What Dan Lanning missed when he passed on Alabama

The Ducks have supporters that make Oregon a football program above Alabama

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Dan Lanning is staying in Eugene as the football coach at the University of Oregon - so says Dan Lanning.

He's not leaving for Alabama to take over the Crimson Tide football program now that Nick Saban is retiring.

Lanning said great things about Oregon during an interview on the ESPN-based Pat McAfee show Thursday, including "I think we have a program that can be the best in the nation as long as I keep this thing on track."

"This decision's been made for me since before I took this job," he said further. "I love what we have here. I love the support, the administration I have. We've got the things built to where we could be that team. We just gotta continue to take steps in that direction to get where we want to be."

What he didn't say is that Oregon is a program that's not below Alabama, and if he left for, say, an NFL job, the coach at Alabama would be rumored to be leaving for Oregon.

Alabama is not a better job than Oregon. Period. Only the NFL, and the challenge of winning a Super Bowl, is a step up.

Lanning seems to have it correct in his head without saying it out loud.

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Ducks

Cliff Pfenning

Cliff is a lifelong resident of Oregon and has four decades of experience as a writer, photographer, videographer, broadcaster and now producer. He's a grad of Benson High in Portland and the University of Oregon. His writing background includes stints at The Oregonian, The Register-Guard, The News-Review in Roseburg, The Portland Tribune, The Portland Observer as well as regular contributions to The Medford Mail-Tribune and Willamette Week. He was set to be a content provider for Action Sports Cable Network if it had began operations in 2000. He also has taught sports broadcasting through the high school program at KBPS in Portland.

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