Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning could well be NFL bound in the near future if a new report ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler is any indication. Lanning, 38, has the Ducks at 10-0, ranked atop the College Football Playoff rankings, and on track to perhaps win their first national championship in program history.
But Fowler reports that the sharks are circling, namely those at the professional level.
“The once-popular trend of plucking college head coaches for NFL jobs has slowed in recent years. All but one of the 32 sitting head coaches (Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh) came directly from an NFL job,” Fowler states. “Recent NFL failures of Urban Meyer and Matt Rhule haven’t helped the collegiate pipeline. But a league exec I trust brought up an interesting name to me this week: Oregon’s Dan Lanning. ‘He’s got some Dan Campbell to him,’ the exec said.”
What exactly that means is anyone’s guess. Lanning can be a fiery character, but he’s not often associated with the blue-collar grittiness that Campbell, a former NFL tight end, is often tied to.
However, Lanning is not a new name on the scene. He’s been considered one of the top coaching prospects in the country for several years now. The Missouri native has shot through the coaching ranks since working as a grad assistant for Nick Saban at Alabama in 2015. In 2018, Kirby Smart hired him as the outside linebackers coach at Georgia. And one year later he was promoted to defensive coordinator.
Oregon hired Lanning when Mario Cristobal left for Miami prior to the 2022 season and the rest is history. Through almost three full seasons with the Ducks, Lanning is 32-5 and has become renowned for his clever exploitations of college football rulebook.
Leave a Reply