A lot of time after the end of the 2022 college football season has been spent looking at first-year head coaches and assessing how they did at their respective programs.
For Dan Lanning, the season-long grades have been quite fair, with many crediting him and his team for an impressive 10-win season that resulted in a respectable bowl win and a heap of excitement and anticipation for the future in Eugene. While a lot of time has been spent comparing Lanning to other first-year head coaches in the nation, we wanted to take a second to look back at Oregon history and see how he compares to other Oregon coaches in their first years with the Ducks.
Lanning was able to notch 10 wins, but losses to both Oregon State and Washington were tough to swallow. How does that compare to the likes of Mario Cristobal, or Mark Helfrich, or Mike Bellotti?
In order to get a good breakdown, I went back through what I like to refer to as the “modern era” of Oregon coaches. While the Ducks have been around since 1894, a total of 39 head coaches came through the program, oftentimes only spending one or two seasons in Eugene. Until the legendary Len Casanova came along in 1951, no single coach had spent more than 5 seasons with the program. So that’s going to be where I start our modern era. Since 1951, there have been only 11 head coaches at Oregon.
How did Lanning’s first year compare to the other 10 guys when it comes to the start of their tenures in Eugene? Let’s take a look: