Dan Lanning has big goals, something you like and expect in a head football coach. Chris Vannini of The Athletic wrote that the Power 5's second-youngest head coach has four written in blue dry erase ink on his bathroom mirror at home:
1. Pac-12 champions/national champs
2. Top 5 recruiting class
3. 5 intentional conversations with my 3 kids each week
4. Help my people reach their goals
A guy who thinks like that naturally hires and attracts bright, young, driven, ambitious assistants with great futures, rising stars of the sport. Grinders like himself, with big goals of their own. Pellum/Campbell/Greatwood/Aliotti continuity isn't possible with this generation of Oregon coaches. He's going to have to constantly replace them.
An inherent and inescapable challenge, one he immediately faced last November, less than a month before Signing Day when offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham left to become head coach at Arizona State at 33. Within days 5-star quarterback Dante Moore decommitted. A committee of the remaining assistants would have to call plays for the bowl game.
Lanning had to find someone to match Dilly's innovation and energy, skills that elevated the Oregon offense to 9th in the country in scoring after what had been, prior to his arrival, three dismal years of predictability.
It took 11 days to announce the hiring of Will Stein of Louisville, Texas, Lake Travis High School and UTSA. While pundits, columnists, bloggers and pretenders speculated on all the usual suspects, Lanning handpicked a relative unknown, another guy who had outworked everyone, enduring closet-sized offices and grocery-bagger salaries to prove he knew football. Stein's new job at Oregon pays him $800,000 a year, down from the 1.2 million Dillingham got. Ten years to the top of the football world, but he's not done.
It will prove to be a great hire. In a year or two CDL will have to repeat the same process when Stein is nabbed as the new head coach at Louisville or some other program with a sagacious athletic director.
Hlothday of Addicted to Quack meticulously detailed Stein's skills as a problem solver:
By midway through the year UTSA had five different offensive tackles out with injury and were rotating guys out of position and playing a walk-on and a converted defensive lineman as starters. For much of the year I studied, UTSA’s offensive line grades on my tally sheet came out at over 30% error rates, which I’ve never seen before.
With that departure and significant o-line injuries already cropping up during the 2022 Spring practices, Stein flipped the offense entirely - during the first five games they were a 35/65 run-pass team. They were also heavily dependent on Harris scrambling, with about 27.5% of dropbacks ending in a sack, scramble, or throwaway, and more than 16% of yards from designed passing playcalls coming on scrambles or throws after breaking the pocket from pressure.
The lion’s share of total yardage during these first five games came on very quick passes like slants, hitches, and quick outs to the flat with basically no post-snap read and a virtually non-existent run game, because the o-line simply wasn’t reliable for anything else.
In Frank Harris, Stein had a 6-0, 205 left-handed quarterback with good mobility and athleticism but not an elite arm. He had a couple of good wide receivers, the jury-rigged offensive line, and their best running back was out for the year.
Stein and Harris collaborated to turn all those problems into one of the country's top offenses. By December Harris stood second in the nation with 4,453 total yards of offense and sixth with 40 total touchdowns. The noodle-armed left hander reached sixth nationally in passing yards (3,865), seventh in passer rating (167.37) and tied for ninth in passing touchdowns (31). His 71.1 completion percentage ranked third behind only Clay Millen (Colorado State) and Oregon's Bo Nix.
Despite all the adversity they finished 11-2, thumping North Texas 48-27 in the conference championship.
Stein's already proven his recruiting chops. In December he flipped 4-star Austin Novosad from Baylor, and in January he was instrumental in convincing starter Bo Nix to return for a 5th year. In the 2024 class he's secured commitments from two promising quarterbacks, three-star Luke Moga from Arizona and 4-star Michael Van Buren of Baltimore, Maryland.
What stands out immediately about the new OC is his intelligence. He earned a Bachelor's Degree by his junior season at Louisville, a UL MBA in 2014 while working as a graduate assistant.
He doesn't seem to let ego or the desire to put his stamp on things to get in the way of winning. This spring he said, "Let’s not overcomplicate this game. It’s always been about players. We have great players here, put them in really good positions to make plays. And then let our quarterback go have a lot of fun.”
At coaching clinics he can be as wonky and technical as any bright coach, but as a former walk-on who earned a scholarship, he understands the game is about making plays, taking shots downfield and trusting your players. That's a good balance.
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