Dan Lanning opens up on upcoming transition to Big Ten

Entering his third season as the head coach of the Oregon Ducks, Dan Lanning is faced with a new challenge, transitioning the team to the Big Ten.

Ahead of the move, Lanning opened up on that upcoming transition to the Big Ten on The Ryen Russillo podcast. There, he emphasized that it’s an opportunity he’s excited about it while breaking down the travel concerns that come with the move.

“It starts with our team,” Dan Lanning said. “There’s going to be some things that are different about the Big Ten. I have to do some studies on travel, what travel will look like, and how that might be different, but there isn’t as much travel as most people think. We travel a good amount in the league we were just in.”

The reality of the new Big Ten is that it spreads the entire continental United States from Los Angeles to New Jersey and Washington to Maryland. Those aren’t short flights for teams and will see teams traveling through multiple time zones. However, to Dan Lanning’s point, not every game is a cross country trip.

“So, we’re going to LA for an away game. That’s very similar to what we’ve done last year. So, that’s something that I need to be able to assess and look at differently,” Lanning said. “I think, at the end of the day, the Big Ten’s going to have to prepare for us and what we do different for that league.”

Dan Lanning also pointed out that moving to the Big Ten puts Oregon in one of college football’s premier conferences and that’s an opportunity that he finds incredibly exciting.

“But great football is great football. I’m glad to be in one of the two conferences in college football that are elite. I’m glad to be able to go and play some of the elite teams. You look at the national championship and that was two Big Ten teams that were squaring off,” Lanning said.

“So, I think the challenge in front of us is a lot of fun, and I don’t think anybody gets in this profession and says, ‘Give me the easy road.’ So, being in a conference that has a competitive nature, that has really good football, that plays a physical brand of football, that’s something I’m excited about.”

Dan Lanning reflects on getting into college coaching

Dan Lanning began coaching high school nearly the moment his playing career ended. By 2011, he was getting into college coaching as a GA at Pitt. That was an opportunity he recently reflected on.

“A guy had called me and said, ‘We might have something after signing day’ and the phone call never came. So I got in my car and drove to Pitt. Drove through the night. Threw on a suit right before I got to the facility and waited there in the lobby until I realized the coaching staff wasn’t there that day. They were somewhere else doing a clinic,” Lanning said.

“When you drive 13 hours, you’re gonna wait until you can meet with somebody. So I waited and met with coach [Keith] Patterson, the defensive coordinator there and now the head coach at Abilene Christian. He said, ‘We’ve got a job and it’s $800 a month.’ I don’t think I told him that my wife was pregnant and we had a one-year-old because I didn’t want them to not offer me a job. So that was kind of my foot in the door. Started there and I was able to take off from there, be around some really elite coaches and have some fun in that process.”