RICHMOND, Mo. — We all do dumb stuff in high school. What Dan Lanning wrote in Ashley Simmons’ high school yearbook 20 years ago wasn’t dumb, but it did reek a bit of teen spirit. You know, that time in your life when anything is possible and you want the world to know it.
“Remember me,“ the Oregon football coach wrote in the Richmond High School 2004 yearbook, “One of these days I’m going to be famous.”
What do they say, it ain’t bragging if you can back it up? Lanning has done just that in the subsequent 20 years, becoming one of the fastest-rising big-time college football coaches in America. But even if he hadn’t won a national championship as a Georgia assistant or turned that into winning 22 games across his first two seasons at Oregon, Lanning had already promised this moment himself.
From the time he plunked down his credit card at the aptly named Hometown Pizza earlier this month in Richmond, Missouri, Lanning was the life of the party. That’s because 20 years ago, upon graduation from the high school in this small Missouri town of 5,500, he told his classmates he would organize the reunions.
This is the third or fourth get together since ’04. No one is really sure. Squint and not much has changed except the yellowing of some of those yearbook pages.
“I’m class president,” Lanning told CBS Sports. “I don’t know if I thought of it this far ahead.”
Of course he did. He had to. We all do in those teenage years. While the 38-year-old is quickly becoming a heavy hitter coach on the national scene, he is still “Danny” or “Daniel” to some here — the former Spartans tight end/linebacker who keeps the football pants he played in from the state semifinal loss his senior year.
“Lost to Harrisonville in the semifinal,” Lanning said. “I still have blue streaks on my pants from that game. [Harrisonville’s colors] I still have them saved.”
Lanning took a moment that day to chat with CBS Sports about life and the upcoming season. He had just come off vacation with his wife and three sons. It was a brief but intimate look-in on a guy who is quickly becoming a celebrity coach, one of the faces of a brand. A Chosen One of sorts, at least by a certain high-profile shoe manufacturer.
How can he not be in guiding Nike founder Phil Knight’s franchise back to prominence? In their first year as a member of the Big Ten, the Ducks are edging toward being a consensus top-five pick nationally. They will battle conference-favorite Ohio State (at least) in pursuit of a Big Ten title.
In the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff format, it would be a surprise if Oregon isn’t in the field.
“I’d say it’s an expectation,” Lanning said. “I don’t know any of it means anything until we accomplish what we want to accomplish. There is one overarching goal. I’m not interested in coming in second place.”
This is the famous coach who rallied his team prior to last year’s Colorado game by shouting, “They’re playing for clicks. We’re playing for wins.” Deion Sanders’ Buffaloes were never the same.
When asked in January about Oregon adjusting to Big Ten life, Lanning said, “The Big Ten’s going to have to adjust for us.”
“I probably shouldn’t have said that,” Lanning. “But in reality, I don’t think we have to change for who we’re about to play. I don’t think we’re coming in as the weak link.”
Not with one of the best quarterback rooms in the country featuring Oklahoma transfer Dillon Gabriel and UCLA transfer Dante Moore. Gabriel, on his third school in his sixth season of college football, has an outside shot at becoming the FBS career passing leader. Pro Football Focus has already named Oregon the No. 1 wide receiver group with Tez Johnson and Evan Stewart in the starring roles.
Lanning is in the conversation along with Lane Kiffin and Deion Sanders for transfer portal kings of the offseason. The 2024 high school recruiting class was behind only Alabama and Georgia, according to 247Sports. Lanning has stockpiled 11 defensive line possibilities a season after losing four of the top five contributors. Oregon recently secured a commitment from Dakorien Moore, a five-star wide receiver and No. 5 overall 2025 prospect who picked the Ducks over Texas and Ohio State.
Even in these laidback surroundings, Lanning knows that he can’t directly comment on a prospect who hasn’t signed yet.
“We aren’t the highest bidder [on Moore],” said a source within the program, “but I think we won a lot of people around his circle that matter enough.”
Lanning is determined not to let his fourth-down decisions against Washington last season get him down. Three times in that game he went for it on fourth down. Three times the Ducks came up short. The resulting 36-33 loss at Husky Stadium combined with a 34-31 loss in the Pac-12 Championship Game was the difference in the season.
We were trying to be charitable saying those fourth-down gambles don’t define Lanning.
“Well, it does. We didn’t win,” he countered. “Until we win, it will forever be there and that’s OK. I don’t answer to anybody but our team. I’m trying to win games for our team.”
Those future wins will come in a new conference. Oregon and Washington essentially assured the end of the Pac-12 when they rejected an underwhelming streaming media rights deal from Apple on Aug. 4, 2023. With the loss of a conference, that might have been peak realignment.
Because of the latest round of consolidation, Oregon will now travel more than 12,000 total air miles next season to play football games, sixth-most of all teams changing conferences this time around. Or, if you wish, the equivalent of 50% of the way around the globe.
“There was a moment of unclarity where you felt like you’re sitting at a table and everybody has a gun pointed at each other underneath the table,” Lanning said. “It’s great now to be in a place of clarity. There are two conferences you want to be a part of — the Big Ten and the SEC.”
It also meant that Lanning, who will be coaching in his third conference since 2021, wasn’t changing his approach.
“Winning football is winning football,” he said. “You have to have big guys inside and skill outside. In the Pac, there was a lot more skill. The SEC had it all. In the Big Ten, it’s in more of the trenches.”
This is a snapshot of a young coach not caught up in himself and still small-town enough to rule Hometown. What kind of pizza joint on a town square is closed on Saturday and Sunday? This one, but it opened up special for the Richmond Class of ’04. Of the graduating class of 1992, between 33-36 showed up.
“He’s good for this town, real good for this town,” classmate Josh Suha said. “Everybody got along [in high school]. We didn’t have any scuffles. You’d have your normal fights. Essentially, brothers fighting each other or cousins fighting each other and two weeks later they’d be friends again.”
The group included Lanning’s middle school PE teacher, Ken Simmons, who he counts as his No. 1 coaching inspiration. What else is there to say about a guy whose kids played knee rugby in class and rolled out a trampoline for a slam-dunk contest? Coach Simmons was cool.
“He was a leader, a class clown in 7th grade,” Simmons said, “not that that was a bad thing. He started doing the right things. People followed him.”
Lanning’s name will continue to come up in coaching searches. It was out there for a hot minute when Nick Saban retired at Alabama. You might as well assume by now that Knight insisted on some kind of poison pill buyout in Lanning’s deal that would deter him from leaving.
Not that he wants to, but Mario Cristobal’s departure after five seasons still has to sting a bit at Oregon. There is some permanence suggested when Lanning says he has a son, Titan, who has lived in eight states during the coach’s career.
“We love Eugene, that I can walk outside and in 15 minutes be on a river taking a walk and clear my mind,” Lanning said. “Everyone painted a picture of this place that’s left, left, left. When you get there, you realize there is a lot of the small town values I grew up with. It’s a different coast, for sure, but I think everyone paints this picture that it’s super radical and it’s not.”
Expect one Logan Minnick to be an Oregon assistant someday soon. That would be the ideal scenario, at least, for the former Spartans defensive end. The coach of the Class 4 state champions about 25 miles down the road at least stays in constant contact with his old teammate on a football level. Minnick might as well be the high school equivalent of Lanning, having gone 23-2 in two seasons at Kearney High School.
“Everyone asks me, ‘When are you going to coach for him?’ Minnick said. “I’d say, ‘You know, I want to win one as a head coach before we talk about it.’ Then we won one. Man, I want to win two before we talk about it.”
When they were freshmen at Richmond, Lanning was a linebacker. The burly Minnick still projects as a defensive end. Back then, the coach, Rob Bowers, gave the Lanning a 2x uniform to inspire him.
“The coach would say, ‘When this fits you, you’ll be ready to play for me,'” Minnick said.
Lanning went from playing on the eighth-grade B team to all-state as a senior.
“He was an animal defensively,” Bowers told CBS Sports in 2022.
“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years,” Minnick said. “He was president and I was vice president, and no one ran against us. He’s always been a leader. He was going to be a lawyer. He’d have been a damn good lawyer. I think he figured out just because you’re the loudest one in the argument doesn’t mean you win the argument.”
The loud voices that day came from a small town, Cheers-like bar that opened just for the Spartans. They celebrated their classmate-made-good by toasting to the past.
The future still has a long, long runway to go for these 30-somethings. But one thing is for sure, and you can check Ashley’s yearbook for proof.
Dan Lanning didn’t peak in high school.
