this season of failures and fizzles, frauds and faceplants, one team still found a way to stand out for its futility. Look out below! Here comes Dan Lanning with a bellyflop off the high dive. Splash! It's verbiage throughout is all sensationalism, all for Oohs and Aahs. All to stick the knife in and twist. Complete hack imo. I am sure some people love it, I find it uninformative and weak.

Just looking at the top 25s and 3 remaining undefeated's...Who has 1 loss and who has 2 losses...whoddathunk?

Great post Dazed. It seems like the entire philosophy of this offense has been make as few mistakes as possible and get the ball to our 4 star guys as easily as possible and let them do their four star things. Then through in some WTH stuff here and there to look unpredictable. No rhyme. No reason. No flow. No situational awareness. Almost like someone not having a clue what they're doing just faking it and hoping no one notices. Lanning needs to sit down and really focus on what he wants the offensive identity to be from the list you laid out above and go for it. I think that's exactly what happens.

He was down!

The first question isn't who the OC is, it's what's the system that we want to run. Stien had a spread option horizontal RPO with the zone blocking scheme and I hated it since day one. It won't win a Natty. You got Air Raid or Air Raid Hybrids, Spread RPO-Concepts, Veer and Shoot, Pro-Style or Pro-Style Spread. Riley Runs a Pro Raid at USC that I really like. They run that out Oklahoma counter gap play really well and blocked us up on it perfect a few times. Charlie Wiess Jr runs a nice spread RPO I like at LSU with Kiffin Kendal Briles runs a Veer and Shoot - spread them out and run first, deep shots and high tempo Ryan Day runs a Pro-Style Spread at OSU I like. He runs power gap, zone, RPO, and will go under center play action pro passing concepts. Day is multiple and when you try to take one thing away, he will attack what you give him. Pro-Style like Todd Monken at UGA when Lanning was there. I love Todd, great play caller with his play action mixes, used those elite TE's. Lots of QB under center for hard play action and half-backs in the backfield. Pro-style like Monken protects the ball the most of these, watch Lanning go that route. We'd have won the Natty last year with Monken as our OC and Dante in that system. We'd have steam rolled Indy.

The annoying part of Lanning's schtick is it's very front runnery. That's not how to do it. Be confident and know who you are in adversity too. But instead of his cocky schtick he appears meek. How about more even keel? How about, to me , pathetic message it sends when Ducks vs Them only seems to come out after wins. No son, adversity is often the best teacher. I dunno. I think Lanning is a good enough guy which I appreciate but maybe I would appreciate an actual high quality coach with less charisma than whatever Lanning currently is. Right?

And if we do fire Dan who else are we going to hire? He just needs to be honest with himself and truly evaluate his staff.

I think it was even worse than that. It seemed to go between the extremes of absolutely bland, safe predictability to absolute willy nilly. The run game is finally looking great so let's pass it nine straight times. Let's dink it to Moore around or behind the line then go deep to a second stringer. The creativity of the Oregon offense reminded me of that Australian breakdance lady. Sure she's doing something nobody could have predicted but why?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he feels, Been there, done that.

Pardon me for asking, but did you read it? If you did, I'm wondering which part(s) you so strongly disagree with?

He also put more value into being clever than into being wise, which is also a recipe for failure.

Just stop, they are not firing Dan, period. If anything he had great success at a young age. Now he has to deal with professional angst for the first time. He will be fine.