While Nick Saban was the Cleveland Browns’ defensive coordinator under Bill Belichick, one of the many valuable lessons he learned was to always have a group of young, bright coaches on staff. Saban recalled Scott Pioli or Phil Savage, future well-regarded personnel executives, as his assistants early in their careers during the early 1990s.

In the NFL, the juvenile nickname for the group was “slappies.” For Saban, his graduate assistants or “coffee guys” would go on to become some of the biggest names in the sport. It would be a philosophy Saban would employ when he ran his own program. Through seven national titles, Saban’s coaching tree has become historic. Eventually, the success would backfire as former staffers would pull from Saban’s team or others he kept an eye over.

On Thursday, Saban revealed one of those instances led to Dan Lanning being hired by Kirby Smart, a former Tide defensive coordinator, days before Saban was going to offer Lanning a return to Alabama football.

“What I’ve always tried to do is have a bunch of young people, evaluate them, see them go get other jobs and know that you would hire them back because you know who they are,” Saban said during his paid weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. “Now, one of the disadvantages of having all these guys going out and getting jobs everywhere, is that they hire the guys before I get a chance to. Like Dan Lanning.

“Dan Lanning was here as a GA. He went to Memphis or someplace, got a job. I was ready to hire him and two days before I was gonna hire him, Kirby hired him. So it kind of messes up your gameplan a little bit when you got all these guys out there because they kind of know who the guys that you had in the organization are the good ones.”

Lanning, a 37-year-old native of Missouri, started his collegiate coaching career at Pittsburgh before joining the Tide in 2015. After a year, Lanning moved to Memphis as the inside linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator. At the start of 2018, Alabama had three defensive coach openings.

Saban hired Pete Golding as co-defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach in late 2017. On Jan. 2, Lanning announced he had accepted a job as Smart’s outside linebacker coach. Karl Scott became Alabama’s secondary coach on Jan. 17, 2018, and Craig Kuligowski was named associate head coach and defensive line coach that February.

Lanning was quickly promoted to defensive coordinator in Athens a year later. He was part of Georgia’s first of two-straight national championships in 2021. Then, Lanning signed a six-year, $29.1 million contract with Oregon to become the Ducks head coach. Coincidentally, Lanning was replacing Mario Cristobal, another extension of Saban’s coaching tree.

After a 10-3 inaugural season, Lanning received an extension for $7-8 million per year. Lanning has a $20 million buyout.

RELATED: Who is Alabama’s left tackle? Saban says ‘both guys have shown promise’

Razorbacks OC, former Saban assistant Dan Enos returns for Alabama-Arkansas

Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].