Oregon head coach Dan Lanning opened his Monday press conference by acknowledging and offering his condolences to the University of Virginia after a shooting took place Sunday night that claimed the lives of three football players and wounded two other UVA students.

“I want them to know and everyone to know that we’re really thinking about them and sending prayers their way,” Lanning said.

Lanning also talked about the Ducks’ loss to Washington on Saturday and looked ahead to this week’s contest against No. 10 Utah. Here’s everything he said, with video of the press conference below.

Opening statement

“Before I start, I just want to take time to extend my condolences and thoughts and prayers to the University of Virginia’s football team, their program, and everyone that’s hurting right now. As a parent of three, I can’t imagine the loss that they’re feeling as a team. We’ve experienced a loss similar, but not the same circumstance by any means as that program right now. I want them to know and everyone to know that we’re really thinking about them and sending prayers their way.

“Building into this next week, obviously our guys were anxious to get back to work. I think we all had a taste in our mouth that we were ready to get out of our mouth. Ready to go back and attack things. This weekend certainly didn’t go the way we anticipated. Like I said after the game, that really follows solely on me. Super proud of our fans and the commitment they had to that game. I think that’s going to continue to be something really special. We get an opportunity here with Senior Day for our seniors to get their last home game played here and that experience, our fans have an opportunity to create a big impact in a game like this. So thrilled for that moment for them, excited for our seniors to go out there on the field again and play really well.”

On the status of Bo Nix, Alex Forsyth, and Ryan Walk

“Yeah, I’m not going to share really any update with anybody. We came away dinged up in that game. I will say I feel a lot more positive today beginning to hear some news on where things are at right now.”

On how they handled the QB spot after Nix went out of the game, and why not call a timeout before the fourth-down try to get Nix back into the game

“We just talked right when it happened. Bo said, ‘Coach, I feel good.’ I said, ‘Let me confirm.’ I said, ‘You’re going to go in the next play.’ And why not call a timeout? Really, in retrospect, I wish I would have called a timeout based on the look we got, not so much just to get Bo in. But it’s really easy to go back and replay the game in your head. There are probably 10 plays that I would have played a lot different. It’s not so much about necessarily putting Bo in that situation, they had a really advantageous look for what we gave and I wish I could have called a timeout more so than anything for that look.”

On QB Ty Thompson’s demeanor going into the Ducks’ second-to-last drive

“It’s a tough spot to go into. But that’s why you do all the practice reps, that’s why you do all the walk reps. I think Ty was anxious to go out there and compete for his team and that’s why you always have to be ready and ready to roll.”

On what he learned from the UW loss

“Oh, man, there’s so many. There are so many things that I wish I could go back and do different. There’s some moments where I felt like I got a little selfish and looking for something that I felt like was there and really at the opportune time, it wasn’t.

“Medicine doesn’t always taste good. And that’s one thing we talked to our players about today. There were a lot of coaches drinking medicine yesterday on Sunday in that office. It doesn’t always taste good, but you better be able to accept it and attack it. There’s a lot of things that me personally as a coach that I can go do better. There’s a lot of things that our coaching staff can do better and a lot of things that our players can do better. And I think when you’re in an environment where it’s about growth, we’ve actually experienced something similar before where it didn’t go the way we wanted it to go and our guys attacked it really well and our coaches attacked it really well.

“The only thing I know to do when something doesn’t go right is to go to work. And that’s kind of always worked for me.

“So, Saturday night, when the game was over, as much as I felt like going in the back room and not spending any time with anybody, you know what I did? I went and recruited. Then Sunday morning, I got my ass up really early and got every ounce of film graded and then did what? Some more recruiting. And then did some evaluations of our performance and did a quality control report on what we can do better and how we can be better. And then that night, guess what we were doing more of? Recruiting and finding opportunities to make our program better, touching base with our players, looking for ways for us to grow.

“Again, the result was not what we wanted. You have to give them credit for doing a good job, and you have to look at… it’s called hard facts, man. It’s the hard truths. You’ve got to look at the things that you could have done better as a coach to prepare our team and perform better in that environment. So a lot of opportunities for growth and I’m certainly gonna attack it.”

On managing emotions

“I’m a bad loser, man. I don’t ever handle it very well and that’s something I can continue to grow at but that hasn’t changed since third grade P.E. class. Like I don’t like losing and I don’t like losing if I’m playing checkers against Titan, my 9-year-old right now. I want to win at everything that I do. And losing is always a lot harder than winning. The benefit of winning doesn’t compare close to the feeling of losing, so I’m never going to be great at that. But I know this: we didn’t let Georgia beat us twice. I’m not gonna let Washington beat us twice. We played them once. I’m not gonna let that happen. My focus is we gotta go play a really dang good Utah team and probably one of the most complete teams that we’ve played this season. And you’re not going to do that by crying over spilled milk.”

On why Jeffrey Bassa is ejected for targeting but a similar hit from Washington on Bo Nix was deemed fair play

“That’s a fair question. I’m still waiting on feedback from our conference on some of the plays that we sent in, so I can’t speak to everything on that. We haven’t gotten those results back yet. But you certainly would love consistent interpretation of (the targeting rule). And I think our conference tries to do a good job of that.”

On whether the 62-yard Washington touchdown was a coverage mistake or simply a great throw

“There certainly are things that we could have done better. I think there’s places where we can provide more relief. It was a great throw. I think he was on point all night, he had some great throws. But I think there’s also some opportunities for us to look at those coverages and figure out some ways that we can improve it. You know, the biggest thing is they recognized the look that we’re in, and we weren’t able to kill out of that look and change our call and that’s something we certainly gotta do better and then we have to play with better technique when we get the opportunity. We’d love to be able to roll a safety over there, we were trying to get that done, didn’t quite get there, and obviously you see the results.”

On how much the Utah game means to the team

“I think this game means a ton. I think our guys are playing for each other and they want to do well for each other. This team really cares about each other, which is important. I think they all have a taste in their mouth from last season. You know, some of the guys weren’t here and some guys were, but they want to go perform. They want to go perform to their abilities.”

On addressing defensive struggles, and whether or not he’d take over play-calling

“Yeah, no, I’ve got belief in our coaches, I got belief in our players, and I’ve been a part of situations that were tough. What’s the hard truth? We’re not playing well on defense right now. I don’t think it takes a lot of people to look at that and see it. You know, what’s hard maybe for some people in this room to see and people outside to see is there’s some things that were really close at. You look at the first third down, and you’re like, ‘Wow, you have a free runner at quarterback.’ Gotta be able to finish there. You look at an opportunity to maintain leverage properly.

“What I’ve always learned in situations where you’re not having success is it’s easy to point fingers and try to say, ‘Well, this guy didn’t do his job.’ But I’ve always been a thumb-pointer. There’s parts that I can do better, there’s parts that our coaching staff can do better, and there’s certainly parts that our players can do better. But we’re probably closer than some of you think.

“That being said, it’s not acceptable. It’s not something that we accept in our program. We want to play better than we’re playing. And the way that I understand how to do that is to go work. And even though the result doesn’t always change, that doesn’t mean you can’t change your approach. And I’m going to continue to look for ways to change the approach as we move forward.”

On the balance of practice reps for guys returning from injury and guys who will play more because of an injury to a teammate

“That’s always a tough thing, but for us, we spend a lot of time developing players in our program. So we get a lot of reps with really our 1s and our 2 groups so that those guys get a lot of benefitting reps. And that being said, when it comes to player safety, you always want to make sure you take care of your guys first and put them in the best position to be successful. I’m always gonna think about our players before I put them in a situation where they’re not safe, but we get a lot of reps with our 1s and our 2s with the way we have our practice structured.”

On what he sees in Utah

“They’re very unique. I’ll probably start off defensively, they’re one of the more aggressive teams obviously in our conference. They’ll six-man pressure, five-man pressure over 28% of the time, which is a really high percentage for a team. They’ll challenge you. They’ll blitz zero on either side of the 50. They play with a relentless effort, they pursue. Obviously smart, they’re well-coached. You see the technique show up consistently. There they’re really good.

“On offense, it’s a West Coast offense, at times they can really pound the ball. They’re going to hop into some unique personnel groups. They’ll get in 14, 13, 12 personnel and run it down your throat, and then when you become too aggressive, they’ll hit you over the top. Their quarterback, I can’t say enough good things about, he’s a relentless competitor. He makes it tick for them. He can get them in great run checks, understands what defensive look he’s looking at. And he’s really able to take advantage of it. He’s a smooth operator and he plays with great toughness. It’s like he’s a linebacker playing quarterback. So they’ve got a really good team. You know, they do a lot of things really well. I think they’re one of the best-coached teams in our conference. I think Coach (Kyle Whittingham) has done a really good job there for a long time.”

On whether or not he’s been able to get to know Utah HC Kyle Whittingham

“I’ve followed him from a distance for a long time as a coach that just has admiration for the way that he handles his business. When I was at Georgia as the defensive coordinator, we actually crossed over with their staff and met with him defensively. We always look for other teams that did some things that we thought were good and figure out ways to link up. So we met with their entire defensive staff. They do a lot of stuff. It’s innovative, it’s different, but I have a lot of respect for what they do. And I have a lot of respect for Kyle and the job that he’s done there.”

On the secondary’s play with outside leverage and whether Bennett Williams is playing in the right position or not

“Ultimately, when a team plays with five guys that can catch the ball, you’ve got to put people somewhere. And you’ve seen us, we’ve shuffled guys around the season. We’ve played Arizona, we played different people in the slot. Going back there are a lot of ways you can go back and say, ‘Hey, we look at some opportunities to do some things differently.’ At the end of the day, you certainly have to own your leverage. If you are supposed to play a certain leverage, you have to own it. And I think Bennett owns that, just like every one of our players. We’re always looking to put our players in the position that’s most advantageous for them and our success.

“You look early in the season and you’ll say, ‘Wow, they were hurt a lot on screen game,’ and you need a bigger body out there, a guy that plays the screens well. Then you also want somebody who can play slot cover really well. Now you want somebody who can really blitz and the reality is not every one of those players is going to be elite at each one of those things, you have to find what each guy does well.

“What I know is Bennett Williams cares. We got a lot of people in that room that care, and they want to do a good job, and they want to do their job. And Bennett has done nothing but try to execute everything that we’ve asked him to do. Could he do it better? Yeah. Could our corners do better at times? Could our safeties do better? Absolutely. Could our coaches do better? Absolutely. So I’m not going to come in here and point fingers at each player. We’ve got to find opportunities to put our players in the best position to be successful and we’re not doing that well enough. That’s the hard truth. You obviously can see it right. You’re tied into it. I can see that. We have to get better, but I’m not gonna sit here and let it beat me twice. I’m going to try and figure out a solution.”

On the depth at center if Forsyth and Walk can’t go

“Again, feeling better about our health this week. That being said, that’s why you practice. That’s why you go through so many situations, that’s why you have your third guy at center take snaps and practice that throughout the week. But as we all know, when you practice at multiple positions, it makes it harder for you to develop at one. I’m proud of the guys who got plugged into some situations, some tough situations. Getting thrown into the fourth quarter somewhere different, having to snap in that environment, in a unique spot, is certainly a challenge. I think our guys handled that challenge well. And just like me, I know several of them wish one play would have gone one way or another.”

On the target range for a Camden Lewis field goal try

“Obviously, we tried the one at the end of the first half and that was a little bit too far. We knew we felt like we needed a few more yards there. That probably gives you a good frame of reference about how far we would try it. It was something we debated. It felt like if Troy’s catch would have been ruled differently, that we would have been in a position to where we had a chance. Obviously, that didn’t go our way.”

On the secondary’s approach since the UW loss

“Let’s work. Just like our team’s mood. I think everyone wants to point at certain pieces of this game, but there’s a lot of pieces that could have affected this game. Our decision to onside kick it, a fumble in the red area, a poor performance on third down. There’s a lot of belief in this room that each one of us could do something better. Just like our DB’s focus is, ‘Hey, what can we improve upon, what can we get better at,’ everybody in our organization is saying right now, ‘How can we make the Ducks better?”

On Senior Day

“Right now, I think we have 18 guys. I won’t go through the entire list but 18 guys are gonna participate as seniors. Some of those guys are gonna participate and then come back and play next year. Some guys aren’t participating and may not be here next year. There’s a reality of that as well. So if you want to be honored as a senior this year, we want to give you the opportunity to do that. I’m anticipating some of those guys that are going to be honored as seniors are still coming back and we get to honor him again. That’d be kind of cool.

“Those guys deserve the opportunity to be honored. Some guys that could have been honored said ‘Coach, I’m coming back, I don’t want to be honored. Some guys said, ‘Hey, Coach, I’m coming back but I’d like to be.’ So that’s in their court and we want to give those guys that opportunity to do that.”