Dan Lanning explains why he has not left Oregon for NFL, other jobs: 'It's a lifestyle'

At just 39 years old, Oregon‘s Dan Lanning is among college football’s youngest and most successful head coaches around. In fact, Lanning has the No. 5-ranked Ducks (11-1, 8-1 Big Ten) on the verge of a second-straight appearance in the 12-team College Football Playoffs.

Of course, with that high level of success has come serious interest from other programs — including some in the NFL — trying to convince Lanning to leave Eugene for greener pastures. But through it all, Lanning has held firm to his commitment to Oregon, including inking a six-year contract extension in March that elevated his annual salary to nearly $11 million and made him among college football’s Top 10 highest-paid head coaches.

On Wednesday’s Early Signing Day, when the Ducks secured a Top 3 2026 recruiting class according to the Rivals Industry Team Rankings, Lanning explained why he’s stuck around college football and Eugene specifically despite multiple opportunities to go elsewhere in recent years. Hint: it has everything to do with helping build up the next generation of young men.

“It’s definitely different, right, when you’re trying to hang out with your family at dinner and you get a phone call, and you’re like, ‘Hey, I’ve got to take this.’ It’s a lifestyle, and one thing that I’m grateful for is my family signed up for it,” Lanning said Wednesday morning on Rivals’ College Football National Signing Day show on YouTube. “They understand, ‘Look, your dad doesn’t just want to be involved as a coach, he wants to be apart of something to be great.’ And to be great, it takes sacrifices. So that’s one of those sacrifices we all sign up for.

“There’s days, just like in every job, … that you don’t love about what you deal with. But what I do love is when you do get on the field, when you do get these guys over to your house, when you do get that opportunity to have a relationship (with players), you do get the chance just to have a conversation about family,” Lanning continued. “Those are the things that are the separators for me, and this is the perfect age group for me to be able to influence and be a sounding board for and hopefully give a great representation of what it means to be a great father and a great husband and a guy that works hard. And when all those things pay off, if those guys follow that same model, they’re going to be really successful in life. It’s taxing, it’s different, but there’s sacrifice required to be apart of something to be great. So, that’s a sacrifice I certainly don’t mind having.”