Skull Session: Dan Lanning Says Oregon “Certainly Learned From” Its Rose Bowl Loss to Ohio State, Buckeye Football Has Some Hoopers and 2021 C.J. Stroud Was Unspeakably Good

By Chase Brown on March 25, 2025 at 5:00 am
Ryan Day and Dan Lanning
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

The boys champs are back in town.

Have a good Tuesday.

 “WE CERTAINLY LEARNED FROM THAT ONE.” Oregon started spring football two weeks ago. After the Ducks’ first practice, head coach Dan Lanning and defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi took the podium for press conferences at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex. 

There, both Lanning and Lupoi received questions about Oregon’s blowout loss to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. While neither coach elaborated on the loss, both said the Ducks must learn from it as the program prepares for the 2025 season.

“Life is all about experiences, right? I don’t think you pick one experience. I think life is all about experiences. Every day we walk out here, we learn, we grow – and you have to learn from wins, and you have to learn from losses,” Dan Lanning said. “We certainly learned from that one, but this is a new season, too. That (loss) has no impact on our next season. All the wins that we had last year have absolutely no impact on this next season, either. It’s really about focusing on what’s next and continuing to improve.”

Lupoi said the experience made him take “a long look in the mirror.”

“From a preparation standpoint, we probably (tried to) utilize too many things that helped us win the first time we beat them,” he said. “Always be asking yourself the what ifs. Like, what if they’re getting to specific looks or moving guys that they didn’t in the past? Having a better plan for how they move (Jeremiah Smith) around more than they had in the past. Having a plan for that moving forward is necessary and applies to any team we play. There’s a lot of strong targets out there, but when they’re moving around guys that we’re expecting to be in different places, what’s the answer to that?”

I’ll answer Lupoi’s question: There are no answers.

Ryan Day cooked. 

Chip Kelly cooked

Jeremiah Smith cooked.

Everyone cooked.

(There’s a lesson to be learned here: You can have too many cooks in the kitchen but not too many cooks on a football field.)

The 2025 Rose Bowl will forever be, to me at least, one of the most dominant performances I’ve ever seen from a college football team. The Buckeyes were up 34-0 on the No. 1 team in the nation – the same team that beat them earlier in the season. That’s all kinds of ridiculous, but it’s the kind of ridiculous I love to reflect on almost three months later.

 SHOOTERS SHOOT. For the second straight year, the Ohio State football media team asked several Buckeyes to name their squad’s starting five basketball players in honor of the NCAA Tournament.

Some of those lineups are bad.

Some of those lineups are good.

But just like last season, I created the best one.

Last season’s starters:

  • PG: Lincoln Kienholz
  • SG: Jayden Ballard
  • SF: Sonny Styles
  • PF: JT Tuimoloau
  • C: Jack Sawyer

This season’s starters:

  • PG: Lincoln Kienholz
  • SG: Damarion Witten
  • SF: Sonny Styles
  • PF: Jelani Thurman
  • C: Luke Montgomery

PG: Lincoln Kienholz

Years before he entered a quarterback competition with Julian Sayin and Tavien St. Clair, Kienholz (6-foot-3, 207 pounds) was an all-state honoree in football, basketball and baseball. In his senior basketball season, Kienholz averaged 19.9 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists per contest. The quarterback is the leader of the offense; the point guard is the leader of the offense. Give Kienholz the rock.

SG: Damarion Witten

Witten (6-foot-4, 215 pounds) averaged 10.2 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game as a senior at Glenville High School. In the final regular-season game of his career, Witten recorded six points, seven rebounds and three steals to help the Tarblooders win their second league championship in three years. Talk about a box-score stuffer! And with all the hustle stats, too!

SF: Sonny Styles

Styles (6-foot-4, 235 pounds) averaged 9.1 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game as a junior at Pickerington High School Central. He and current Ohio State forward Devin Royal, who averaged 19.1 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game, led the Tigers to a state championship in 2022, fending off then-undefeated Centerville 55-48 to win the title.

PF: Jelani Thurman

While I couldn’t find his high school stats online, Thurman (6-foot-6, 258 pounds) has basketball in his blood. His mother, Kara Braxton, was a two-time WNBA champion with the Detroit Shock (his father, Odell Thurman, was also a professional athlete and played football for the Cincinnati Bengals), leading me to believe Thurman has the athleticism and skill to make a difference on the hardwood.

C: Luke Montgomery

Montgomery (6-foot-6, 265 pounds) once told cleveland.com that basketball was his favorite sport. A starter for the Maumee Bay Turf, an AAU team in Northwest Ohio, Montgomery dominated the youth circuit – so much so that LeBron James’ team, the North Coast Blue Chips, recruited him to join their team.

“On the court, he was super smart,” NCBC head coach Joseph Orukotan told cleveland.com. “His IQ was high; he could shoot the ball and pass very well. He could bruise a little bit. He was like a big giant. He always has a smile on his face, but when he is on the court, that is a different story. He plays furiously.”

Like with Thurman, I couldn’t find Montgomery’s high school stats online. However, that quote and countless other testimonies in the cleveland.com article tell me all I need to know: Montgomery can ball. Get that man on the block!

OK.

That’s it.

That’s the five!

Let’s dance.

 MY GOODNESS, C.J. STROUD. This offseason, an X account called CFBNumbers has posted “Spider Charts” examining where quarterbacks from the past eight seasons rank in success rate, EPA (expected points added), lost turnovers, sack rate, rush EPA, pass EPA, late down EPA per play, early down EPA per play, explosive rate and EPA per play.

Using CFBNumbers’ tool, I generated Spider Charts for J.T. Barrett, Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields, C.J. Stroud, Kyle McCord and Will Howard. Here’s how each chart looked:

My goodness, C.J. Stroud was a beast in 2021. And how about Will Howard? His efficiency is almost identical to Stroud's three years ago, which reveals two truths to me. One, that if Stroud had – I don't know, like, half? – the defense Howard did, he would have led Ohio State to a national championship in 2021. And two, that Howard was so good! so good! so good! as the Buckeyes' quarterback. We've all given him a lot of credit, but I still don't think it's enough!

 BRING HIM HOME! Xavier forward Dailyn Swain entered the transfer portal Monday after Sean Miller left the Muskateers to become the next head coach at Texas.

With Ohio State forward Evan Mahaffey now in the transfer portal, the Buckeyes would be smart to pursue Swain, a Columbus native and Africentric graduate. Swain named Ohio State as a top-five school during his high school recruitment, along with Xavier, Arizona State, Arkansas and Clemson.

According to Zach Fleer of 270 Hoops, if Ohio State landed Swain, the 6-foot-8, 220-pound forward, he would become the first non-Northland player from the City League to play for the Buckeyes since Ron Lewis (Brookhaven). 

That said, to see Swain wear an Ohio State uniform would be pretty sweet!

Bring him home, Jake Diebler!

 SONG OF THE DAY. "Basketball" - Bow Wow.

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