Dan Lanning’s first season in Eugene was a success. A first-year head coach, Lanning was immediately put to the test. He helped a grieving team navigate the loss of teammate Spencer Webb prior to the start of the year. He steadied the ship after the Ducks were rocked in their Week 1 matchup with Georgia. He had the Ducks looking like a Playoff contender while they ripped off eight straight wins.

Yes, Lanning lost to both of Oregon’s rivals — the first time a Duck coach has done so in the same season since 2016 — but the Ducks rebounded in a major way to come back and beat North Carolina in the Holiday Bowl on Wednesday. Doing so gave the Ducks a 10-win season for the third time in four years.

After the game, Lanning said it was the exact kind of ending they’d hoped for.

“We talked going into the game, we’d played 720 minutes of football this season, and we had to play 60 more,” he said. “And we played all 60 of it. … Really, really proud of our players to be able to cap this season off. We talked about coming into tonight and really finishing the season with not a period, but with an exclamation point. And I’d say that was an exclamation point.”

The Ducks entered the fourth quarter on Wednesday trailing 21-14. Quarterback Bo Nix had been a bit off through the first three quarters, but he came alive in the fourth, firing touchdown passes to Troy Franklin with 6:58 to go and then to Chase Cota with only 19 seconds on the clock.

That final throw gave Oregon a 28-27 win.

It also had a bit of strange symmetry to it. The Ducks’ last bowl win was by the same score, 28-27, in the Rose Bowl over Wisconsin in 2019. It marked a second consecutive win at the Holiday Bowl, with the last appearance coming in 2008. That season ended with a 10-3 record as well. A year later, Chip Kelly began his tenure as the Ducks’ head coach and finished Year 1 with a 10-3 record.

A year later, Kelly had the Ducks in the BCS national championship.

Oregon is hoping the exclamation point at the end of the 2022 season can be a springboard to more success in 2023.