In the recent history of college football, few teams have been as dominant as the Georgia Bulldogs. What Kirby Smart has been able to accomplish over the past decade — three SEC championships, four College Football Playoff berths, and a pair of national championships — easily puts him atop the list of best coaches in the sport and makes his team the envy of just about everyone else in the nation.
Dan Lanning is trying to replicate that success with the Oregon Ducks. As the former defensive coordinator for one of those championship teams, Lanning has seen what it takes to win at such a high level. Since taking over as the head coach of the Ducks in 2022, he’s been working hard to build Oregon’s program into a national powerhouse, just like the Bulldogs.
Using a similar blueprint of a dominant defense leading the way, one college football analyst thinks Lanning’s plan of turning Oregon into the next Georgia is coming to fruition.
According to CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli, one of his biggest post-spring takeaways is that the Ducks aren’t far off from the success seen in Athens over the past decade.
“We are the new Georgia: Oregon’s first Big Ten season was bittersweet. It began with a Big Ten title but was ended abruptly by Ohio State in a Rose Bowl shellacking,” Fornelli wrote. “The Ducks allowed 143 points in four games against playoff teams last season, and you can’t win national titles if you allow that many points against elite teams. The buzz coming out of Eugene this offseason is they won’t in 2025. Dan Lanning’s staff has recruited well since taking over, and many expect the fruits of that labor to be evident this season, particularly on defense, where this team is stacked with talent at all three levels.”
This will be a big season for Lanning to prove that he can build a powerhouse. This Oregon team will consist entirely of recruits and transfer portal players who committed to the Ducks under Lanning’s watch, with no remaining players from the previous coaching staff. We will learn this season just how good of a developer Oregon’s coaching staff can be, and the defensive side of the ball will be put under a microscope as they look to improve from where they were a year ago.
If they can find that success and make it back to the College Football Playoff, then things will be on the right track. Of course, a lot of winning and celebrating must be done before they can be put in the same conversation as the Bulldogs.
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