Turns out Justin Wilcox didn’t get passed over for the University of Oregon head coaching job.
He turned the Ducks down.
Oregon AD Rob Mullens formally offered Wilcox the job on Friday, per multiple sources. The kid from Junction City High interviewed well and was told a marketing campaign would be shaped around his return to Oregon. The plan even included T-shirts that would be printed and distributed at his introductory news conference.
On Friday Wilcox told Oregon, “No thanks.”
I’ll bet Mullens nearly fell over.
Dan Lanning will be introduced on Monday as Oregon’s head football coach. The 35-year old former Georgia defensive coordinator jumped all over the opportunity. I hope he wins big and gives Phil Knight the national title he covets. But I’ll forever wonder what Wilcox might have done at Oregon.
Maybe Wilcox, who played his college ball in Eugene, will talk about it one day. Maybe he’ll even take the UO job the next time it opens but as we peel back the events of the last week a few things become evident.
Among them:
♦ Oregon interviewed UCLA coach Chip Kelly but the Ducks appeared focused on putting a great defensive mind in charge. Three confirmed candidates: Lanning, Wilcox and BYU coach Kalani Sitake are stars on the defensive side of the ball. Going with a defense-first hire is an interesting course correction for Oregon and may end up being an antidote to the offensive-minded hires at USC (Lincoln Riley) and Washington (Kalen DeBoer). Not the worst strategy for Oregon.
♦ The Ducks strong denial that Lanning had the job on Friday night makes more sense now. Lanning moved into the No. 1 position after Wilcox turned Oregon down. Lanning probably knew he had the job but I’m told the Ducks paused to make one final “Hail Mary” run at Wilcox early Saturday morning. The Cal coach slept on it and told Oregon he still wasn’t coming. Lanning was then announced as the hire at 2 p.m. PT by Mullens.
♦ The University of Oregon is a dramatically different place than what Wilcox left in the late 1990s. The facilities look different. The expectations are sky high. Mario Cristobal, for example, won 10 games this season (including a victory over Ohio State) and was greeted with rampant fan criticism for not winning 11 or 12 games. Mark Helfrich, another native Oregonian, took the Ducks to the College Football Playoff but then got vilified and fired two seasons later. I wonder how all this played into Wilcox’s decision to stay put.
♦ None of what I’m reporting here reflects poorly on Lanning. In fact, Wilcox may have given the Georgia assistant even more leverage in his negotiations with the Ducks. Lanning badly wanted the job. He was enthusiastic about it and will be armed with budget, resources, a deep assistant coaches’ salary pool. It reminds me of the Oregon men’s basketball hire of Dana Altman in 2010. Altman was not Oregon’s first or second or third choice in that hiring process. UO offered Tom Izzo and Jaime Dixon first. It also talked with Mark Few and some others about the job but Altman was the one who actually took it. That story ends with a line of 20-win seasons and a Final Four. If Lanning takes the football program to the promised land, it’s a massive win.
♦ I think a lot of coaches would be successful with the resources at Oregon. I believed Mullens last week when he said his phone was ringing “off the hook” about the job. Kelly was a relative unknown from New Hampshire when he arrived in Eugene as a coordinator. Helfrich was just a kid from Coos Bay. Willie Taggart didn’t have Power Five universities lined up to hire him prior to being at Oregon and Cristobal was 27-47 as a head coach before he was promoted. The resources in Eugene helped all them succeed. If I’m Lanning I show up with a surfboard and ride the same wave.
I reached out to Jimmy Stanton, UO’s Senior Associate Athletic Director for Communications, on Sunday for comment on the Wilcox news. It ends up a delicate dance for the Ducks. Stanton checked with Mullens and offered, “We will pass.”
Not a denial.
UO would just prefer not to talk about it and I don’t blame them.
Nothing really to be gained by commenting but I find the whole thing interesting and maybe you do, too. Wilcox is 26-28 in Berkeley. His program has been hamstrung by strict local health and safety protocols in the last two seasons. Cal is a tough place to win. But he’s apparently happy there and if you’re a Bears fan you should celebrate it.
Lanning?
He’s taking over an operation that is armed with three Top-10 recruiting classes still on the roster. Cristobal left loads of young talent and some good momentum behind. Lanning will need to hire a star offensive coordinator, quickly learn how to manage being the CEO of a program and ultimately deliver Knight a national title.
That’s the job. And he took it.
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