Dan Lanning discusses balancing act between Georgia and Oregon

MIAMI, Fla. — Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning has been balancing several different responsibilities over the last few weeks.

The Broyles Award finalist was hired as the next head coach at Oregon on Saturday, December 11, leaving him to scramble and piece together the Ducks’ signing class before the start of Early Signing Period four days later. All the while, he’s been a part of preparing the Bulldogs’ defense for a Playoff matchup with Michigan.

That’s forced him to work longer days than usual, but it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make for the players that helped put him in this position.

“I went out one time initially right after getting hired, and really excited about what we’re putting together there,” Lanning said on Monday ahead of the Capital One Orange Bowl. “My focus, the good thing, again, West Coast being three hours behind us has given us the opportunity to be able to really focus on Georgia early on during the day, and then later on at night, able to get a lot of things accomplished there with our team in Oregon and our staff as we’re piecing that together.”

“You know, I don’t clock in and clock out. We work until the work is done,” he added. “Sometimes that’s later than other nights. We’ve had a couple late nights, but no lack of energy or ability to roll here. I’m excited about the opportunity obviously out there, tremendous opportunity, but our players and coaches here have done a great job of affording me that opportunity, so I’m not going to do a disservice to our guys by not finishing this the right way and the effort that I’ve put in to what we’ve done here.”

With that being the case, Lanning will continue to call plays for Georgia’s defense, as he has done all season long. Kirby Smart named Glenn Schumann and Will Muschamp as co-defensive coordinators, but the responsibilities will remain the same all around.

“Our approach will be very similar to what it’s been all season. Nothing is really going to change from the way we operate,” Lanning said. “Luckily with bowl prep there is a lot more time. There is a lot of time to be able to get ready, and I think a lot of times people make the mistake of trying to do too much in a shortened window. We’ll operate very similar to the way we’ve operated all season, I’ll still be making the calls, but every single one of our defensive coaches have been extremely involved throughout the week, throughout our preparation, and this has been a team effort. It’s been a team effort all season. That doesn’t change for just this one game, whether it be Coach Smart’s involvement, Coach Schumann, Coach Scott, Coach Addae, Coach Muschamp, there’s a lot of hats and there’s a brain trust that kind of goes into how we operate, and our players are involved in that. So everything is going to be operating like it has all season.”

No. 3 Georgia and No. 2 Michigan kickoff the Capital One Orange Bowl Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET for the College Football Playoff New Year’s Eve nightcap from Miami Gardens, Fla. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will be on the call for ESPN. The Bulldogs are currently a 7.5-point favorite according to Vegas Insider.

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