With construction of the Oregon Ducks' new 170,000 square foot practice facility underway, Dan Lanning's team adapts to change ahead of the season.
When a college football player comes to the University of Oregon, there are expectations that he will experience only the biggest and the best as far as accommodations and amenities go. That means state-of-the-art facilities, the best coaching, the best support, and anything else you could think of. The Ducks deal in both quality and quantity, becoming one of the most prestigious programs in the nation over the last couple of decades.
Going into 2025, they've been forced to change, though. The quality has not suffered at all, but as the practice facilities at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex undergo a facelift, the quantity has had to be adjusted.
Earlier this year, Oregon broke ground on the "2.MO," a new practice facility west of Autzen Stadium. It's a 170,000 sq ft indoor training building, comprising 130,000 sq ft of field space and a 40,000 sq ft connector to the HDC. The connector features an expanded weight room and players’ lounge, according to the university website.
"Current plans call for an exterior shell made from Northwest timber, in a curved form inspired by the Oregon 'O,'" the University writes. "The center of the roof would be paneled with tinted polymer panels supported by a steel cable system, which allows natural light to reach the field without glare while insulating against heat."
When completed sometime in 2027, it will be the nation's premier indoor practice facility, setting the bar once again as one of the most luxurious in all of college football. In the meantime, though, it has temporarily displaced the Ducks ahead of the 2025 season.
The new build is taking place where the Ducks' original pair of outdoor fields stood, west of the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Leo Harris Parkway. With those fields ripped up, Dan Lanning and his team have moved inside Autzen Stadium for their practices, where the quality of playing surface remains, but the quantity of playable area has been cut in half.
For Lanning, this change has offered a learning experience.
“Yeah, still learning, right? It means drills are moved to different spots," Lanning said. "It means that some of the drills are not, you know, you don't have as much field space, so you have to adapt and adjust the drills. But it's something that we can handle well.”
The head coach's calm approach to the change has reverberated throughout the staff. Offensive coordinator Will Stein had similar things to say about the shift, noting that the Ducks' spring season practicing on one field allowed things to operate more smoothly this fall. However, defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi admitted that he was skeptical about how it would all work early in the process.
"Pure chaos. Organized chaos. What I learned (this spring) was like, 'Yeah, this is probably not going to work,'" Lupoi said. "Never saying that out loud. You're like, 'Yeah, I don't understand how we're going to operate there from the special teams and have the group drill here.' But it did. Awesome, organized chaos."
Ultimately, the change serves as a means to an end. The University of Oregon has always prided itself on providing the best for its athletes, from coaches to facilities. Back in 2013, they achieved that with the grand opening of the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex and the Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Complex, which to this day stands as one of the nicest football operations centers in the world. However, other schools have started to catch up to the Ducks in the past decade, so it has once again fallen on Oregon to set the pace.
To do that, they have to build, and to do that, they have to move temporarily. It may be a burden at the moment, but as with anything in the world of college football, adaptability is key.
"You adapt to NIL and the transfer portal, we gotta adapt to one practice field," Stein said.
In the name of staying ahead of the game, the Ducks will embrace change. For now, that means consolidating practices from two fields into one, and thriving in the resulting organized chaos. A year from now, it will mean moving into a new open-air practice arena, fit with upgraded ventilation, expanded locker rooms, improved athlete lounges, and the best that money can buy — setting the standard for athletic facilities, as Oregon has always done.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Oregon Ducks embrace change to practice field ahead of 2025 season
Category: General Sports
