There’s been no time for Kirby Smart to kick back and relax after his Georgia Bulldogs won the College Football Playoff national championship in January.
In addition to constant recruiting, Smart was tasked with hiring four new on-field assistant coaches to fill openings these past two months.
Smart’s hires include:
WR coach Bryan McClendon — replaces Cortez Hankton, who left for LSU
OL coach Stacy Searels — replaces Matt Luke, who retired after the season
DB coach Fran Brown —replaces Jahmile Addae, who went to Miami
OLB coach Chidera Uzo-Diribe —replaces Dan Lanning, who went on to become head coach at Oregon
Both McClendon and Searels are very familiar hires, as both coached at UGA under Mark Richt and have pre-existing relationships with Smart.
Smart mentioned that he sought advice from some of his seasoned assistants, and named Glenn Schumann, Tray Scott and Dell McGee as coaches who he discussed the hirings with throughout the process.
“We went through an interview process at every position,” Smart said. “We interviewed multiple people at each and every position, think about what’s the best overall for our program, for our culture we built here, take input from the coaches on the staff been here a long time, Dell McGee, Glenn Schumann. These guys have been part of our program. Tray Scott. They are the culture. We want people that want to be here and want to be part of that.
It’s very demanding what’s required of college coaches. You’ve seen guys move on to the NFL, seen guys step out, you’ve seen guys go onto other places, but it’s not going to ever change at the University of Georgia. The standard of excellence that you want to have in recruiting and spending time with your players, and these four people meet that criteria.
They’re also people I trust and some I’ve known, some I have not known. But the ones that we didn’t know we did a lot of research on and felt like they were best for the job.”
Here’s a look at the new hires in greater detail.