Dan Lanning Explains Why He's Grateful For The Time Spent with Kirby Smart and Georgia

Dan Lanning is preparing for the biggest game of his 2023 season, he stopped to reflect on the things he learned during his time in Athens working for Kirby Smart and Georiga.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is commonly talked about as being in the discussion, if not the obvious choice, for "Best Coach in the sport" when the conversation presents itself. 

Two national titles in consecutive seasons, something that hasn't been done in the CFP era, and his No. 1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs are currently the odds on favorite to win yet another national title midway through the 2023 season. 

Though potentially standing in Kirby Smart's way is one of his former assistants turned head coach in the form of Oregon head coach Dan Lanning. Lanning's Oregon Ducks are currently undefeated (6-0) as the get set to head on the road to take on the Washington Huskies. 

Lanning was recently on Next Up w/ Adam Breneman and he was asked about what he's learned from the coaches that Lanning has worked under on his rise to building this top-10 program in Oregon. When he was asked about Kirby Smart, the first word that came to mind was passion, followed closely by Smart's intelligence. 

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart and Oregon head coach Dan Lanning meet during warm ups before the start of the Chick-fil-A Kickoff NCAA college football game between Oregon and Georgia in Atlanta, on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. News Joshua L Jones

"When you talk about passion, like Kirby's as high as anybody there, and he is one of the most intelligent people I've ever been around, he can see something once and memorize it forever. You know, I remember being a GA at Alabama and he's saying, hey, go pull up lead zone in 2012 versus LSU. Like, we fit that the way I want to fit like he's, he's got that kind of memory and intelligence. He's a real person, right? Like He's a great dad. He's a, you know, a great husband and but he just, there's not a lot that that guy doesn't do right. And I'm really grateful that I got the opportunity to be around him. I think he learned a ton from Coach Saban and was able to build off of that, you know, I think he took a lot of that footprint and then said, Okay, wait, we can do this a little bit different and enhance it and I think that shows up every day in his program." - Dan Lanning on what he learned from Kirby Smart

Other Georgia News:

• WATCH: Carson Beck Speaks Following UAB Win
• Georgia's Perfect Redzone Efficiency Key to 49-21 Victory Over UAB
• BREAKING: Kirby Smart Makes SEC Coaching History

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