24 for '24: What I'll remember from an unforgettable year along The I-5 Corridor
2024 was one for the ages in Oregon.
For the last time: Hello from 2024.
I’ll be spending my last day of the year en route to Los Angeles for the Rose Bowl, where the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes are going to kick off 2025 with quite the quarterfinal matchup in the College Football Playoffs.
But before we get into the New Year, I want to get something off of my chest here before 2024 ends.
I dropped Batman.
It was after the Ducks beat the Buckeyes in Eugene back in October. The crowd had rushed the field, packing everyone together so tightly on the Autzen turf that there was no longer free will associated with movement. We had turned into one autonomous blob composed of thousands of humans, completely at the mercy of changing waves of momentum and direction.
I’ll admit, it got a bit scary there for a second. But then I saw him — the dark suit, the ears and the shadow of our caped crusader being carried above us through the crowd. Maybe he was hurt. Maybe he was looking to be a hero. Maybe he was just a drunk college kid experiencing a night he’ll never forget.
I’ll never know, because as he was passed above me, I did not offer a hand. As a completely serious and trained journalist, I kept with the shot — which now documents the final moments of our hero’s flight as he disappears into the depths below.
I’m sorry Batman. I let you down.
That’s the first of the 24 things I won’t forget about 2024. Here’s the rest:
2. The Rabbit has the Gun
Sometimes you get lucky with timing.
I’ve been pretty selective with trying to get a Dan Lanning one-on-one over the last few years. I know my place around here: I’m not a national guy. I’m not an everyday guy. I don’t have the largest audience, but I think I have a decent reputation for puting a good effort in when given an opportunity. I’m not one to try and overplay a hand, but I did let the UO folks know that I would like to have a sit down with the Oregon coach heading into the 2024 football season.
Lanning was heading into his third fall camp, he was leading the Ducks into a new era in the Big Ten and it felt like it was an important moment to try and capture.
They asked if July 18 worked. You bet it did.
I sat down with Lanning that afternoon in his office. Big Ten media days in Indianapolis were a week away and he had just gotten back from a weekend in Coeur d'Alene with his family.
“We’ve just been trying to explore different parts of the West Coast,” Lanning said. “It’s beautiful, man. It’s beautiful.”
We talked about family. We talked about Dante Moore, Tosh Lupoi and how far his program has come since that Georgia game in 2021. And we also talked about Kirby Smart. It was just a few days before our interview that Smart took to the podium at SEC media days and said he wished at Georgia he “had the treasure chest to open up and get whatever he wants,” like Lanning did with Phil Knight’s money.
Lanning initially had a pretty Lanning-in-the-media-like response for me:
“We do have great support here. That’s no secret. But we’re not the highest bidder and we’re certainly not winning battles just because of NIL,” he said. “It’s great that we’re going toe-to-toe with the big dogs because we are one.”
Not a bad quote. Not really all that revealing, either. That’s Lanning 101.
But then he kept going.
Now that’s a quote I won’t forget. Not only because it is actually a great quote, but since that interview the Ducks have never relinquished possession of the weapon. A week later, Oregon was the talk of Big Ten media days for what they were expected to do on the field and the hijinks — such as the Duck in the river in Indianapolis — they were pulling off of it.
Then the Ducks won every game.
Then they secured another program-best recruiting class.
And on Wednesday, they’ll be playing in the Rose Bowl as the No. 1 team in the country looking to knock off Ohio State for the second time in three months.
I’ll remember 2024 as the year that Lanning positioned himself and Oregon in the center of the college football orbit. And it does make me wonder how many more times a marginally successful newsletter writer like myself is going to catch him with a free afternoon.