Week 7 Overreactions: Dan Lanning is a Top 5 head coach, Texas is the toast of the SEC, more

College football really is the best, right? After the doozy’iest weekend of the 2024 season, Week 7 delivered another show-stopping slate of games with multiple OT thrillers and Ohio State-Oregon going down to the wire. So here’s the latest slate of overreactions. 

The Week 7 overreactions:

Dan Lanning cements himself as a Top 5 head coach 

Over the summer, I released my Top 25 head coach rankings and received some flack for ranking Oregon head coach Dan Lanning just outside the Top 10. 

Here’s a snippet of what I wrote re: Dan Lanning at No. 11. 

“It’s funny — you could make the case this ranking is too high for Dan Lanning or too low.

He’s only been a head coach for two seasons, but in that time he’s won 22 games, flirted with a pair of Pac-12 Championships and recruited at the best rate in school history. Lanning has also assembled one of the top staffs in the country, and he seamlessly replaced offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham with Will Stein last offseason — a noted strong quality for a first-time head coach.”

Fast forward to today, and Lanning just beat Ryan Day, who I had at No. 4, and has Oregon’s program positioned in a much better spot than Mike Norvell at Florida State, Lincoln Riley at USC or Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss (all of whom were in the Top 10).  

If I were hiring a coach today, I’d pick Lanning over LSU’s Brian Kelly or Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, too.

Not all proof of concepts are created equally. Lanning had already proven he was a rising star, but Saturday night in Eugene was his crowning moment. The credibility for his process.

The 32-31 upset over Ohio State — one which featured Lanning’s patented hyper-aggressive coaching style that both backfired and worked simultaneously — was an affirmation in how Lanning has built his program. 

Attack. Attack. Attack. Relentlessly — on and off the field.

Mario Cristobal left Lanning the bones of a strong foundation, but by upgrading Oregon’s recruiting (No. 7 class in 2023, No. 3 class in 2024) and balancing the rest of the roster through the transfer portal, Lanning has turned the Ducks’ house into a mansion. 

All that talent — both developed and bought and paid for (thank you, Phil Knight!) — was on display against Ohio State. 

Transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel was throwing touchdowns to transfer wideouts Evan Stewart and Tez Johnson. 

No Jordan Burch? No problem, that’s why Lanning brought in Derrick Harmon (a key forced fumble) from Michigan State and Jamaree Caldwell (one tackle for loss) from Houston. 

The lone player to record a sack by either team Saturday night? The Ducks’ 4-star sophomore Matayo Uiagalelei, who added three hurries, too. 

It all came together to give Lanning his first signature moment as Oregon’s head coach, and it’s a credit to how he’s assembled all that talent in Eugene.  

The Ducks have a championship-level roster because their head coach — unlike the ones at FSU, Ole Miss and elsewhere — has perfectly balanced the art of recruiting the very best players out of high school while using a NIL war-chest to grab the best players out of the portal. 

Oregon might be ‘new money’ in a sport dominated by historic bluebloods, but maybe not anymore? There’s a reason why Lanning can flash a huge grin while puffing a cigar after a monster National Signing Day. 

He’s got the goods, so smoke’em if you got’em.

Lanning just took down the Big Ten heavyweights in Year 1 in the league, and that should scare the hell out of the rest of the conference — and the nation — for the foreseeable future.

Texas is the toast of the SEC

The Longhorns bullied their former Big 12 rival by 31 points Saturday, and Steve Sarkisian’s team played its B- game. Spooky stuff before we’ve even reached Halloween.

Now, part of that was due to Oklahoma’s total tire-fire offense (last in the SEC now in pretty much everything and I’m not sure this OU offense could’ve scored a touchdown with eight quarters on the clock), but it also speaks to how scary a team the Longhorns could be the rest of the season.

Sarkisian’s team is dominating opponents and they haven’t even hit their ceiling yet. Quinn Ewers looked a tad rusty, the tailbacks have some ball-security issues, and the defense has benefitted from playing two of the worst passing offenses (Michigan and OU) in all of college football. 

And yet, it’s clear that Texas is the class of the SEC right now —newcomer be damned. The Longhorns have two quality QBs, the best offensive line in the country, playmakers galore and freaks on defense like Anthony Hill Jr. and Colin Simmons that now lead the nation in yards per play allowed at just 3.7. 

Georgia isn’t quite Georgia (although we should find out a lot more about the Bulldogs next weekend when they play at Texas). 

Alabama is clearly vulnerable. Tennessee’s offense is broken, and LSU is a very flawed football team. 

Missouri proved fraudulent, Ole Miss wasted a generational roster before Halloween, and while very intriguing, Texas A&M’s staying power remains unknown. 

Add it all up and there’s two different tiers in the SEC right now: Texas, and then everyone else. 

North Carolina, Maryland, UCF and Utah could all have new head coaches in 2025

Too reckless? 

Probably.

But the aforementioned four teams are led by four veteran coaches who have been at their schools a while, and all four programs are trending in the wrong direction.

This is almost certainly Mack Brown’s final season at North Carolina, but the 73-year-old head coach saw his team deliver its latest lowlight Saturday — tying the game against Georgia Tech with under 45 seconds remaining only to allow a 68-yard touchdown run to end the game in the final 20 seconds. UNC has now lost four straight, and are a coin-flip to even make a bowl game this season. Put a fork in her, Johnny, she’s done.

As for Maryland (Mike Locksley) and UCF (Gus Malzahn), both programs are unlikely to make a coaching change come season’s end, but perhaps they should consider it?

The Terps got blasted 37-10 at home versus Northwestern (the worst offense in the Big Ten this season). They’re now 0-3 in the Big Ten — with games against USC, Oregon, Iowa and Penn State still on the schedule. Locksley won eight-games in back-to-back seasons, but he mostly feasted on the dregs of the Big Ten — and now he’s losing to first year coaches at Michigan State and Indiana. Maryland shouldn’t expect to compete for conference championships but the Terps are positioned to be better than the dregs of the league, too.

UCF looks in even worse shape, though, as Knights were supposed to be a darkhorse contender for the Big 12 this season. Instead, Malzahn’s team can score two touchdowns at home against Cincy. This is a program that made major NIL investments this offseason, bringing in Arkansas transfer quarterback KJ Jefferson and a bunch of defensive transfers from Power Conference programs. Well, Jefferson has been a disaster and was benched after five games, Malzahn turned to true freshman EJ Colson, who received all of 13 snaps before he was sent packing in favor of Miami transfer Jacrurri Brown. 

The Knights have lost three straight games, and are just 4-8 against Big 12 teams since joining gate league. Malzahn’s offense has scored just 47 points combined the last three weeks. This is not what UCF envisioned (or signed up for) when it made the splashy hire to replace Josh Heupel with the Gus Bus. Right now it looks like a bus that is running on fumes. 

Finally, Kyle Whittingham has totally botched Utah’s quarterback room, which has resulted in a pair of frustrating seasons the last two years. The yo-yo’ing of Cam Rising’s availability wore thin *last season* and the fact it’s continued throughout 2024 has only made the situation look worse. After starting freshman Issac Wilson the last three games Rising actually did return to action Friday night.  

But battling both a hand laceration and an ankle injury, the sixth-year senior was a shell of himself, throwing three awful picks as Utah was upset by Arizona State. 

Utah is still a quality program, but spending over two seasons (Rising tore his ACL in the 2021 Rose Bowl!) without a quality insurance plan at quarterback has cost the team a chance to seriously contend for the Pac-12 in 2023, and now fall from preseason favorite to 1-2 in the Big 12. Before the season, Whittingham re-named Morgan Scalley as Utah’s head coach-in-waiting, and I wonder if a change could be coming as soon as next fall.