Former legendary Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban said on Friday’s “Pat McAfee Show” broadcast from Dublin, Ireland that he had considered adding current Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning to the Alabama staff in 2015 while Lanning was still a graduate assistant. After working under Saban as a graduate assistant for the 2015 season, Lanning left to work as a linebacker coach and recruiting coordinator for the Memphis Tigers under Mike Norvell from 2016 to 2017.
In response to a question regarding his thoughts on the expectations of the many programs joining new conferences this fall, Saban acknowledged his desire for Alabama to hire Oregon’s Dan Lanning as a graduate assistant coach and complimented Lanning on his achievements as head coach.
“You know, Dan Lanning’s a really good coach,” Saban stated. “I actually wanted to hire him.” Saban went on to outline his plan for grooming assistant coaches into full-time staff members from Alabama. “You know, my theory of having all these young guys on the staff and developing them was to get them a job at Memphis State and then be able to hire them when all of these guys started coaching,” Saban stated. “Kirby, Pruitt, Billy Napier, Mike Lockley… They all hired him before I could hire him.”
