The Oregon Ducks successfully advanced to the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff against James Madison. Despite the Ducks keeping their season afloat, coach Dan Lanning said his team has a lot of work to do upon speaking to reporters Saturday following the win.
“We didn’t play our best football,” Lanning said. “We turned the ball over multiple times and we’ve got to play better on defense. It was like a tale of two halves. We played well in the first half but didn’t play well in the second. We can play so much better than that.”
Lanning said the Rose Bowl loss to Ohio State this past season still bothers him, but suggests this year's team can find the resilience to pull through to keep rolling.
“Getting better, period,” Lanning said. “Getting better. We got an opportunity to advance, and now we get an opportunity to improve.”
More specifically, Lanning was not happy with the Ducks' 34-6 halftime lead being squandered away.
“We started off hot,” Lanning said. “We can be better. In the second half, as a team, we didn’t play the way we needed to play. You have to find moments like that when you have a big lead, to be able to choke somebody out and we didn’t do that.”
The Ducks will play the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Capital One Orange Bowl on New Year's Day, with kickoff set for noon ET.
Given the meteoric run the Red Raiders have been on, especially led by linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, Ducks quarterback Dante Moore will have little room for error once the game finally gets underway.
We'll see if the Ducks can clean up their mistakes.