Dan Lanning can choose what type of beast he becomes
Oregon's head coach is everything the Ducks have wanted. That's what makes the Alabama vacancy so scary.
Nick Saban had never seen a tiger that big.
It was during the time of the year when the Alabama coach would periodically bring in guest speakers to Tuscaloosa, and in one instance last offseason he said one of those talks involved a large cat and a grizzly message.
“It took up the whole screen,” Saban said. “And he said, ‘Everybody wants to be the beast. But everybody don’t want to do what the beast do.’
“So if you want to be the beast, you gotta do what the beast do.”
Maybe it was just another run-of-the-mill team function, but by sharing it with the media back in August, Saban was ever-so-slightly pulling back the veil on what was necessary for him to maintain his status on college football’s throne.
He sat there for 17 years and won six national championships — and another with LSU — and we’re speaking about this all in past tense because he announced his retirement on Wednesday. He won 292 games, 11 SEC championships and assuredly did what the beast had to do.
So, here’s a question: How much beast does Dan Lanning have in him?