It’s been one and a half seasons for Oregon ever since they switched their conference to the Big 10. While other teams like UCLA, USC Trojans, and Washington struggled to cope with the transition, Oregon, under Dan Lanning, has thrived. After the win over Penn State in Week 5, Lanning is 11-0 in Big 10 play and looks to be on course for a second consecutive undefeated season. However, defeating Penn State at Beaver Stadium, in a White Out, wasn’t easy, and it required the guidance of a former Big 10 head coach.

With a capacity of 106,572, Beaver Stadium’s design, with its towering upper decks and enclosed bowl, amplifies the roaring crowd and creates an environment hard to play in. “Beaver Stadium transforms into an opponent-eating entity with crowd volume reaching NASCAR decibel levels,“ said Indiana linebacker Raekwon Jones. During the game, the crowd was roaring with deafening noise levels on third downs, punts, and crucial moments. But despite that, Oregon held Penn State to just 3 points for the starting three quarters.

Dan Lanning appeared on the ‘Bussin’ with the Boys’ podcast on 30th September and talked about how Urban Meyer’s guidance was crucial to his preparation against Penn State. “You always talk about trying to create chaos in practice, you know, before you get to the game. And that’s hard to replicate. If I could have shipped 100,000 fans to our practices this week, I would have. You couldn’t do that. I talked to Urban Meyer before, and he talked about how there are really hot spots in the game. It’s going to be third down. And It’s going to be when you’re down by their student section. It’s going to be the first play of the game. It’s going to be every punt,” said Dan Lanning.

Meyer sure knows a thing or two about dominating Big 10 teams. He has dominated and won national titles in both the Big 10 and the SEC.  With a 187-32 record, Urban Meyer is an undisputed legend of the game. His record against ‘power’ teams is especially notable. For instance, he has a 7-0 record against Michigan when he was at OSU, something the Buckeyes still reminisce about when compared to Ryan Day. Apart from Michigan, the former head coach also owned Penn State in quite a dominant fashion.

Meyer is 7-0 against Indiana, 5-0 against Illinois, 5-0 against Maryland, 4-0 against Nebraska, 4-0 against Rutgers, and most important of all, 6-1 against Penn State (85.7% wins). Amongst those 6 total wins against Penn State, Meyer has won 3 times at Beaver Stadium’s hostile environment. So with Meyer’s advice, Dan Lanning devised a strategy to simulate a similar atmosphere during practice.

Lanning opens up about simulating a hostile environment in Eugene

According to Urban Meyer, Beaver Stadium was the most hostile environment he faced during his long-term coaching stints with both Florida and Ohio State. Before the game, Meyer even declared publicly the difficulty the Ducks will have to face, touting the environment “most difficult” Lanning has ever coached in. Meyer emphasized identifying hotspots where the crowd would go into frenzy and simulate that in practice. Lanning followed that advice to the letter.

“We had our sideline speakers going. We had our stadium speakers going, and then behind every huddle, we had like 15 turtle boxes up on our guys, and we’re just holding them over. I mean, we did it. Certain periods of practice we’d call this period hot spot period. We do it on punt,” said Lanning. “Our offensive line didn’t have a single false start.”

It was undoubtedly a big win for Lanning, not just because of the intimidating environment. But also because this Penn State team was arguably the best under James Franklin so far. In that sense, limiting Penn State’s two stalwart running backs, Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, to just 18 yards in three quarters showed excellence from the Oregon defense. Even though the Nittany Lions eventually pushed the game to overtime, the resilience from the Ducks to stay focused and come away with the win speaks volumes about the team Lanning has built. Oregon is clearly one of the top 5 natty contenders this year.