Since becoming Oregon’s next head football coach, it’s become clear that Dan Lanning is every bit of energetic as he was made out to be.
Not only is Lanning tasked with leading the defense of his No. 2 ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the upcoming College Football Playoff, ( and quite possibly the national championship game ), but he’s also Oregon’s new CEO of football operations with responsibilities ranging from hiring a new staff, learning and securing his roster and recruiting incoming players to Eugene.
It takes energy to juggle all of those responsibilities and Lanning seems to have it in spades.
While flying cross country from Athens to Eugene on Sunday, Lanning spent the majority of his private flight texting the Ducks commitments to confirm their National Letters of Intent were still being signed and sent into the Hatfield Dowlin Complex first thing Tuesday morning.
“On my flight over on Sunday, I started texting these guys on the plane” explained Lanning.
“I hit up every one of the commitments as we were coming over. If I could have called them I would have. That doesn’t work in a plane ride, but the wifi was working so we started with text messages.
“I say this about this group, they were all extremely understanding. My first priority for everything when I got to Oregon was to sit down and try to get with some of our current players,…and speak to our current players. I’ll say this class was super understanding about that in a short period of time,…and knew we were going to be pressed for time, but they showed some faith and us being able to build a relationship moving forward.”
Lanning’s press briefing Thursday evening was done via zoom while sitting in his coaching office at the University of Georgia.
Burning the candle at both ends can easily describe Lanning’s workday. Evidence of that was his media zoom call began at 9:00 pm eastern time.
Lanning spent time discussing the seven new incoming recruits as well as his recruiting philosophy overall.
NEW OREGON HEAD FOOTBALL COACH DAN LANNING DISCUSSES THE DUCKS NATIONAL SIGNING DAY