'Certainly been in contact': Oregon football's Dan Lanning on ASU's Kenny Dillingham
The careers of Oregon football coach Dan Lanning and Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham have intersected often over the years – much longer than the time last year when the two partnered in Eugene as head coach and offensive coordinator.
Both Lanning and Dillingham got their starts coaching at the high school level, with Lanning serving as an assistant at Park Hill South in Missouri in 2008 and Dillingham at Chaparral in Arizona in 2007. The two nearly overlapped in Tempe, with Dillingham getting his first college break at Arizona State as an offensive assistant in 2014-15 and Lanning serving as a graduate assistant and on-campus recruiting coordinator for the Sun Devils in 2012-13.
The two would finally be on the same staff at Memphis in 2016-17, when Lanning served as the inside linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator and Dillingham served as a grad assistant and then as the quarterbacks coach in 2017. When Lanning departed in 2018 for Georgia, Dillingham was promoted to offensive coordinator at Memphis.
Lanning reminisced Monday about those early experiences scheming and challenging Dillingham during coaches meetings at his weekly press conference before his Ducks play Dillingham’s Sun Devils on Saturday.
“Yeah, I mean, just those challenges were always fun for us,” Lanning said. “Whether it’s, ‘Hey, how would you attack this, or what takes away this?’ You know, we were able to bounce a lot of ideas off each other early on. I think that’s carried on to some success in his career and certainly some success in mine.”
This week Lanning and Dillingham will challenge each other once again, though with much higher stakes than when they were assistants in Memphis.
Though the Sun Devils have struggled with injuries, Lanning hasn’t been surprised at the success and improvement Dillingham has found throughout the season.
The two still talk regularly, though that will likely change this week.
“He’s doing exactly what I anticipated him to be able to do: bring an energy to a program, thinking of ways to win and innovative ways,” Lanning said. “I’m seeing a lot of those same traits that I expected to see from him, and we have certainly been in contact throughout the season. This week we’ll probably talk a little bit less.”
Bo Nix and Kenny Dillingham go way back
Both Lanning and Dillingham mentioned this week that the latter was hugely responsible for Oregon Heisman contender and starting quarterback Bo Nix’s arrival in Eugene – and his resurgence as an elite collegiate quarterback.
“Kenny was a huge part of that,” Lanning said of Nix’s development and confidence. “Obviously they had a relationship before he got here and that certainly paid dividends for us in getting Bo to be a part of our program. Bo is self-driven. Bo is his own harshest critic. He makes the coaches around him better and he creates that with himself. He’s a guy that’s critiquing himself and what he wants to be able to and how he can get better every single day, that’s really what makes Bo special.”
Though Dillingham brought out the best of Nix last year – reunited after the pair worked together during Nix’s freshman season at Auburn in 2019 – he’s set to surpass all of those numbers in his second season.
Nix’s 77.7% completion percentage is six points higher than last season, he’s already thrown for the same amount of touchdowns through 10 games, 29, that he threw a year ago in 13, and he has just two interceptions and 3,135 yards.
The fifth-year starter acknowledged Dillingham and the confidence he inspired in him last season as a big reason why he’s taken such a big step this year.
“That was huge,” Nix said. “It allowed me to play free and how we’ve operated this year. It’s helped us a lot this year getting into the right plays. Our system this year is as good as I’ve ever been a part of. Coach (Will) Stein does a good job of putting us in positions with great answers.”
Still, come Saturday against a coach he is very familiar with, Nix is focused on one thing.
“He’s done a great job in my development and working with him for two years, but at the same time it’s just another game,” Nix said. “Now he’s the opponent and he’s thinking the same thing about us. It is cool to play against him and it’s cool to play against another coach that you’ve worked with for so long, but I just think it's another opportunity for us to go out there and play a complete game.”
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon football's Dan Lanning talks facing Kenny Dillingham, ASU
