Former Pitt Assistant Turns Down Alabama Job
PITTSBURGH -- Nick Saban shocked the sports world when he announced that he would step down from his post as the head football coach at Alabama and for a moment, it seemed like a former Pitt Panthers assistant coach would be at the center of the ensuing search for a replacement.
But Oregon head coach Dan Lanning, who served as a graduate assistant under Todd Graham at Pitt during the 2011 season and was at one point the betting favorite to get the vacant Alabama job according to BetOnline.ag, released a one-minute video on his personal Twitter account saying that he would stay with the Ducks less than 24 hours after Saban's announcement.
Lanning was an assistant coach at Park Hill South High School, coordinating special teams and coaching wide receivers and defensive backs, when he decided to drive 13 hours to Pittsburgh, where he gave an impassioned pitch to Graham to give him a job. Graham obliged in and even brought Lanning with him to Arizona State when he left Pitt in an infamously shocking fashion after just one season in 2012.
He worked his way up from graduate assistant at Arizona State to a recruiting coordinator for the Sun Devils, then a defensive backs coach and co-recruiting coordinator at Sam Houston State.
In 2015 he took a graduate assistant position at Alabama, where his connection to the Crimson Tide is rooted, before moving on to take higher positions at Memphis, Georgia and then Oregon. He's led the Ducks to a 22-5 record, two bowl wins and back-to-back finishes in the top-15 of the final AP poll of his two seasons as head coach in Eugene.
Make sure you bookmark Inside the Panthers for the latest news, exclusive interviews, recruiting coverage, and more!
Former Pitt QB Transfers to South Carolina
Report: Three Position Coach Candidates Emerge for Pitt
Bears Fire Former Pitt Player from Assistant Coach Job
Pitt Players Call Out Own Desires
Pitt HC Jeff Capel Takes Blame After Ugly Loss
Pitt's Defense Gets Shredded Against Duke
- Follow Inside the Panthers on Twitter: @InsidePitt
