Both of Oregon's coordinators will be head coaches next season and have one foot out the door. How are they managing the transition? 'I’ve got a light job and a night job.'
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — If College Football Playoff titles were decided on lack of sleep, Oregon would probably be a shoo-in to win the national championship.
“I’m tired,” said Will Stein, Oregon’s 36-year-old offensive coordinator, which isn’t a surprise when you consider that he’s trying to get ready for Thursday’s CFP quarterfinal against Texas Tech while preparing to be Kentucky’s head coach on a full-time basis as soon as the Ducks’ season ends.
“I’ve got a light job and a night job,” said Tosh Lupoi, the Oregon defensive coordinator who is taking over as head coach at Cal, his alma mater. “When the [game planning] duties are done, late at night and early in the morning, just trying to do anything possible to put us in a good position for the future.”
There’s nothing particularly new about coaching staffs having to balance postseason preparation with impending change. Tennessee dealt with it in 1998 when defensive coordinator David Cutcliffe took the Ole Miss job before the Vols played Florida State in the BCS championship game. Dan Mullen was on his way out the door to Mississippi State in December of 2008 while trying to get Florida’s offense ready to play Oklahoma for the national title. Nick Saban frequently had coordinators in transition during Alabama’s CFP runs — including one, Lane Kiffin, who was dismissed from offensive coordinator duties before the national title game nine years ago because he was too distracted with his new duties at Florida Atlantic.
Oregon head coach Dan Lanning himself dealt with this in December of 2021, having taken his current job amidst a national title run at Georgia where he was defensive coordinator.
“The hotel we’re staying at this week, I remember hiring my strength coach in that hotel during the same process of preparing for the Orange Bowl,” Lanning said. “It’s kind of a full-circle moment but I’m very appreciative of the detail they’ve put in. A lot of long nights and not a lot of sleep, but I tell our staff, you sleep when you die.”
What’s unusual, though, is having both coordinators getting ready for the exits — a huge compliment to Oregon’s program — in this new, 12-team playoff world where a potential national title run would tie up coaches until Jan. 19. Meanwhile, the transfer portal opens on Jan. 2, meaning both of Oregon’s coordinators could be in the unenviable position of trying to rebuild rosters at their new school while also having to prepare for a CFP semifinal on Jan. 9.
In some cases, that means Lupoi or Stein could be recruiting in the portal against their current employer — or each other.
Stein, in fact, told Yahoo Sports that he’s heading straight from the Orange Bowl to Lexington so that he can work on the transfer portal Friday regardless of result.
“There’s a lot of buckets to fill at both places,” he said. “That’s what I signed up for. It’s a first-world problem.”
Lanning insists nothing has changed about the way Oregon prepared for this game, that both outgoing coordinators have been 100 percent focused on their current jobs when they’re in the building. If the Ducks lose to Texas Tech, they will not use distraction as an excuse.
“I think they both recognize they’d never have the opportunities they have if not for the players at Oregon,” Lanning said. “They feel like they owe it to our players to give their absolute best on the way out.”
Still, the mere existence of this situation highlights one of the major flaws in college football’s calendar. The coaching carousel now takes place in November and early December. With a 12-team playoff now and a strong possibility it will expand to 16 (or more) in the future, it’s common sense that more schools will enter the CFP with coaching staffs that are being picked apart.
Obviously, this was a huge topic in the first round as well with Tulane’s Jon Sumrall and James Madison’s Bob Chesney heading to new jobs at Florida and UCLA, respectively. Ole Miss’ issues have been well-documented over the last month with Lane Kiffin leaving for LSU, prompting the school to bar him from coaching in the playoff.
But college football does not have to shrug its shoulders and accept that this is merely a cost of doing business.
“I think there’s absolutely a better way,” Lupoi said. “Ultimately, I’m going to operate within the schedule we have. I don’t have a choice in that, so no sense in complaining. But it would be amazing when we’re in these opportunities to go compete for a championship to devote all our time towards that. With the portal being where it is during the playoffs, it’s a very difficult thing to comprehend. That’s the schedule but it sure would make a lot of sense to not have them going at the same time.”
Lupoi said he’s leaning a lot on Cal general manager Ron Rivera and director of player personnel Marshall Cherrington to be ready for the opening of the portal but admits it’s been a challenge to balance both duties.
Lanning said his preferred solution would be for the CFP to wrap up on New Year’s Day. Even if that would require the college season to move up a week and start in late August, Lanning believes college football should utilize every Saturday in December to get in the four playoff rounds without the two-week break between the conference championship games and the first round and the 12-day break between the first round and the quarterfinals.
Having this staccato postseason schedule has also helped the NFL to take over Saturdays in December. Extending the season well into January makes it difficult for college football to sustain momentum and interest as the NFL playoffs gear up.
“Our national championship game is Jan. 19,” Lanning said. “That’s really hard to envision as a coach that’s going out and trying to join a new program and start a staff. It’s hard for players to understand what continuity looks like and where they’re going to be at and to manage that with visits, the portal and everything else that exists. The clear way to do that is to bump the season up and make sure these games happen a lot faster.”
Category: General Sports
