Impact: How Dan Lanning Replaces Junior Adams

Dan Lanning might be on vacation right now but he’s still got work to do. His Kansas City Chiefs are just a few hours away from playing for a three-peat in the Super bowl but his coaching staff just took a hit.

It’s being reported Junior Adams is ‘expected’ to take a job with the Dallas Cowboys. While nothing is official we typically don’t get this far along and see many changes. It can happen, but seems unlikely. So until we do get the official news on that let’s just address a few things about this news.

Impact on Dakorien Moore

With the new rules, just because Dakorien Moore is enrolled at Oregon doesn’t mean he can’t enter the transfer portal this Spring. He could also ask out of his deal but it would be much more complicated. Also he wouldn’t be able to enroll anywhere else right now so that’s not really in his best interest. From a timing perspective there, it’s about as good as it gets if you’re Oregon.

Furthermore, he has a very, very strong relationship with Ra’Shaad Samples who had as much, if not more, of a hand in getting Moore to Oregon as Adams. Before we jump off a ledge and Texas fans prematurely celebrate, just let this play out for a bit and take a deep breath.

Lanning has Flexibility with this Hire

Dan Lanning not only has a great coaching staff, he has a lot of resources on the staff that are in off-field roles.

To further strengthen Oregon’s position with retaining Dakorien Moore, you could easily see Lanning move Samples into the wide receivers coaching role and attach the Co-OC title to his name. Which would then have him potentially looking for a running backs coach. Losing both Samples and Adams to the Cowboys would have been a much bigger issue so take a deep breath we didn’t cross that bridge.

One guy that might get some look at an on-field role is defensive analyst Antonio Parks. I know he’s a defensive analyst but he has position flexibility and is one of Oregon’s top recruiters on staff. He has deep ties to the South from Dallas through Louisiana.

We know Lanning will get it right. And I’m sure he’s going to have a lot of coaches, who are going to be interested. And best of all he can look at two positions instead of just one.

We will work on a coaching board as this development continues.

Time is on Lanning’s Side

It’s February 9 and it’s a dead period in recruiting. The transfer portal window is closed. School is in session across the country. Which means as I outlined above, this shouldn’t push anyone into the portal immediately. Maybe that changes in the April window but that’s two months for this staff and the new hire to solidify relationships with anyone impacted with this move.

Furthermore it gives Lanning time to find the right hire. He’s not up against any timeline, most buyouts (if they have one) have dropped and of course he has a bigger pool of candidates because of the flexibility. I’m sure he’d rather spend time with his family on vacation and not worry about this. But I’m also certain he’s probably already made contact with 4-6 viable candidates to gauge interest.

As long as he can get a hire made or nearly made by March it should allow him to enter Spring ball and hit the ground running on the recruiting trail.

The post Impact: How Dan Lanning Replaces Junior Adams appeared first on On3.