Is Dan Lanning being underrated as a head coach going into 2024?
Earlier this week, The Athletic came out with their annual head coaching rankings for college football, ordering who they believe are the best 25 guys in the nation going into the new season. The rankings were released by well-respected journalists Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman.
Surely, Dan Lanning, the rising coaching star who was considered one of the top names to take over for Nick Saban at Alabama this past year, would be ranked prominently, right? He’s 22-5 in his two years leading the Oregon Ducks, with a pair of top-10 recruiting classes and a handful of dominant wins in his short career as a head coach.
That guy should definitely be included. Maybe not at the top of the list, but definitely somewhere in there alongside the James Franklin’s (15th), Josh Heupel’s (17th), and Jonathan Smith’s (22nd).
Mandel had Lanning ranked as the No. 25 head coach in the nation. Feldman didn’t have Lanning ranked and didn’t even include him in the honorable mentions.
Is that ranking — or non-ranking — too low? Or are Oregon fans simply too enamored by the charm of Lanning, overrating the level of coaching that he brings to the table?
That’s something that Jonathan Stewart and Zachary Neel discussed this past week on the Sco-ing Long Podcast.
“It has to be time,” Stewart said, noting that the sample size for Lanning is still much smaller than the others on the list. “Because if we’re actually talking about him being a good coach and what he’s been able to bring to the University of Oregon and the national spotlight and the pressure that comes with that, I mean let’s be honest…”
The Ducks will see a lot more of that national spotlight and feel more of that pressure this coming year when they join the Big Ten. At the moment, Oregon is ranked as one of the top teams in the nation going into the spring season, and there is an expectation that they should be one of the 12 teams to make the newly expanded College Football Playoff. A lot of those expectations are due in part to the status and quality of coaching that Lanning brings to the table.
“Oregon going to the Big Ten is great for the Big Ten, from how I see it,” Stewart said. “The only thing you were going to be able to talk about was Ohio State, and now Oregon spices things up from out of the gate, and it’s because of Dan Lanning.”
While Duck fans may look at the ranking and claim that Lanning is underrated, it’s not hard to see the reasoning from some who hold onto the fact that Lanning is still relatively unproven in big games thus far. With just two seasons as a head coach under his belt, Lanning has no conference championship wins, and a 7-5 record against Top-25 teams.
“It feels like when talking about Lanning, the ceiling is so high, but it’s hard to argue against the fact that there is such a small sample size, and the on-field product has not been perfect so far,” Neel said. “He’s been great, and the recruiting is at a high level, but he does have no conference championships in his two years, and he’s 0-3 against the best team he’s played.”
Of course, one or two signature wins could be exactly what Lanning needs to get the recognition that Oregon fans feel he deserves.
“It feels like we could be a year away, a signature win, a conference championship away from Lanning being in that Top 10,” Neel said. “I think his experience is the only thing holding him back.”
Whether or not you agree or disagree with the rankings likely depends on your affinity for Lanning and the Oregon Ducks. Even if he isn’t thought of as one of the best coaches in the sport, it feels like Ducks fans would be hard-pressed to trade him for any other headman in the sport.
“My non-biased opinion is that this is crazy talk, and Dan Lanning in 2 years has been doing great work,” Stewart said. “Rankings are just rankings at the end of the day, and what matters winning games, and Oregon is primed and ready to do that next year.”
