Tag: Kenny Dillingham

3 takeaways from Auburn quarterback Bo Nix’s transfer to the Oregon Ducks

What does Bo Nix’s transfer mean for QB Ty Thompson? Will other quarterbacks transfer away from Oregon? We discuss those and other major takeaways here:

It was announced on Sunday afternoon that the Oregon Ducks were getting a new quarterback.

It’s not some hot-shot recruit, or the much-desired news that true-freshman QB Ty Thompson would be taking over for the Alamo Bowl, but rather the indication that former Auburn Tigers’ QB Bo Nix would be transferring to Eugene.

Nix was a three-year starter at Auburn, and he has 34 collegiate games under his belt. He threw for over 7,250 yards and 39 touchdowns with the Tigers and actually led the War Eagle to a comeback victory over the Oregon Ducks in his first collegiate start back in 2019.

Now he will likely finish his college career against the same team he picked up his first win against. His transfer to Oregon tells us a lot about the current state of the roster, and the new coaching staff for the Ducks. Here are a few major takeaways that we have:

Oregon’s recent coaching hires show huge gamble for the Ducks, with big upsides

Dan Lanning, Kenny Dillingham, and Matt Powledge have a combined age of 100 years. Their youth presents some exciting upside, but with a big risk.

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Within the past week, the Oregon Ducks have hired three coaches whose combined ages add up to 100 years old. Only one of those coaches has spent any time in the position that he was hired in. The other two are taking on new roles at new schools, with the eyes of the nation watching.

I’m talking about head coach Dan Lanning (35), offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham (31), and co-defensive coordinator Matt Powledge (34), of course. After making Lanning the youngest head coach in Oregon history on Monday, the Ducks turned around and hired Dillingham from Florida State on Wednesday, followed by Powledge, from Baylor, just hours later.

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Dillingham is the coach who has experience in his current role. He was the OC at FSU working under Mike Norvell for the past two seasons, where he was regarded as a better coach than what the numbers showed. As a good player development coach and a solid recruiter, there’s a belief that he can help Oregon’s young roster grow.

Powledge is a different story. He has coached for 11 years, and was most recently the special teams and safeties coach for the Baylor Bears. He worked under Dave Aranda, who is a highly-respected defensive coach, and should be able to help the Ducks, who have a very talented roster on that side of the ball. It also helps that Lanning has been the leader of some of the best defenses that we’ve seen as of late with the Georgia Bulldogs.

Despite the positives, it’s hard to ignore the potential downsides to these hires. Many fans thought when a coach as young as Lanning was hired that it would only make sense if Rob Mullens then went out and surrounded him with veteran coaches who could help fill out the coaching staff and make a cohesive unit. Instead, the Ducks did the opposite, finding a trio of young up-and-coming coaches who have shown a lot of promise.

What happens if they don’t turn out to have all of the acumens that we believe they do? What happens if the prospect of being a head coach is overwhelming for Lanning, or if the jump from special teams to coordinator is too big for Powledge?

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We don’t expect this to be the case, but it’s a question that any fan should be asking. Is there a backup plan here?

The ceiling is very high for the Ducks. Lanning has been pegged by the college football world as one of the coordinators most likely to succeed as a head coach, and should he successfully take that next step and lead the Ducks to big victories, it will be viewed as a home-run hire for Oregon. The same way with Dillingham and Powledge, they could easily be pulled to the head coaching ranks a few years down the road if Pac-12 titles and potential trips to the College Football Playoff appear down the road for the Ducks.

If not, though, then these moves will be questioned aggressively by Oregon fans, and Rob Mullens will be pressed for answers. With mega-booster Phil Knight badly wanting a championship in Eugene over the next decade, this was a risky route to take for the Ducks. We’ll see how it pans out over the next couple of years.

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What can we expect from Kenny Dillingham’s offense with the Oregon Ducks?

Kenny Dillingham’s addition to the Oregon coaching staff will bring a balanced offense that takes shots down the field.

It was reported early on Wednesday morning that the Oregon Ducks were hiring former Florida State Seminoles offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham, reuniting him new head coach Dan Lanning.

Lanning and Dillingham were both on the Memphis staff together from 2016 to 2017.

Dillingham has a history of working with great offensive coaches and has been an understudy of Florida State Head Coach Mike Norvell. He was on his staff at Memphis from 2016-18, including the team’s offensive coordinator in 2018. He then left to become the offensive coordinator at Auburn in 2019, where he helped develop then true Freshman Bo Nix and beat Oregon. After one season at Auburn, he reunited with Norvell at Florida State, where he’s served as the offensive coordinator for the last two seasons.

Now he comes back out to the left side of the country, where he was born in Arizona and went to Arizona State. But what does all of this mean for the Ducks? What can we expect him to give the Oregon offense that fans are dying to see? Let’s break that down a little bit.

Spread ‘Em Out

We’ve always known that Dan Lanning is a defensive coach, so we don’t have much worry for what will take place on that side of the ball. As for the offense, though, there are questions about what type of scheme the Ducks will run, and how potent they will be on offense.

According to 247 Sports reported Josh Newberg, we can expect new OC Kenny Dillingham to “spread em out.”

Typically, the Seminoles over the past couple of years under Dillingham have deployed a system that runs the ball heavily, which we can expect to continue in Oregon. On top of that, they will also take shots down the field at a high rate.

Over the past two years, Florida State has averaged 30 pass attempts per game, compared to 37.5 rush attempts per game. In both seasons, they picked up on average 20 first downs per game as well.

While Oregon’s offense hasn’t been completely abysmal as of late, it certainly has lacked some of the fire-power that was here in the Chip Kelly and Mark Helfrich days. We can hope that will be fixed under Dillingham.

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Report: Oregon Ducks expected to hire Baylor’s Matt Powledge as new co-defensive coordinator

The Ducks are making another hire on the coaching staff, bringing in Baylor’s Matt Powledge as their new co-defensive coordinator.

Soon after the Oregon Ducks made a new hire at the offensive coordinator position in Kenny Dillingham, there are now reports coming out that they are also going to bring in Baylor safeties and special teams coach Matt Powledge as the team’s co-defensive coordinator, according to Pete Thamel.

As with both Lanning and Dillingham, Powledge is a young coach who was named to the AFCA 35-under-35 list last season, made to identify some of the best young coaches in the nation.

Powledge spent that last year learning under defensive mastermind Dave Aranda with Baylor but has a good amount of coaching experience before that. He has coached for 11 years and spent two seasons at Louisiana (2018-19) working with new Baylor defensive coordinator Ron Roberts. During that time the program made two consecutive Sun Belt Conference championship game appearances and won a school-record 11 games in 2019 including a 27-17 bowl victory over Miami (Ohio).

In his two seasons at UL, Powledge mentored six All-Sun Belt honorees. In 2019, Louisiana ranked first or second in the Sun Belt in kickoff return defense, kickoff returns and net punting. Additionally, the Cajuns ranked among the top 24 in the nation in each category.

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Report: Dan Lanning brings Seminoles offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham to Oregon

The Ducks are expected to make an OC hire on Wednesday, brining Florida State’s Kenny Dillingham to Oregon.

The Oregon Ducks look to have a new offensive coordinator, and in the same vane of their head coach, he’s a young, up-and-coming play-caller with a lot of promise.

It was reported by ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg on Wednesday that the Ducks are expected to hire Florida State OC, Kenny Dillingham.

The 31-year old Dillingham coached with Lanning when the two were on the Memphis Tigers staff from 2016-17. This would be Dillingham’s fourth coaching stop in five seasons as he was the offensive coordinator at Memphis (2018), Auburn (2019), and Florida State (2020-21).

The offenses he has been in charge of have flourished as Memphis was one of the top offenses in the nation in 2018. Dillingham made Bo Nix the SEC Rookie of the Year in 2019 and in that season’s Iron Bowl, Auburn racked up 48 points on Alabama. It was the most points on a Nick Saban defense while in Tuscaloosa.

When former Memphis coach Mike Norvell got the Florida State job, he coaxed Dillingham away from Auburn to run the Seminoles offense. Florida State has struggled since Norvell arrived, but it’s not for the lack of offense.

The Seminoles averaged nearly 26 points and 400 yards of offense in 2020 in Dillingham’s first season. Florida State improved to nearly 28 points a game while averaging 380 yards a game.

As with Lanning, Dillingham is considered one of the top recruiters in the country. Florida State is expected to sign its best recruiting class since Jimbo Fisher left for Texas A&M in 2018.

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