The Oregon Ducks' Secret Army Of Football Nerds

Quarterback Dillon Gabriel has excelled since transferring from Oklahoma. The offensive and defensive lines have both been stellar. Only one other program, Texas, ranks in the top 15 nationally in both total offense and defense.

But behind the scenes, there’s another, more subtle explanation for the Ducks’ undefeated regular season: a group of mostly unknown, lowly paid football obsessives working in anonymity to transform Oregon into a powerhouse.

Dan Lanning, the Ducks’ unconventional, 38-year-old head coach, has populated his staff with a collection of oddball coaches and analysts who largely built their reputations in the wonkiest corners of social media and obscure coaching clinics.

Their résumés don’t suggest they belong at a college football power like Oregon. Defensive analyst Dante Bartee was the defensive coordinator at Ottawa University, a small Baptist institution located not in Canada, but in Kansas. His colleague, Kyle Cogan, coached the defensive backs at somewhere called Benedictine College, which has roughly 2,000 students. Neither of them played football at a high level.

Exactly who some of Oregon’s coaches are and what they do is a mystery. Their pages on the Ducks’AJ website include no biographical information or even a photograph in some cases. An Oregon spokesman declined to make any of the team’s analysts available for interviews. Nick Davis, Bartee’s former boss at Ottawa, also declined to speak because, “Dante doesn’t want to take the focus away from Oregon and their process.”

Meanwhile, when asked about the roles of his analysts, Lanning was coy, saying only that he was “looking for people that wanted an opportunity, not necessarily a paycheck.”

“I think you have a bunch of guys obsessed with football, that’s for sure,” said Lanning, whose Ducks will take on Ohio State in the Rose Bowl on Wednesday with a spot in the College Football Playoff semifinal on the line.

Dan Casey describes coaches like Bartee and Cogan differently. He calls them “internet nerds,” a term he considers a compliment— because he happens to be one himself.

Casey is a prominent figure in an online subculture where football crazies gather to study schemes, break down video and master the tiniest nuances of the strategy of the game. Its denizens aspire not to be star wide receivers or linebackers, but offensive coordinators and quality control coaches.

Casey’s X account, which boasts more than 140,000 followers, has become an invaluable resource for coaches across the NFL and college looking for new strategies and techniques.

In those spaces, Bartee and Co-career stops, picked from a list he has been compiling since he was a graduate assistant at Arizona State more than a decade ago.

“Guys that don’t necessarily have that experience, they have other strengths that you want to lean in on,” he said,

And it shows. Oregon’s season has been defined by taking advantage of unusual situations that only a true football lunatic would have the wherewithal to recognize.

In November, Oregon drew a crucial 5-yard penalty against Michigan by deploying a bizarre punt formation that tricked a defender into lining up directly in front of the snapper, which is illegal. Against Ohio State in October, the Ducks intentionally put 12 defenders on the field late in the contest, accepting the five-yard foul in exchange for running precious seconds off the clock.

Afterward, Lanning admitted that the extra man ploy was something Oregon had worked on in advance. The NCAA responded by immediately closing the loophole. Though it’s impossible to say that Lanning’s “internet nerds” are the reason for Oregon’s ingenuity, it speaks to how the Ducks operate: They don’t mind being different, both in how they play and who they hire.

“The culture that pervades Oregon,” Casey said, “is looking for the most minute edge on the field.”