When Dan Lanning landed in Eugene in early December 2021, the excitement and awe were visible on his face. When he entered the football operations center Hatfield-Dowlin Complex for the first time with his wife Sauphia and his three sons next to him, it finally hit him that his dream had come true. At the age of 35, Lanning became one of the youngest head football coaches in Oregon history.
As Lanning addressed his team for the first time, he said, “This feels like Christmas day to me. I feel like the luckiest man on Earth.”
Nearly 11 years ago, his path to Oregon launched. In January of 2011, Lanning drove 13 hours from Liberty, Missouri, to the University of Pittsburgh football offices — uninvited and unannounced — looking for a job.
He was 24 at the time, a recent graduate from William Jewell College, where he was a linebacker at the NAIA school. After graduation, he became an assistant coach at Park Hill South High School in Missouri.
The Park Hill South coaching staff would attend clinics at Tulsa, where Todd Graham, the head coach at the University of Hawaii, coached at the time. From there, he built connections with Graham and his defensive coordinator, Keith Patterson. Lanning started to make his way into the college coaching world by sending emails looking for entry-level positions.
Patterson was the only one to respond.
A little while later, Graham, Patterson and the rest of the Tulsa staff moved to Pittsburgh; Lanning later followed them.
“I’m going to regret this forever if I don’t do it,” Lanning told Sports Illustrated.
When he arrived in Pittsburgh in the early morning, there was a slight problem. The parking lot at the football offices was empty, and it stayed like that for a few hours, which is odd for a Division I program.
Come to find out, all of the coaches were attending a clinic out of town. When a staff member finally showed up, Lanning waited for him to unlock the door and followed him inside.
Once he was inside, he asked the receptionist for Patterson’s phone number, and she refused. He eventually found someone to give him the number, and he called to explain why he was there. Patterson told him the entire staff would be there the next day, so Lanning stayed in a hotel room and waited.
Graham offered him a quality control job paying $800 a month, and Lanning was excited that he finally got his foot in the door.
When the Pittsburgh staff left for Arizona State the following year, Lanning went with them. In his second season at Arizona State, he was promoted to on-campus recruiting coordinator, and his career path was starting to set.
In 2014, Lanning left Arizona State and headed to Sam Houston State, a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) program, to be a recruiting coordinator and defensive back coach. After spending a year in Huntsville, he made another monumental move — returning to a graduate assistant position, but this time at the University of Alabama.
That’s where he met Kirby Smart, the former Crimson Tide defensive coordinator and current Georgia head coach.
“Every day was a competition,” Lanning said in an interview with the Oregonian. “You’re not just there to win games, but you’re competing against other GAs for a job. There was no job too small or big, and I think Coach Smart recognized that. He recognized hard work.”
Smart respected Lanning for his dedication.
“He was really consistent in his effort,” Smart said of Lanning. “He tried to go above and beyond. It’s always good when you give someone a job and they do it to the fullest extent.”
Lanning went on to be a part of Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s staff during the 2015 season when the Crimson Tide won the National Championship. That opportunity opened many doors for him.
Once the season ended, he made his way to Memphis, Tennessee, where he once again became a recruiting coordinator, but added the title of inside linebacker coach. Two seasons later, Smart hired him back onto his staff when he got the head coaching job at the University of Georgia.
In 2019, Lanning got promoted to defensive coordinator after Mel Tucker left to become the head coach at the University of Colorado. Tucker tried to take Lanning with him but he decided to stay to embark on his own mission — building an elite defense. One that would go on to lead the Bulldogs to a national championship in 2022.
When he left Georgia for Oregon, it was because his dream finally came true — a head coaching position was offered to him.
“Oregon is a premier brand,” Lanning said in an interview with SportsCenter. “Oregon’s a team that it doesn’t matter what spot in the nation you’re at. You recognize it. And for me, I never wanted to leave Georgia for anything less than a job that I thought was an elite one. And this is that.”
He credits his path to success to his former players and everything he’s learned from Smart; not just the Xs and Os, but how to run an elite program. Despite not coaching an official football game with the Ducks yet, he’s made an immediate impact. Lanning and his staff scrapped together a top-20 recruiting class for 2022 after former Ducks head coach Mario Cristobal left following the season. They’ve used that prowess to assemble a top-15 class for 2023 that continues to add highly-touted recruits.
“He had a great opportunity, he did a great job and the opportunities he’s taken, he’s taken advantage of those,” Smart said. “But everywhere he’s been, he’s got a reputation for being a great leader and being tremendously enthusiastic and I think that helps him be the leader and kind of person he is. I know he’ll have success at Oregon.”
