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Finally Admit Lanning > Mario

I'm so glad I somehow held off from posting in this thread back in 2024. If this was originally started in 2023, I definitely would be getting bumped (insert Lanning coke bump pun).
 
I don’t fault anyone for looking at the success Oregon had under Lanning and our struggles and thought Mario was going to fail.

I think as fans some didn’t want to admit how bad the program here was when Mario arrived, myself included. I know I had a preconceived notion that we were close and a few pieces would have us in the ACC title conversation.

Looking at things today in 2026, it’s clear Mario’s philosophy will take longer to stick than some others would. Mario had to purge 20 years of rot from this program. And I also think Mario having two really rough seasons and a third where his defense failed him, has lead to our success now and what’s coming in the future. I don’t think anyone is going to say Mario is the same coach today as he was when he was hired. It obviously sucked in the moment, but I’d take what happened the first three years to get where this program is today 100/100 times.
 
Pearson704 said:
Look at what happened the second Lanning didn't have Mario's roster to lean on
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This is a statement some of you guys like to make and it’s not reflective of what actually happened and @Rellyrell has provided the information previously.

It’s true, Mario left Oregon with a better roster than Manny left at Miami, however, Lanning flipped Mario’s roster quickly and at a large clip… I think 40% in year 1 - actually more than Mario flipped at miami in year one but Relly can confirm if that’s correct.

The premise that Lanning was only successful initially at Oregon because of Mario’s roster is not supported by the makeup of the Oregon roster during those times.
 
Pearson704 said:
I’m not going to make a retrospective effort to negate a premature take, because doing that would be making the exact same mistake they did. My point is that there should have been absolutely no conclusion drawn with an incomplete sample-size or comparison made at the time, and especially not to Lanning.

This thread was bumped for one specific reason: the irrational confidence of crowning Lanning. Had his name not been used to critique Mario, then the absurdity of this thread wouldn't hold such relevance now. Asking for a real-time comparison at that specific moment in history completely negates the massive foundation Mario built at Oregon compared to the total rebuild he faced at Miami. It’s wild to base your entire comparison on a situational head start that Mario himself provided for Lanning.

Taking a snapshot from late 2024 to justify a "Lanning > Mario" thread is a futile effort to make sense of an awful take. It doesn't prove who the better program builder is; it just proves what day it was on the calendar.

However, if making a bad hire or losing a game you shouldn't means a coach "isn't the guy," then Lanning fails by those metrics as well. Look at what happened the second Lanning didn't have Mario's roster to lean on, or what happened the second Will Stein left for Kentucky and Lanning had to replace his staff. His team looks soft and the Oregon offense completely fell back to earth after he promoted Drew Mehringer from within.

Now they're in weekly dogfights and losing to less-talented teams with first-year head coaches. They were utterly anemic against Oklahoma State and just suffered an embarrassing home loss to an unranked UCLA team. Before that, his game-management arrogance against Washington single-handedly cost Oregon a winnable game in 2023.

People were drunk on the team Mario built and then used it to critique him while crowning his successor.
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You might as well be speaking an alien language with this level of thought & consideration. Especially in 2026, on the topic of sports, no less. Most posts on this board the internet are emotional outbursts framed as opinion.

The bolded should be enough to end this argument showing the problem of overreacting to a micro issue in a macro scenario. But it won't. It wasn't, just based off a response I just saw. I'm glad you got the energy for this because I can't really be bothered.

Just happy to see someone willing to put as much thought & reason into their post as you have in this thread.
 
RVACane said:
This is a statement some of you guys like to make and it’s not reflective of what actually happened and @Rellyrell has provided the information previously.

It’s true, Mario left Oregon with a better roster than Manny left at Miami, however, Lanning flipped Mario’s roster quickly and at a large clip… I think 40% in year 1 - actually more than Mario flipped at miami in year one but Relly can confirm if that’s correct.

The premise that Lanning was only successful initially at Oregon because of Mario’s roster is not supported by the makeup of the Oregon roster during those times.
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More importantly, Mario left Oregon with a significantly better culture than Manny left at Miami. I don't think people really understand how bad things were inside that building
 
ST26 said:
More importantly, Mario left Oregon with a significantly better culture than Manny left at Miami. I don't think people really understand how bad things were inside that building
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Manny left a horrid situation culturally and the players left who remained at Oregon were better as a baseline than what remained at Miami after the 1st year roster flips at each school.
 
RVACane said:
Manny left a horrid situation culturally and the players left who remained at Oregon were better as a baseline than what remained at Miami after the 1st year roster flips at each school.
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TrumpyCane mentioned this a few times but its not a coincidence the less Manny players we had on the team, the better the record has gotten every year
 
Even someone as level headed as myself had a few outbursts when I saw Mario make some questionable calls. Fortunately, I kept them to private conversations, lest some self-righteous Mario glazer try to throw them in my face later on.

Anyone who says they always knew is chock full of ****.
 
ST26 said:
More importantly, Mario left Oregon with a significantly better culture than Manny left at Miami. I don't think people really understand how bad things were inside that building
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Tell Oh My GIF by Robert E Blackmon


It's been years now...
 
JayCane20 said:
I'm so glad I somehow held off from posting in this thread back in 2024. If this was originally started in 2023, I definitely would be getting bumped (insert Lanning coke bump pun).
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I didnt post in this thread because it was premature to make an overall case either way, and I still believe that to be the case today. Mario has taken the clear lead in terms of trajectory and Lanning is hit some serious bumps in the road but Id say this one is hardly settled. Now in terms of Mario, I was extremely frustrated on how things went and was very vocal about it and now Im seeing way too many posts about how it was all about trusting some sort of process. I beg to differ, Mario kept certain tenents of his process but in general it broke down and to his credit he adjusted and even broke some dogmatic like tendencies. The transfer portal allowed him to get it right at the last moment along with a home run hire at DC, his 3rd in 4 years.
 
TrumpyCane said:
TrumpyCane mentioned this a few times but its not a coincidence the less Manny players we had on the team, the better the record has gotten every year
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There was always talent on those Golden/Manny teams. Maybe we didn’t have the national championship-caliber roster we have now, but we always had more than enough talent to make it to Charlotte. We just had a toxic culture paired with terrible coaching
 
3rdCanes said:
Even someone as level headed as myself had a few outbursts when I saw Mario make some questionable calls. Fortunately, I kept them to private conversations, lest some self-righteous Mario glazer try to throw them in my face later on.

Anyone who says they always knew is chock full of ****.
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Lol the MarioBro bully slurpers treat eating crow like the movie 50 First Dates.
 
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