Oregon might always be flashy, but under Dan Lanning, the Ducks are playing tough - ESPN

«DO PEOPLE THINK Oregon and think tough?»

An animated Dan Lanning stands in the front of the Oregon team room asking his entire team the rhetorical question. It's the eighth week of the season and a 7-1 Ducks team is headed to Salt Lake City where it'll face a Utah team that's won 30 straight games at home and whose «national narrative,» as Lanning puts it, is one of being tough to beat.

«What's the narrative on us?» Lanning continues. «Flashy.»

Oregon, with its Nike partnership, history of teams with offensive firepower and equally bold uniforms, has come to represent a certain kind of football, a certain kind of program, over the years. Whether you want to define it as flashy or otherwise, it's no secret that effective marketing combined with success has turned the Ducks into a national brand. What that brand is exactly depends on who you ask.

«People don't think you're tough?» Lanning asks.

All you have to do is watch Lanning speak — sometimes yell — to realize he cuts against that very grain. And all you have to do is watch Oregon these past two seasons to realize that very same approach Lanning embodies has permeated throughout the program.

«He's developed a culture of toughness,» offensive coordinator Will Stein told ESPN. «I mean his program's built on toughness, mental and physical.»

It's not that Lanning eschews flash, confidence or even, at times, arrogance, in place for the traditional idea of a buttoned-up college coach. In fact, the 37-year-old appears to embrace those outward displays of emotion and pride more than most. Just take a look at the speech he gave (and presumably allowed to be aired) during the Ducks' commanding win over Colorado, where he said Oregon was a team «rooted in substance, not flash.»