After the Ducks faltered in the playoffs for the second straight year at the Peach Bowl, losing to Indiana 56-22, the memes, disses and dismissals gained even more life and momentum.
Oregon can't win the Big Game. Dan Lanning is a second-tier coach. The Ducks choke when it matters most.
Duck fans have heard this all before. Twice reaching the national championship in the early 2010s, they've been tagged with a label like the Buffalo Bills or 1990s Atlanta Braves. Tigers in the regular season, timid house cats in the big game.
Here's the thing with Oregon: It's only a big game if they lose.
In fact, in the last 20 seasons under six different head coaches, the Ducks have the West's best record in Top 25 matchups. No one else in the region is above 50 percent.
Winning % and Records vs. Ranked Teams in Last 20 years for Top CFB Programs in the West
— SuperWest Sports (@SuperWestSports) May 9, 2026
60.8%—Oregon (48-31)
50.0%—Boise St (14-14)
46.7%—Stanford (35-40)
43.8%—Washington (32-41)
39.1%—ASU (25-39)
36.6%—BYU (15-26)
36.6%—USC (26-45)
34.9%—UCLA (22-41)
33.3%—Utah (18-36)…
Absolutely Lanning has to get that albatross off his neck, that tag of "best coach never to win a national championship" but the definition of "big game" tends to shift depending on how much the definer dislikes your team.
When Oregon shut out No. 4 Texas Tech 23-0 in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal, that was a Big Game. When they beat Penn State for the Big Ten Championship in their first year in the league, that was a big game.
In November last year the Ducks topped USC and Washington with a playoff berth on the line, and you can bet if the Trojans or Huskies had won, they would have tabbed it as another Dan Lanning failure in a big game.
Those wins are big games because you can't make it to the biggest game unless you win those games. Oregon has had more success in the last 20 years than any team on the west coast. They've won seven conference championships. Lanning is 48-8 with a 2-2 record in the playoffs and four bowl wins.
Over that same time period Washington has had 11 seasons with six or more losses. The Trojans have had 8 seasons of 8-5 or worse. Yet those two fanbases chirp the loudest, based on success from a long time ago.
The failures are frustrating, but hasn't doesn't mean can't. Lanning has crafted a program that will compete for national championships as long as he's here. They've taken another step forward in each of his four seasons as head coach.
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