Former Georgia offensive line coach Matt Luke resigned from the Bulldogs’ program in February after two seasons with UGA.
The former Ole Miss head coach said he did what he came to Athens to accomplish — win a national championship.
A little over a month later, Luke decided it was time to step away from coaching to spend more time with his family.
During an interview on Monday with Dawgs247’s Rusty Mansell on the “Junkyard Podcast” (full video below), Luke went into further detail on why he resigned from coaching at the age of 45.
“Coaching football’s all I’ve ever done my entire life. From the time I graduated, I’ve been a ball coach. There’s a lot of fear, nervousness about it because you’ve never done anything else, but I just didn’t want to have any regrets,” Luke said. “My oldest son’s 14 and my youngest one’s 10, and I just didn’t want to have any regrets about seeing them grow up and being there.
“I’ve been blessed and fortunate in my career. Being able to go out winning a national championship — I told Kirby I would try to help him win one; it just happened a little faster than I thought.”
Smart took time to find Luke’s replacement, eventually settling on UNC’s Stacy Searels, who coached under Mark Richt at UGA from 2007-10.
Luke explained that part of what made the decision to step away from coaching so difficult was how well he was treated by Smart and the Georgia program. He also touched on the moment he made his players aware of his decision.
“It was a very tough decision, and what made it even harder was the way people treated me here from the time I got here in Athens — the way people treated me, the way Kirby and Mary Beth treated my family. Everybody was first class from the time I got here, and it made it a very, very tough decision,” Luke said.
“Probably the hardest thing was walking in that offensive line room talking to those players. But I do think when I said, hey, I’m not going anywhere else. My family and I, we’re going to stay here in Athens. I’m doing this for my family. And I think they appreciated that and respected that.”
What new offensive line coach Searels will do at Georgia remains to be seen, but he will have some pretty big shoes to fill. Georgia’s SEC blocking rankings over the last two years under Luke were very impressive:
Run block:
No. 4 in grade
No. 3 in EPA per play
No. 3 in Positive EPA %
EPA = expected points added (efficiency measure)
Pass block:
No. 1 – pass block grade
No. 1 – pass block efficiency (accounts for No. of PB snaps)
No. 1 – lowest pressure rate allowed
No. 2 – lowest knockdown percentage (sacks & hits vs. No. of snaps)
** Via Brett Rollins (PFF)
Watch the full interview with Mansell below.