“Lanning is building a powerhouse. If I had to buy stock in one coach in America, it would be Dan Lanning.” Joel Klatt said this while speaking about Dan Lanning in August last year. The 2024 season hadn’t started yet, but the hype? It was touching the roof. Oregon didn’t disappoint Joel Klatt, though; they finished with a 13-1 record after an undefeated regular season. Despite Lanning’s loss in the Rose Bowl game against Ohio State, his momentum and resources remain intact. Well, Dan Lanning has everything, including the backing of a prominent billionaire after a recent verdict.
What separates Oregon’s Lanning from several other coaches in FBS is that Oregon’s end goal isn’t a national title. It’s cultivating a winning mindset that will hopefully reap rewards. It was needed, too, after we saw Mario Cristobal faltering in big games despite winning the Pac-12 on multiple occasions. Crain and Company’s Jake Crain even pondered putting Dan Lanning over Kirby Smart in terms of footballing legacy.
“People will argue that. I understand that. But doesn’t it feel like Dan Lanning may have kind of replaced where Kirby Smart was under Nick Saban, as like that next guy up that we used to talk about”? Well, Dan Lanning is undoubtedly a force in college football now, but Smart’s 2 championship rings might disagree with the statement. Even then, the idea that Oregon’s head coach might be somewhere above Kirby Smart shows you the level of effort that he has put into his team and has churned out 3 back-to-back 10-win seasons. But now, with the Nike founder Phil Knight’s unlimited NIL money backing, the former Dawgs DC might be invincible, too.
Jake and his co-hosts, David and Blain, were talking about the richest NIL collectives in America, and Oregon’s came to be the deepest with their unlimited flow of money from the 87-year-old billionaire. “Says right now I’m seeing 26 ($26 million). But they said, with Phil Knight, it’s unlimited. It’s unlimited. There’s no cap. There’s like there’s not a real number out there.” David then reminded the hosts about Phil Knight’s dying wish to see his alma mater win, “I want to see a national championship for Oregon in football before I die.”
All of this makes things for Oregon somewhat easy, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be pressure. As the billionaire is 87 years old and he isn’t getting any younger, the natty needs to come sooner than Dan Lanning would want, too. Moreover, there would be added pressure as the ‘unlimited money’ tag hovered over the head coach’s head. It’s like the movie Prometheus, as the Crain and Company’s hosts pointed out, where a rich billionaire defies even death and lives for 300 years to see the creators of humans. The situation in Oregon is somewhat similar, and unlike in the movie Prometheus, the billionaire may not have the means to evade death.
Oregon’s QB situation gets a concerning update
Oregon’s NIL collective, Division Street, might have gotten all the backing from the billionaire Phil Knight. Still, no magic wand comes with money, and recruiting, transferring, and NIL offers can only offer you hope for better results. If sports have taught us anything, the recipe for success is not just money, but more than that. So, for Oregon, it will be their quarterback, Dante Moore, who seems untested in the intense Big 10 conference. This is something the host of Crain and Company also highlighted.
“Dillon Gabriel’s gone, but you know, I think Dante Moore is the guy that’s coming into Oregon now to be the quarterback, which we don’t know a lot about. We don’t know a lot. He goes in to play at USC. But still, he’s one of those guys that I kind of put in the category of not one of these young, like a freshman, that’s going to be playing.” Well, the concern might be right, since Dante Moore is no Dillon Gabriel.
I mean, we still underestimate how good Dillon Gabriel was, and there was a reason he was drafted ahead of Shedeur Sanders by the Browns. The QB had everything right with him down to the last minute detail; it was perfect. The guy had experience and notched up more than 3,857 passing yards along with 30 TDs, with 149 rushing yards. Sure, Dante Moore has the talent, but can he replicate Dillon Gabriel’s heroics?
The post Dan Lanning Hits $26M Jackpot as 87-YO Billionaire’s ‘Dying’ Oregon Dream Calls for Pressure appeared first on EssentiallySports.
