Just In: Oregon’s Dan Lanning is just one of many branches on Nick Saban’s coaching tree
Not only did Dan Lanning work for Nick Saban at Alabama but he also worked for Coach’s former assistant Kirby Smart at Georgia. Saban’s coaching roots run deep.
Nick Saban is the greatest college football coach of all time, there is no denying it. However, even since he has stepped back from the sideline, his reach across college football is as apparent as ever.
Saban’s former assistants Kirby Smart and Steve Sarkisian have made names of their own over the past few years as the head coaches of the Georgia Bulldogs and Texas Longhorns – who played each other in the SEC Championship game in the Horns’ first season as a part of the conference.
However, one of Saban’s former Graduate Assistants is making a name for himself as well… None other than Oregon’s Dan Lanning.
Lanning took over the Duck football program in 2022 and has built an empire, a blue blood program, and the No. 1 team in the nation. Nine years ago though, he was just a GA for the Alabama Crimson Tide and took notes from legendary head coach Nick Saban.
The Ducks’ head coach had already had GA jobs at Pittsburgh and Arizona State before he found himself a part of the Crimson Tide program in 2015. That year, the Tide won the National Championship and Lanning got his first ring.
Three years later, Lanning found himself on the sideline of a different SEC program: the Georgia Bulldogs. Smart brought Lanning on in 2018 as the outside linebackers coach and promoted him to the defensive coordinator just a year later.
Lanning stayed at Georgia until he was offered the Oregon head coaching job in 2022. Thankfully, Oregon’s mastermind of a head coach leaped at the opportunity to lead the Ducks.
Lanning and the No. 1 Ducks were scheduled to take on the No. 3 Penn State Nittany Lions in the Big Ten Championship game at 4 p.m. PT. Just a few hours earlier, the No. 2 Longhorns and the No. 5 Bulldogs were scheduled to kick off the SEC title game at noon PT.
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