Nick Saban reveals Kirby Smart beat him in race to hire Dan Lanning

Alabama head coach Nick Saban revealed he wanted to hire Dan Lanning in college football’s 2018 offseason, but Georgia’s Kirby Smart beat him to the punch by just a couple of days.

Saban mentioned this during his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday as he was asked about his process of finding new assistants when members of his coaching staff are hired as college and NFL coordinators and head coaches seemingly every year

“I think one of the things that I learned from Bill Belichick was he always had an astonishing group of young guys that were in the building,” Saban said. “I mean, when I was Cleveland, we had Scott Pioli, we had like 3-4 guys that became head coaches. We had 3-4 other guys, Phil Savage, all became general managers, and these guys were like ‘go get the coffee’ guys when they were helping me as sort of my GAs. 

“And that’s what I’ve always tried to do is have a bunch of young people, evaluate them, see them go get other guys and know that you would hire them back because you know who they are. Now, one of the disadvantages of having all these guys going out and getting jobs everywhere is they hire the guys before I get a chance to – like Dan Lanning. 

“Dan Lanning was here as a GA (in 2015). He went to Memphis or someplace, got a job. I was ready to hire him, and two days before I was going to hire him, Kirby hired him. So that kind of messes up your game plan a little bit when you’ve got all these guys out there because they kind of know who the guys that you’ve had in the organization are that are the good ones, and they end up snatching them up before you get a chance to.”

Lanning was hired as the Georgia outside linebackers coach in January of 2018. That was the same offseason that Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt was named the head coach at Tennessee and the Tide promoted Tosh Lupoi to defensive coordinator and brought in Pete Golding to coach its inside linebackers. UA also added defensive line coach Craig Kuligowski and defensive backs coach Karl Scott to its defensive staff that season.

Saban did not say what position Lanning would have filled had he hired him before Smart. But Lanning would spend four seasons in Athens, Ga., earning a promotion to defensive coordinator in 2019, and helping the Bulldogs win the 2021 national championship. He landed his first-ever head coaching position the following year, taking over at Oregon.

Saban did, however, go on to explain how he keeps up with the top assistants for future openings in his program while also revealing the challenges that come with that in his 17th season.

“I try to keep a file on, OK, here’s the best coordinators, here’s the best receiver coaches, here’s the best DB guys,” Saban said. “And it’s hard to do because the longer you’re a head coach, the more displaced you get from who are the best assistants. 

“So you have to kind of depend on other people and ask a lot of questions and do a lot of research on who actually are these best guys? And sometimes you look at statistics and say, ‘OK, they led the nation in defense. These guys are getting 500 yards a game on offense. Let me check this guy out.’

“So it takes a lot of research to really find out because you want somebody who is knowledgeable, you want somebody who’s a good communicator and a good teacher. But you also want somebody that’s a good fit with the people that you already have in the organization, and that’s the hardest thing to figure out when you fire people you don’t know.”

Not a member, Alabama fans? Join BOL today!

Have you subscribed to BamaOnLine.com yet? You can sign up for ONE MONTH of premium access to our Alabama coverage for just $1! Be able to read all of BOL’s premium articles and nuggets covering Alabama sports and recruiting and also join thousands of other Crimson Tide fans around the globe on the BOL Round Table message board! CLICK HERE!