‘We Got Our A– Kicked’: Dan Lanning Gives Cowboys Credit for Dominant Win

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STILLWATER — Could you imagine if I told you 12 months ago that Dan Lanning said this after playing Oklahoma State in Stillwater?

“We didn’t win the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball.”

Well, that is a real quote, and he isn’t lying.

Outside of a pair of tipped-at-the-line interceptions, Oklahoma State dominated Oregon in the Cowboys’ 39-31 victory in Boone Pickens Stadium, and the Ducks’ coach was well aware of that fact.

“The score was closer than it really was because it wasn’t close in a lot of ways,” Lanning said. “We got our ass kicked in a lot of areas. Tons of credit to Coach (Eric) Morris and his staff. Without the takeaways that we had on defense, it doesn’t look like it looked.”

The Cowboys won total yardage 554-281. They had the ball for nearly a quarter longer than Oregon.

As big as the explosive offensive plays were for the Pokes, Skyler Cassity’s defense was straight up dominant. The Ducks’ only trip to the red zone all day came because of Drew Mestemaker’s interception.

When asked if he thought going into this game that it was going to be an four-quarter scrap, Lanning said the Ducks are always alert for a heavyweight fight. But it seems Cassity switched to southpaw.

“I thought our guys prepared, but they gave us a lot of looks that were a little bit different, especially defensively, than what we had prepared for,” Lanning said. “We had prepared and anticipated what we thought we were going to see. I thought their defensive coordinator did a great job of changing things up.”

Lastly, even in the dark ages of the past two seasons, the Boone Pickens Stadium atmosphere had its charm, whether it be shirtless men or a section of bananas.

But it sounds like BPS was more than just a cute novelty on Saturday. Even through 4-20, that homefield advantage was just waiting to be woken up.

“It’s a loud environment,” Lanning said. “The goal is to take the environment out of it. We didn’t take the environment out of it because of the way we played the game, and that created some of the penalties that existed.”

This marks the first time Oregon has lost to an unranked team with Lanning as the coach. Lanning is now 49-9 as a head coach. Here are his losses:

Georgia
Washington x3
Oregon State
Ohio State
Indiana x2
Oklahoma State