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From big-game hunting to toilet flushes on Twitter, the second week of December in 2021 won’t soon be forgotten
The coaching search thankfully came to an end Saturday afternoon with Oregon announcing the hiring of Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning. And I say thankfully, because any chance of this plane landing gracefully crashed and burned late Friday night with a loudly flushed toilet on Twitter.
More on that in a bit.
First: I’m not going to pretend to have a hard take on a guy whose name I learned two days ago, but Lanning has the credentials you’d need to take this sort of leap at 35-years-old.
He’s the defensive coordinator of the No. 2 team in the country.
The Bulldogs have the No. 1 scoring defense in the nation.
He’s worked at Alabama.
He’s a fierce recruiter.
He’s a two-time Broyles Award finalist as the country’s top assistant. He has, arguably, a better resume than Mario Cristobal did when the Ducks hired him four years ago.
“I’m excited to roll up my sleeves and get to work with our players in the pursuit of championships,” Lanning said in a release.
Again, those are the sort of resume pieces needed for a top-tier Power 5 program to give an opportunity to a first-time head coach. It’s a risk, certainly. Especially with whom it alienates.
Justin Wilcox, current Power 5 head coach and Oregon alum, wanted the job.
Chip Kelly, current Power 5 head coach and writer of Oregon lore, also wanted the job. And the Ducks are passing up those two commodities for a guy who was a high school assistant coach as recently as 2010.
But the truth is, we don’t know how any of this would have panned out. We can’t sit here and say an inspired Kelly with the backing of Phil Knight would have successfully turned back the clock. We don’t know Wilcox’s homecoming would have returned stability and that homely feeling to a program still in pursuit of championships. I do know that I’m happy to not make a living covering Urban Meyer’s latest reclamation project.
So points there, Oregon.
What we do know is this hiring does check key boxes.
The Ducks got an elite on-field brain. They got someone who can recruit the South, that will need to fill a staff with connections to cover bases in the West. And they got someone that’s going to hold this current group together.
Said Gabriel Sewell Sr., the father of Oregon All-American linebacker Noah Sewell:
“Considering Noah’s top two schools coming out of school were Oregon and Georgia, I think it’s a win.”
This hiring feels like a step forward. Even Kelly, whose four-year run at Oregon a decade ago will likely never be duplicated, should understand a program refusing to look back.
Something about tradition wearing white, right?
Ideally, this would have happened earlier in the week. Oregon has lost five commitments since Cristobal left for Miami and sophomore cornerback DJ James entered the transfer portal. Signing day is on Wednesday, a day Oregon fans have been taught the last four years is as important as any other.
Understandably, this has led to substantial interest. It’s why you’ve seen everyone from people on TV to the ladies that run the elevators at Autzen tweeting out their latest sources. The coaching carousel isn’t just making coaches money, and I feel like that pretext really allowed the Twitter Spaces thing to take off into something wonderful and terrible and fascinating all at the same time.
Around this time a year ago, Twitter introduced its latest project, called Spaces.
For people on the platform, you’ve probably seen those blue bubbles hanging out on top of your app. I’m as avid of a twitter user as there is, and I had never touched the feature. But throughout the week, increasing with each day, Oregon fans held their own conversations about the search in Spaces. For the first few days it was just a smattering for Oregon fans. Then a few media members popped in. Then former players. Then parents and even a few current players themselves, all moderated by a few fans running the forum. It was at times awkward, insightful and revealing.
It all climaxed Friday night, when Lanning’s younger brother, Jordan, joined. Between pumping up his brother and talking about how they enjoy slamming beers in the offseason, Jordan Lanning took questions. Including one from an Oregon fan, who, well, really had to flush his thoughts out to the near 1,500-people in the room.
And 24 hours later, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens was in the same space, explaining the hire to fans after logging in through his wife’s phone.
I asked someone at Oregon if that was preplanned or not.
“All him..How technology evolves is incredible, isn’t it?”
Mullens will speak in a more formal setting at Monday’s press conference and we’ll have more coverage throughout the week on who Lanning is as a person and coach.
Until then, I’m going to let Jordan from Twitter send us out on what has been one of the strangest weeks on the Oregon beat yet.
— Tyson Alger
