Nick Saban has been credited with being ahead of the curve when it comes to how he runs his football program, but even then sometimes he gets beat to the punch.
One of those instances came when he was trying to fill out his coaching staff one offseason and when Saban was beaten out by Georgia head coach Kirby Smart when he was attempting to hire now Oregon head Dan Lanning.
It turns out Smart beat Saban out by just two days.
“What I’ve always tried to do is have a bunch of young people, evaluate them, see them go get others and jobs and know that you would hire them back because you know who they are,” Saban said on The Pat McAfee Show. “Now, one of the disadvantages of having all these guys going out and getting jobs everywhere, is that they hire the guys before I get a chance to. Like Dan Lanning.
RELATED: Nick Saban will face another former Alabama assistant vs. Arkansas
“Dan Lanning was here a GA. He went to Memphis or someplace, got a job. I was ready to hire him and two days before I was gonna hire him, Kirby hired him. So it kind of messes up your gameplan a little bit when you got all these guys out there because they kind of know who the guys that you had in the organization are the good ones.”
Lanning began his coaching career at Pittsburgh before being brought onto the Alabama staff in 2015 when Smart was also still the defensive coordinator. After one season, Lanning shifted to Memphis as the inside linebackers coach but a few short years later in 2018, Smart would bring Lanning to Athens as a linebackers coach.
In 2019, Lanning was promoted to defensive coordinator for the Bulldogs where he served from 2019-21 before becoming the head coach at Oregon where he signed a six-year $29 million deal.
*Get the BEST Alabama football insider information, message board access, and recruiting coverage today! SIGN UP HERE to unlock our subscriber only content!*
Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
