Jan 7. 2026 | Isaac Garcia | Sports Editor
When discussing the Oregon Ducks coaching staff, most people will start with head coach Dan Lanning, a former defensive coordinator at the University of Georgia where he won a national championship in 2021. They’ll talk about offensive coordinator Will Stein, who, after this season, will take over at Kentucky to become head coach. They’ll mention defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi, a former assistant coach under legend Nick Saban, who will also be leaving Eugene at the end of the season to take over his own program at Cal. They’ll speculate about Drew Mehringer and Chris Hampton, who will be taking over for Stein and Lupoi next season. All of these coaches have been discussed at great lengths over the past few months, leaving Western Oregon University alum Joe Lorig under the radar.
Lorig was born in Edmonds, Washington, about four hours away from Monmouth. In 1991, he joined the Walla Walla Community College football team as a cornerback where he received All-Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges honors twice. He remained at Walla Walla until transferring to Western Oregon before the 1994 season. Lorig was a team captain for the Wolves and would go on to receive a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement and a master’s in correctional administration from Western in 1995 and 1997 respectively. Lorig began coaching at Western, starting off as the defensive backs coach for two seasons. Also on the staff in the defensive coordinator role was Arne Ferguson, who would then ascend to the head coaching role for the Wolves in 2005 where he has remained since. During the 1997 season, the Wolves won the Columbia Football Association and qualified for the NAIA national playoffs. In just a two season span the Wolves had an impressive five defensive backs receive All-Conference honors.
In 1999, Lorig took a coaching job at Idaho State, initially starting as a position coach before becoming the defensive coordinator. At Idaho State, Lorig would coach Jared Allen, who would become a Hall of Fame defensive end who played for the Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers.
Over the next 20 years, Lorig made multiple stops around the country. Among the most notable were Central Washington University, where he coached 26 All-GNAC players as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator; Arizona State, where he coached defensive backs and special teams and briefly coached Zane Gonzalez who would go on to win the award for the nation’s top kicker; Memphis, where he coached two-time AAC Special Teams Player of the Year and eventual Dallas Cowboys and Tennessee Titans running back Tony Pollard along with kicker Jake Elliott who would go on to win a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles; and Penn State, where he coached alongside James Franklin and eventual first round pick Jahan Dotson and second round pick KJ Hamler.
In 2022, he was hired on to the Oregon Ducks coaching staff as special teams coordinator and nickels coach after Dan Lanning arrived.
Lanning, who’s from the Midwest, would discuss the importance of having a high quality coach who was local to the area, saying, “His units have twice ranked No. 1 nationally in special teams efficiency and Joe is also connected with many of the high school coaches throughout the state of Oregon. He has an affinity for this part of the country and it’s just very exciting to be able to attract a coach of this caliber to our staff.”
Coaching special teams is often a bit of a thankless job. Most people don’t really think about special teams coordinators unless something goes wrong on that side of the ball. Special teams in general just seem very simple. They kick the ball, tackle the returner. Or, on the flip side, they receive the kick and block for the returner. However, high quality play on special teams can completely alter the momentum of a game. In a November interview with John Canzano, Lorig said, “We really believe here that there’s such fine margins when you’re playing USC or Penn State or whoever you’re playing, there’s such fine margins in the game that everybody’s gonna focus on offense and everybody’s gonna focus on defense obviously but a lot of people don’t put the time and energy and resources necessary into their special teams, it’s kind of a lost part of the game.” Take Lorig’s unit in just this playoff run alone as an example. During the opening round game against James Madison, Jayden Limar blocked a punt in the third quarter before returning it for a touchdown and putting the Ducks ahead 48-13. In the Orange Bowl versus Texas Tech, Lorig’s unit again came up big after they dialed up a fake punt that saw them confuse the Red Raiders post snap by having the left side of the formation move as if they were setting up a screen play. Instead, punter James Feguson-Reynolds rolled to his right and found Teitum Tuioti wide open to convert on fourth down and extend the drive. Plays like that are the kind that can completely demoralize the opposing team while putting the offense in a great position to score.
High quality special teams play can also give a team’s defense more field to defend. “If people really pay attention, it has a really really big impact on every game,” Lorig said. “One of the things we do is we track what we call ‘hidden yards’ in a game and I think people would be shocked and amazed at how often we win a game and we had eighty more ‘hidden yards’ or a hundred more ‘hidden yards.’” To explain the concept of ‘hidden yards’ in the simplest way, it’s essentially the field position gained on a kickoff or punt return. “It’s gonna impact the game one way or another. Either it’s going to change the game in the right way or the wrong way for your team.”
Next, Lorig and the Ducks will go on to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta where they’ll be tasked with beating the number one ranked Indiana Hoosiers, who gave Oregon their only loss of the season in Eugene by a score of 30-20. If they’re able to redeem themselves they’ll return to Miami to play in the national championship game for the first time since 2015 in an attempt to secure their first national title ever. Regardless of the results, fans can expect to see Western Oregon University alum Joe Lorig and his special teams unit playing a critical role for the remainder of Oregon’s run as they have all season long.
Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu
