The storyline of Oregon facing a Miami team led by former coach Mario Cristobal in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game would have been juicy, but it wasn’t meant to be. No. 1 seed Indiana demolished the No. 5 seed Ducks 56-22 in Friday night’s Peach Bowl, sending Oregon’s second consecutive 13-win season to an abrasive end.
While the 2025 campaign brought the Ducks’ second straight CFP appearance and third straight 12+ win season under fourth-year coach Dan Lanning, it also lacked substance. Oregon’s 11-1 regular season featured just one win against a team that finished in the final CFP rankings. The Ducks showed a lofty ceiling at times, but a poor run of health and a pair of double-digit losses to Indiana obscured the 2025 team’s full potential.
Lanning, 39, is a remarkable 48-8 with the Ducks and no longer a “rising” star. With four years of great recruiting and on-field results to his track record, he’s clearly a top-10 coach in college football. He will nevertheless enter the 2026 season with significant boxes on his career accomplishment list still unchecked.
The Ducks have yet to play for a national championship under Lanning and have been obliterated by conference rivals in the CFP the past two seasons. Now, he is losing both his coordinators and will likely be looking for his fourth quarterback in five years.
When Cristobal left Oregon for Miami after the 2021 season, the Ducks won the breakup by hiring Lanning, who was great from the jump. Meanwhile, Cristobal struggled to a 12-13 mark over his first two seasons with the ‘Canes. But now it’s the ‘Canes on the cusp of a championship breakthrough. What can Oregon do to create one of its own?
Oregon’s coordinator changes
For the first time since taking over at Oregon in 2022, Lanning won’t have defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi with him next season. Lupoi has accepted the head coaching job at Cal, which will leave the Ducks without one of the key architects of their rise to power.
Lanning didn’t have to go far in order to find Lupoi’s replacement. Chris Hampton, who has been the program’s co-defensive coordinator for the past three years, is sliding into the DC chair. Hampton is regarded as an elite recruiter and defensive backs coach, and he was previously a solo defensive coordinator at Tulane.
Oregon is also promoting from within to replace offensive coordinator Will Stein, who is leaving to become Kentucky’s head coach. Former co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Drew Mehringer is stepping into the lead coordinator position.
This will be Lanning’s second time replacing an offensive coordinator after he hired Stein to replace Kenny Dillingham following the 2022 season. Nailing a third hire in a row at the position will be paramount for Lanning, who has never had to replace both coordinators in the same offseason.
It’s not an ideal scenario, but elevating Hampton and Mehringer should keep the floor high. Promoting from within also appears to be minimizing the amount of roster departures that might normally accompany the simultaneous departure of two coordinators. However, it will be interesting to see how many Ducks end up following Lupoi and Stein to their new destinations.
What’s clear is that Oregon should once again have the payroll to keep the players it wants to keep. The nation’s No. 3 high school recruiting class is also on the way.
New quarterback coming?
Lanning is definitely replacing a pair of coordinators. He may also be looking for a new quarterback. Dante Moore ranks No. 2 in the CBS Sports NFL Draft Prospect Rankings following a standout redshirt sophomore season.
It’s hard to imagine Moore’s poor performance in the Fiesta Bowl causing enough damage to his reputation to make him drop significantly in the eyes of NFL scouts. The 2026 draft class is not regarded as particularly strong at QB, which means this is a good time for Moore to strike.
If he does declare for the draft, Oregon will need to be aggressive in trying for another portal prize at the position. Auburn transfer Bo Nix and Oklahoma transfer Dillon Gabriel were veterans who carried Oregon through the first three seasons of Lanning’s tenure with good results. Moore broke the mold in 2025 after transferring to Oregon following a rocky freshman season at UCLA. He redshirted in 2024 and then played well in 2025 while helping shepherd the Ducks through a series of injuries that got particularly bad at receiver.
There isn’t another young talent like Moore on the 2025 Oregon roster who is clearly ready to step in and be the the guy. And options are already getting slim in the portal after guys like Sam Leavitt and Dylan Raiola. The Ducks have plenty of money they could use to make returning to college football an interesting proposition for Moore. But given his draft stock, most players in Moore’s position would turn pro.
Looking ahead to 2026
Replacing a quarterback and two coordinators in the same year is no small task. It can be done in the 12-team playoff era since the expanded field gives transitioning teams more margin for error as they gel. The 2024 Ohio State team that won the national championship is a perfect example. Those Buckeyes had new faces in the same three key positions (OC, DC, QB). Though it lost two regular season games, Ohio State figured it out at the right time to be the last team standing.
Retention was the key for those Buckeyes, who got several key players back who could have entered the NFL Draft. Oregon’s 2026 outlook has already benefitted from the return announcements of draft-caliber players like defensive end Bear Alexander and center Iapani Laloulu. If enough others follow suit and Oregon gets its quarterback situation resolved in a satisfactory manner, this program has everything else it needs to compete for Big Ten and national titles next season.
