There are certain truths the coaching profession that you find out only through experience.
As young coaches, we've all fallen into the trap of thinking it's what we know that gets us hired, but as we get older we start to realize who we know is actually a much bigger piece, for starters.
During a sit down with Adam Breneman, Oregon's Dan Lanning took that philosophy a step further, sharing that being able to check off a list of great attributes is an important part of climbing the ladder as a young coach in the profession, but it's more about the value you can bring.
This podcast was actually released a few months back, but Lanning's advice has resurfaced as timely during a period where so many coaches are looking for the next step int heir careers.
"For me, the thing that I realized really quick is that, ok, so you work hard, you care about it, you're learnable and adaptable and all those things are great...but nobody is going to hire a young coach because of what he knows."
"They're going to hire a young coach because of the value he brings to the program, and the number one way to provide value in college football is by player acquisition."
Lanning goes on to share that he looked at the recruiting territories and decided no one was recruiting Kansas, so he set out to be the best recruiter of the rich Kansas JuCo system, and that's how it started.
As Oregon moves closer to being a Big Ten member, Lanning was asked on Ryen Russillo's podcast about how they're preparing for life in the new league, and - after opening up about having to do some study on travel - Lanning shared quite a quote.
“I think, at the end of the day, the Big Ten’s going to have to prepare for us and what we do different for that league.”
"Great football is great football. I’m glad to be in one of the two conferences in college football that are elite. I’m glad to be able to go and play some of the elite teams. You look at the national championship and that was two Big Ten teams that were squaring off,” Lanning said.
Here's the part of the Breneman interview where Lanning shares his insight on breaking through as a young coach, but really the whole sit down with Breneman is worth your time.