Dan Lanning is just Steve Sarkisian in Ducks gear. Prove me wrong | Opinion
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What’s the difference between Steve Sarkisian and Dan Lanning? One pays no state income tax (and everyone in Texas said, amen). The other bears slight resemblance to Chris Pratt.
Otherwise, these two coaches seem like the same guy.
That’s not a stinging criticism, just an observation. Most schools would be fortunate to employ either. They’re top-10 coaches at premier jobs, but they don’t win the biggest games.
That’s the rub.
You say Lanning once beat Ryan Day, I say Sarkisian once beat Nick Saban.
You say Lanning won the Big Ten in Oregon’s first year in the conference and reached the playoff semifinals the following year, I say Sarkisian reached the playoff semifinals in consecutive seasons.
Each guy has pelts on the wall. Neither has advanced to a national championship game, despite persistently loaded teams.
(As an aside, neither beats Kalen DeBoer, either. Alabama’s highly scrutinized coach went a combined 5-0 against Lanning and Sarkisian while at Washington, but that’s a subject for another day.)
Sarkisian came closer to reaching a season’s finish line than Lanning. Texas’ semifinal games in the 2023 and ’24 seasons came down to the wire. By halftime of Oregon’s blowout playoff losses the past two seasons, you were wondering what’s airing on MeTV.
"We're close," Lanning told reporters at Big Ten Media Days.
Well, the Peach Bowl wasn't close.
So, why is it only one of these coaches, Sarkisian, faces much preseason scrutiny, while the other’s team gets feted?
Oregon is ranked No. 2 in each of college football’s major polls. The Ducks received 14 first-place votes in the AP Top 25.
Texas is No. 4 in the US LBM Coaches Poll and No. 5 in the AP. The Longhorns did not receive a single first-place vote among the 69 media members who voted in the AP poll.
Why so much skepticism for Sark and Texas, while Lanning and the Ducks soak up the love?
The Oregon vs Texas debate
OK, let’s answer that question.
Four reasons why Sarkisian and Texas face more skepticism than Oregon:
- Recency bias. Texas fizzled last season. Sark’s finest hours came in 2023 and ’24. Texas earned the preseason No. 1 designation last summer, but Arch Manning got off to a rocky start, Texas lost three times, and it missed the playoff. Oregon fared better. Indiana trounced the Ducks in the end, but at least Oregon made the playoff. Its only losses came to the Hoosiers, twice, the eventual champion. If you’re a poll voter who typed in Texas as preseason No. 1 last summer, you might hesitate to do it again, with ghosts of 2025 in your brain.
- Voters trust Dante Moore more than Manning. Manning faced unparalleled scrutiny throughout his first full season as Texas’ starter, and the New York Times absurdly positioned Manning as the first “bust” in college football history. A perception formed that Manning performed worse than he did. He wasn’t great. He wasn’t terrible. Moore was better, although Manning faced a tougher schedule. While Manning opened his season with growing pains against Ohio State, Moore opened against Montana State. Talk about a tailor-made confidence boost. How good will Manning be in his encore? Fair question. Texas will go as he goes.
- Voters trust Oregon to avoid the bad loss. As much as Sarkisian might want to point the finger at the selection committee, Texas missed the playoff last season because it lost to a bad Florida team. Oregon and Texas compiled similar records the past three seasons — the Ducks averaged one more win per season — but Lanning never served a loss as unsightly as Texas’ meltdown in The Swamp. Counterpoint: Sarkisian beat Texas A&M and Oklahoma last season, two rivals and a pair of playoff qualifiers.
- People tend to enjoy putting Texas in its place. Before Sarkisian righted the program, Texas spent many years acting bigger and better than its record said it was. Your average CFB observer got exhausted by that, and “Texas is back!” became something of a punchline. So, one year after Texas failed to live up to the hype, here’s a chance to make the Longhorns earn their way to the top.
That’s fine, but if Texas must prove it, why doesn’t that same thinking apply to Oregon?
Oregon’s roster is stacked. So is the team in Austin.
Lanning and Sarkisian are like that Spider-Man meme. You know, the one where two Spider-Men dressed identically point at each other. We’re waiting on either to win the big one.
Are Oregon and Texas in the same boat?
Neither Texas nor Oregon would have a good excuse for not playing deep into January.
True, each faces a difficult regular-season schedule, and making the finish line of a 12-team playoff is no cakewalk, but these programs are as well-positioned as any to thrive.
Each program spent a war chest to assemble two of college football’s most expensive rosters.
Does anyone possess a more talented roster than either Oregon or Texas? Maybe Ohio State. Maybe. I don’t think conversation goes much further than that.
If you’re building a preseason All-America team, keep the Oregon and Texas rosters handy. They’re armed with candidates at nearly every position.
Lanning and Sarkisian each had an ample runway to establish their culture. This will be Sark’s sixth season and Lanning’s fifth. A quarterback with superstar potential headlines each team.
They’ve got everything a coach could want.
Ryan Day and Kirby Smart didn’t join the champions club until their sixth season. So, you could argue Lanning and Sarkisian remain on schedule.
Or, you could say: I’ll believe it when I see it.
I still see one Spider-Man pointing at another. Until one of these guys shows he's made for the champions club, Lanning is Sarkisian, and Sarkisian is Lanning.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dan Lanning is just Steve Sarkisian in Ducks gear. Prove me wrong | Opinion
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