Dan Lanning didn’t hide what he felt when Dante Moore stayed down at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Three days later, the Oregon coach still wasn’t softening the edges.
On Tuesday’s David Pollack See Ball Get Ball podcast, Lanning walked through the moment Moore was left motionless after a late hit in Oregon’s Week 4 game against USC. The Ducks quarterback was taken off on a stretcher after being concussed by Trojans linebacker Desman Stephens II, who was flagged for targeting and ejected.
“A little shocking at first,” Lanning said. “You don’t expect that to happen, yeah, but you turn really angry really quick.”
Moore was immobilized on the field for 15 minutes before medical personnel put him on a stretcher and transported him to a waiting ambulance.
“I love Dante like a son,” the Oregon coach continued. “Football all of a sudden becomes not very important, and the player, you know, that becomes really important. And then immediately you just start going into prayer.”
Lanning had already called the hit “disgusting” and “not what football is about” after Oregon’s 41-27 win, but the emotions were still close to the surface when Pollack pressed him on it. The former ESPN college football analyst didn’t exactly ease into the topic, either.
“My reaction is I want to punch you in the throat for doing it, and I wanna fight,” the former Georgia linebacker Pollack said. “I love the fact that some of your guys were pushing and shoving. Dan, we used to fight if that happened, like, we be throwing hands, like whatever it took.”
Lanning didn’t match that tone, but he didn’t pretend the anger wasn’t real.
“You wanna protect your teammate, and I’m proud of our guys having some composure,” Lanning said, “because I know more than anything they were like, ‘Okay, let’s turn this into a street fight.’ And I’m sure that’s what they wanted. I mean, part of me wanted that.”
Even with Moore out, Oregon had to keep its focus. The Ducks couldn’t afford to lose anyone else in the chaos.
“But we wanted to play it on the field, and we didn’t want to leave people excuses of why. We didn’t want to be shorthanded,” the coach continued. “So I thought our guys had unbelievable composure in that moment.”
That composure helped Oregon finish the job. The Ducks piled up 504 total yards, scored on all six trips inside the USC red zone and improved to 10-0 in Big Ten road games since joining the conference. Backup quarterback Dylan Raiola stepped in and threw for 289 yards and two touchdowns, while Oregon put 24 points on the board on its first four possessions with the junior transfer from Nebraska under center.
Moore’s tests later brought some relief from the immediate scare. Doctors diagnosed him with a concussion, and MRI and CT scans showed no additional injuries.
Oregon now heads into a bye before returning to Autzen Stadium to host No. 23 UCLA, another former Pac-12 opponent. After what unfolded against USC, the Ducks would almost certainly prefer the next battle to stay between the white lines.
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