Lanning Told Oregon to Keep ‘Our Foot on Their Neck’ in Response to Gundy’s Comments

Sometimes in combat sports, the most competitive part of the match is the trash talk that takes place in the lead-up to the main event.

That was certainly the case between the Cowboys and the Ducks as Oregon coach Dan Lanning had plenty to say during the week in response to a perceived slight from Mike Gundy’s Monday presser.

The Ducks head coach didn’t let up following his team’s 69-3 win over the Cowboys on Saturday.

“I told our team before the game that it never requires extra motivation for an opportunity to go out and kick ass,” Lanning said after the win. “But it never hurts when someone pours gasoline on the fire. So I felt like these guys wanted the chance to go prove who they are.”

Like Saturday’s football game, the sparring between the two coaches was rather one-sided. Late in the week, Gundy conducted a radio interview to clarify his intentions behind pointing out Oregon’s financial commitment to college football, which he believed to include a $40 million budget.

The Oklahoma State coach reiterated that again when asked about it following the loss.

“When I made that comment, I was complimenting Oregon for what they had done, OK?” Gundy said. “The second thing is, which I said later in the week, we’ve made commitments also, but we have to be better and fundamentally sound and execute. … Sometimes you’re going to play people that have the ability to run away from you. OK, well, then we got to look at that and see where we’re at. But we didn’t play good enough with the systems that we had and execute to put ourselves in that position.”

It’s not uncommon for college football coaches to look for any perceived edge when it comes to motivating their players, especially if teams are heavily favored in a contest, as was the case for Oregon this week.

“And I got a lot of respect for coach Gundy, but probably his press conference (right now), he is probably saying see I told you so right,” Lanning said. “Like that is probably what his comment is, but that doesn’t change the way we have to play to be a winning football team.”

His plan certainly got the best out of his team on Saturday.

Oregon quarterback Dante Moore played so well that he was on the bench halfway through the third quarter, and after the win, he made it clear to Portland CBS reporter Brenna Greene that he was defending his head coach and presumably Nike co-founder and longtime Oregon donor Phil Knight.

“You attack our head coach, it’s like attacking my dad, to be honest,” Moore said. “It’s like you’re attacking a family member. And I felt like, as a whole team, it hit close to home … for him to attack Phil, him to attack Coach Lanning, or to attack our team, it was kind of personal. This whole week, we just used it as fire to push ourselves.  …

“It was a lot of fire under this game, but overall I feel like we were cool, calm and collected, but Coach Lanning said we’re going to keep our foot on their neck and make sure we score as many points and try to break the scoreboard.”