Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning has the biggest coaching hire of his career to make in front of him, but unfortunately, he doesn't have the luxury of being able to focus all of his effort on that.
After the firing of offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer over the weekend following Oregon's tough start to the year, Lanning is in a position where he needs to identify the right guy to lead his offense forward, but at present, there are other things that require his attention. Namely, a season that is in the midst of a tailspin that he is trying to level out.
However, in order for the Ducks to remain stable this offseason and keep top players out of the portal while also convincing top players and recruits to join the team, it would behoove them
to have a decision sooner rather than later. That doesn't mean a new OCneeds to be hired in the next two weeks, but it's also not something that you want unsolved going into January.
Lanning provided some insight into the timeline on Monday night:
"I don't think that an announcement is going to happen right around the corner," Lanning said. "To think that you're not always preparing for moments like that, I think would be wrong too. So there's an awareness; there's an evaluation process. You want to be really thorough as you go through that. Is that going to be occurring over the next few weeks, months? Yes. Does that mean that we make an announcement tomorrow? It just doesn't really fit with the cycle of football to say that that's going to happen here in a week. And there's other things that our team needs to be focused on right now. But to say that there's not an awareness of what's going on in college football, NFL, other teams, places that can make us better, that'd be wrong. There's certainly some of that evaluation that's going on."
When going through the hiring process before, Lanning has talked about a notebook that he keeps with names of guys who he has either worked with in the past, or wants to work with in the future. There's no telling whether or not he's kept that list updated over the last couple of years, but over the next few months, he will likely be diving back in and evaluating names that he sees.
They may be open for work right now, or coaching on other teams throughout the remainder of the season. Regardless, Lanning and the Ducks know that they don't have a ton of time to waste when it comes to identifying the next guy in Eugene.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Dan Lanning provides look at timeline for hiring new OC at Oregon
