New play caller?

Assistant QB coach according to wikpedia

Offensive analyst

Johnson played quarterback for the FCS U Northern Iowa Panthers from 1989 to 1992. In 1992, he was second-team all-conference. In his final three seasons, he was the starting quarterback, leading UNI to three straight playoff appearances. One of his backups for these three seasons was future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner. In those four seasons the Panthers were 8-3, 8-4, 11-2, 12-2.

Since 1994 he has been part of staffs at Missouri, Kansas, So. Miss, Louisville, C. Michigan, Minnesota, Georgia, Colorado, Mich State and Wyoming.

The last outpost was Wyoming where the Cowboys were 3-9 in 2024 including a win in Pullman, and 3-4 when he was fired in 2025.

He joined Oregon in March 2026. Johnson is the only Oregon staffer with significant offensive play calling experience, with stops at Louisiana-Lafayette, Minnesota, Colorado, Michigan State and Wyoming.

"He’s also coming in with a different perspective and a different view, not being with us the last few years," Lanning said. "He can provide a couple of things that might be different than what we’ve done that I think can trigger some success for us on that side of the ball."

Work has already begun to identify Oregon's next full-time offensive coordinator, though Lanning doesn't expect that to be finalized any time soon.

"I don’t think an announcement is gonna happen right around the corner," Lanning said. "Again, to think that you’re not always preparing for moments like that, I think would be wrong, too. So there’s an awareness, there’s an evaluation process. You want to be really thorough as you go through that. Is that going to be occurring over the next few weeks, months? Yes. Does that mean that we make an announcement tomorrow? It just doesn’t really fit with the cycle of football."

A snippet of Johnson's history as a play caller:

Michigan State (2020–2023): Outside of a brilliant 2021 season anchored by Doak Walker Award winner Kenneth Walker III, Johnson's offenses in East Lansing heavily struggled. By 2023, the Spartans finished near the bottom of the Big Ten in nearly every major offensive metric, leading to widespread fan frustration over predictable sequencing

Wyoming (2024–2025): Handed the reins to the Cowboys' offense, his tenure was short-lived. Following highly predictable play-calling—often criticized by fans for an over-reliance on standard inside zone runs out of the shotgun regardless of the down-and-distance—Johnson was fired midway through the 2025 season.

Lanning has stated that the offensive strategy moving forward into the Northwestern game will be a "collaborative effort" across the entire offensive staff rather than putting the entire system on Johnson's shoulders.

Could be interesting. Could be a dumpster fire. Which is most likely?

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by John Charles

6 minutes ago, John Charles said:

A snippet of Johnson's history as a play caller:

Michigan State (2020–2023): Outside of a brilliant 2021 season anchored by Doak Walker Award winner Kenneth Walker III, Johnson's offenses in East Lansing heavily struggled. By 2023, the Spartans finished near the bottom of the Big Ten in nearly every major offensive metric, leading to widespread fan frustration over predictable sequencing

Wyoming (2024–2025): Handed the reins to the Cowboys' offense, his tenure was short-lived. Following highly predictable play-calling—often criticized by fans for an over-reliance on standard inside zone runs out of the shotgun regardless of the down-and-distance—Johnson was fired midway through the 2025 season.

Lanning has stated that the offensive strategy moving forward into the Northwestern game will be a "collaborative effort" across the entire offensive staff rather than putting the entire system on Johnson's shoulders.

Could be interesting. Could be a dumpster fire.

Jeez man. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I can't believe we didn't have anyone on our roster to call plays that doesn't have a history of sucking at doing it.

Things aren't going to magically get better here. Frankly the best strategy going forward is to put the play sheet on a poster and have one of Lanning's kids throw darts at it.

Or just have the position coaches take turns calling plays for a half.

At least that would give us the element of surprise. I'm not really joking.

Put Jorgy in the booth with Johnson. Jorgy can remember a lot of ugly Ducks play calling and might be able to coach Johnson about what to avoid.

He was Mel Truckers OC at Colorado and went with him to MSU. Mel had that big year with Kenneth Walker III and got that huge $95 million extension and then Mel got himself fired for cause and didn't get his buyout.

When Mel got that stupid extension, it was the start of it all going stupid!!

James Frankilin got his big extension, LSU hired Brian Kelly for over $100 million, Riley got $100 million at USC. Miami bought out Mario and gave him like $85 million.

Now players move every year, some get $5-mil a year and NIL rosters are up to $40 or 50 mil

17 minutes ago, Solar said:

Jeez man. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I can't believe we didn't have anyone on our roster to call plays that doesn't have a history of sucking at doing it.

Things aren't going to magically get better here. Frankly the best strategy going forward is to put the play sheet on a poster and have one of Lanning's kids throw darts at it.

Or just have the position coaches take turns calling plays for a half.

At least that would give us the element of surprise. I'm not really joking.

I hear Dante Moore is available, between Lanning's kids and him we could have something.

It's not really that surprising that we don't really have anyone with experience calling plays, this is fine as a stop gap, we aren't going to get much better with the personnel that we have at QB and the O-line.

You have to be kidding.

My friends, I have finally answered that long ago framed philosophical question. "THERE APPARENTLY IS NO LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL."

Welcome to the

Dan Lanning Experiment 2026

Washing out at 2 consecutive OC positions is why he's stuck as an assistant QB coach. DL has to turn to him because apparently there just isn't any other choice.