Dan Lanning, you audacious rascal.
When Auburn came calling, he said: “The grass is damn green in Eugene.”
Then it was Texas A&M, and he said: “I'm not going anywhere. There's zero chance I would be coaching somewhere else.”
Both times—even before he unequivocally shut down the rumors—I was holding my breath just a bit.
But I promised myself that I wouldn’t truly worry until the Georgia or Alabama jobs opened up.
And then Nick Saban retired out of thin air, and that news had everyone in Eugene worried.
Everyone but Dan Lanning.
When the coaching carousel winds up, everyone and their sister knows an “insider” that “knows” something—even the local Eugene news got in on the rumor mill.
Betraying all local trust, some on-air KVAL jabroni claimed (incorrectly) that Dan was already in Tuscaloosa.
The Man was actually just sitting in his Willamette Valley home watching The Bourne Identity with his son.
But that didn’t stop the air traffic controllers of college football twitter from locating a single plane flying between Eugene and Tuscaloosa.
Was that plane carrying Bama’s AD Greg Byrne (Sheldon High School’s second-most powerful alum)?
Nope. That plane had “NATO32” written on the tail and was just a military surveillance aircraft. Glad we could check that one off the list.
When high profile coaching searches pop up, I’m convinced that the Department of Homeland Security can just take the day off because college football fans are keeping their eyes on America’s skies for free.
But even if the flights were clear, that didn’t mean that Dan was still locked down with the Ducks. This is Alabama we’re talking about.
Well apparently Oregon is a better job than the best job, because Dan shot down the rumors wholeheartedly on Thursday morning, and he did it in style.
With the help of Oregon’s social team, Dan dropped a minute-long video with: 1) a clear affirmation that he’s staying in Eugene, and 2) immediately turning this moment into a perfect recruiting pitch.
Dan refuses to be caught behind the curve. He always takes the extra step.
When he turned down Auburn, he took a dig at Willie and Mario for jumping ship; when he turned down A&M, he mocked other coaches who don’t shoot down rumors sooner in order to leverage bigger contracts; and when he kicked Deion’s ass, he made sure ESPN was inside the pregame to hear him guarantee it.
Lanning didn’t have to do ANY of that, but somehow Rob Mullens plucked this upstart young gun—with his ill-fitting long sleeve shirts—and he has quickly become a beacon of charisma and swag who also seems to want to be the next Mike Bellotti.
“If you’re scared your coach is leaving, then come play for us.”
What a line. And it worked!
A few hours later he landed a former five star transfer wide receiver from Texas A&M, Evan Stewart.
Dan even has the University of Texas feeling insecure. The program with their own ESPN network is jealous and playing catchup with little-old-Oregon.
The Longhorns had to scramble to produce a half-baked imitation of Dan’s hype video to brag that Sark wasn’t taking the Bama job either.
“Hey! Look! We can be cool like Oregon, too!” - Texas, 24 hours later.
And just breaking this morning, Kalen DeBoer canceled his planned in-person interview with local Seattle radio station KJR…
I guess the stepping is on the other stone?
But even if it makes Softy sad, I don’t want Kalen to leave. Dan still needs to finally beat him.
However, if the Huskies want to fumble the bag with their best coach since Cheatin’ Don James, I won’t stand in their way.
No matter where the dust settles at the end of the day, we finally have our guy, and that feels dang good.
God bless the broken coaches that led us straight to Dan.
Go Ducks.
OTFM....On the fricken money!