CBS list makes shocking choice for 'best coaching hire' at UO

On Tuesday Shehan Jeyarajah of CBS Sports ranked the top 25 best coaching hires in college football in this century. Nick Saban at Alabama quite naturally is No. 1. Urban Meyer at Florida is No. 2.

With two national championships at Clemson Dabo Swinney ranks No. 3. Two-time national champions Pete Carroll and Kirby Smart round out the top five.

Jeff Traylor at UTSA, Jeff Brohm of Purdue and Jamey Chadwell of Coastal Carolina complete the Top 25. Dan Lanning doesn't make it.

Only one Oregon coach cracks the list, Chip Kelly at No. 11. Even Lane Kiffin rates inclusion. In his third stop at Ole Miss he's 44-18, good for No. 21 despite achieving one 11-win season with the Rebels and never winning a conference title.

There's some reaching here and some bending over backwards to exclude Dan Lanning. Matt Rhule, Luke Fickell and James Franklin all make the list, and they've never won a national title either. Mike Leach, Mark Dantonio, Mike Gundy rate inclusion.

Kelly certainly elevated the Ducks, winning three PAC-12 titles and finishing in the top five for three straight seasons, but the program was 10-3 the season before he took over and No. 1 in the country for seven weeks in 2007.

He built on a foundation laid by Bellotti and Brooks. Fast tempo and team speed spurred his historic rise.

The perception with Lanning is that he inherited a ready-made program put in place by Mario Cristobal, but in the years before the Missouri native and Georgia defensive coach came to Eugene the Ducks were 4-3 and 10-4, ranked in the Top Ten just once over the previous seven seasons, No. 5 in 2019 when Justin Herbert took them to the Rose Bowl.

Cristobal raised the standard in Oregon recruiting, but his teams went 35-13 over four seasons and won the conference once. Lanning, 35-6, has never won less than 10 games and has three top ten recruiting classes, two top ten finishes.

The program has never been stronger, set up to maintain this competitive standard this season and beyond. Kelly was lightning in a bottle and an offensive gimmick and he left abruptly under a cloud.

It was a heady time, all those 50-point games, the point-a-minute scoring and the quick-snap gimmick teams were slow to solve. But the program now has a sounder foundation of recruiting and development than it ever has.

Jeyarajah's list only goes back to 2000. In Oregon history, Len Casanova was the founder of the tradition, Rich Brooks restored it with toughness and dogged persistence, Mike Bellotti elevated it with continuity and innovation (he brought in Kelly and the up-tempo spread offense.)

Kelly was the wizard who exploited tempo and took it to its limits while running afoul of the NCAA. Willie Taggart proved to be a one-year disaster. Cristobal recruited like a fiend, but frustrated fans with in-game blunders then bolted awkwardly.

What the record says: Oregon's all-time winningest coaches

*Includes Covid-year title with a 4-3 record, canceled games, championship win over USC.

Lanning is entering his fourth year as Oregon head coach. If he remains at Oregon for another five, he'll win that first elusive national championship. He would need to stay at least another seven to pass Mike Bellotti in wins, ten to be sure.

Thus far he's the best coaching hire in Oregon history, because he's built the soundest program with the strongest future. But he has to finish the job to be proclaimed best ever. A second conference title or a playoff run would cement it.

A national championship gets a statue in front of the stadium. Kelly's legacy is marred by Willie Lyles and the jump to the NFL.

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