The college football world was buzzing about a controversial decision made by Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning late in Saturday’s loss against the Washington Huskies, and Lanning explained himself after the game.
Up four points with just over two minutes remaining on the clock, the Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning opted to try to convert a fourth and three from near midfield instead of punting the ball and trying to pin Washington deep. But Oregon failed the fourth-down attempt and Washington scored a go-ahead touchdown just two plays later.
Following the game, Dan Lanning explained that they “felt good” about going for it on fourth down on their multiple fourth-down conversion attemps “from a probability standpoint.”
“I’ll always go back and evaluate myself and say, ‘OK, what can I do different?’” Lanning said according to On3. “That being said, from a probability standpoint, how we felt about looks that we were getting, we felt like we had a chance to have success and both situations — really all of the situations today where we went for it on fourth. We had an opportunity to call timeout if we didn’t like what we saw.”
All in all, it wasn’t a great showing down the stretch, and Lanning takes ownership of that.