Dan Lanning, Once College Football’s Rising Star, Is Set to Face His Unlikely Foil

The Ducks head coach has been on the doorstep of a national championship for three seasons, but now has Curt Cignetti’s upstart Hoosiers in his way.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning and Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti during a Peach Bowl news conference. / Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

ATLANTA — Dan Lanning is right there, knocking on the door to The Club again. Is this the year they let him in?

The Oregon football coach is only 39 years old—just getting started, really. But he was obviously ticketed for great things at a young age, which is why his first head coaching job was an elite one. He has delivered as the leader of the Ducks, compiling an audacious 48–7 record in four seasons and fielding three straight Top 10 teams. It seems certain that he will someday be holding up the College Football Playoff championship trophy as confetti falls on his shoulders.

But someone keeps slipping past him into The Club. 

In 2023, Lanning’s only two losses were to Kalen DeBoer and rival Washington; the Huskies went to the CFP title game, losing to Michigan, while Oregon finished No. 6 in the AP poll. Last year, undefeated with the No. 1 seed, the Ducks were blown out by Ohio State in the playoff quarterfinals—Ryan Day went on to claim the national title, while Oregon finished No. 3.

This season, the guy slipping in Lanning’s way at the door to The Club is Curt Cignetti. His Indiana Hoosiers gave Oregon its only loss of the season to date, in Eugene, Ore., in October. Now they meet again, here Friday night, in a Peach Bowl CFP semifinal. Winner plays for it all.

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It is an odd twist that Lanning is being usurped as the freshest, hottest coach in college football by a 64-year-old with a crewcut, who on Thursday reminisced about the 1972 Peach Bowl. Cignetti beat the bushes for decades as an assistant coach and then a program leader at lower levels. Now he’s making up for lost time. 

In the current iteration of the sport, Indiana breaks all rules and precedents. We’ll see if Oregon can reverse this wholly improbable power play by the Hoosiers.

Lanning has been in a hurry to succeed in coaching from the beginning. After his playing career as a linebacker at NAIA William Jewell College outside Kansas City, he took an assistant job at a nearby high school. With one young son and a second on the way, he decided to force the issue in becoming a college coach.

Lanning jumped in his Chevy Cobalt and drove 13 hours east, to Pittsburgh, overnight. He changed into a suit at a Love’s Gas Station and arrived at the Pitt football offices at 6 a.m., waiting for someone to open up the place so he could talk his way in.

The head coach of the Panthers was Todd Graham. His defensive coordinator was Keith Patterson. Lanning had attended a clinic Graham and his staff put on when they were at Tulsa, and struck up a relationship—a tenuous one—with Patterson. His long trek and subsequent cold call on Patterson led to a quality control job at Pitt paying $800 a month. 

He was in the profession. A few years later he landed a graduate assistant role at the coaching Mecca of Nick Saban’s Alabama program, reporting to defensive coordinator Kirby Smart. That eventually led to being Smart’s defensive coordinator at Georgia, where they won the 2021 national championship together.

And that was the springboard to Oregon, where the collision course with a national title feels inevitable. Yet Indiana stands as the latest impediment.

Las Vegas favors the Hoosiers in the Peach Bowl by 3.5 points. Playoff history favors the Ducks. In four out of five rematch games from the regular season, the team that lost the first time has won the second meeting. The revenge winners: Mississippi over Georgia and Alabama over Oklahoma this season; Ohio State over Oregon last year; and Georgia over Alabama in 2021–22. (Ole Miss over Tulane twice in 2025 is the exception.)

If losing is the greatest motivator, Oregon has the ammo. And Lanning has been known to empty the motivational clip with his team, even though he tried to talk that down Thursday.

“Motivation is overrated,” he said. “These players have got to go play the game. I’ve said that consistently. On the same note, I think it’s my job to make sure these guys are ready to go and give them everything I’ve got in that moment. But if you can’t get up for an opportunity to play Indiana, especially when they had the better half of us last time, then shame on us.”

If fresh fodder is needed, Indiana might have provided some Wednesday night—in what amounted to a race to Mercedes-Benz Stadium. 

The two teams flew into Atlanta from their respective home bases at almost exactly the same time. A handful of players and the offensive and defensive coordinators were to be taken directly to the stadium for an unusual, night-time media session. Previous interviews had been held via Zoom calls during the week, so this was the first in-person opportunity to speak with the teams.

The original plan called for Oregon to meet the media first, with Indiana 45 minutes later. But with both teams arriving at virtually the same time, the Peach Bowl said it would go with whichever team showed up first at the stadium—led by a police escort.

Indiana was perceived to be in the lead, so all signage was changed from Oregon to Indiana. Then it was changed back when it appeared that the Ducks would get there first. Finally, sirens could be heard at 8:46 p.m., with blue lights flashing ahead of black SUVs a minute later. Here came the Hoosiers through the doors.

“We did have a police escort, and we heard they had landed, I think, a minute before,” Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza said. “I thought it was side-by-side, I didn’t realize they had to wait. I apologize to them, I guess. That kind of sucks. But yeah, hopefully they have a great session.”

After a four-hour flight from the West Coast, sitting around cooling their heels for 45 minutes before speaking to the media and then finally getting to their hotel didn’t sit overly well with the Ducks. Especially when it seemed like Indiana cut in line to go first.

Is that a metaphor for Curt Cignetti slipping in front of Dan Lanning in the championship quest? We’ll see Friday night.

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