It’s easy to forget that when Oregon hired Dan Lanning, the Ducks not only hired him for his coaching abilities but also his ability to hire the right assistants in order to take the program where everyone wants it to go.
So far, so good.
Oregon has some of the best assistants in the country with their coaching talents and their skills in recruiting. One of those assistants, running back coach Carlos Locklyn, has stood out. According to On3, Locklyn has been named as a rising star in the college football coaching ranks. This is what writer Matt Zenitz had to say about Locklyn.
Locklyn was hired by the Ducks after one year as the running backs coach at Western Kentucky in 2021. Led by Locklyn, Oregon was the only school in the Pac-12 last season to have two running backs with more than 775 rushing yards. His top two backs, Bucky Irving and Noah Whittington, were also just two of eight Pac-12 running backs to average more than six yards per carry in conference games.
Oregon is lucky to have both Irving and Whittington back for 2023 for a repeat performance. Locklyn was also instrumental is getting two of the top prep running backs, Dante Dowdell and Jayden Limar, to come to Eugene and now the Ducks’ running back room is one of the top tailback groups around.
Unfortunately, one of the downfalls of having great assistants is that they won’t be assistants for long as they will eventually be hired to run their own program one day.
Ironically, Lanning himself was one of those assistants and it’s turned out fairly well for Oregon.
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