Though he may not have the longest tenure of any college football coach, Kirby Smart of Georgia is already building a coaching tree and dynasty that are unrivaled by most of his contemporaries. The former defensive back for the Bulldogs has won two SEC Championships and back-to-back national championships from 2021–22 in a comparatively short eight years as head coach. Only Nick Saban’s Alabama during the College Football Playoff era has accomplished the same feat.
Smart’s high hit rate with assistant coaches is a major factor in both Georgia’s success and consistency. Five of the previous assistants started taking on challenges at the major conference level after leaving for head coaching positions elsewhere. Two are still in SEC colleges.
Mel Tucker, the former Michigan State head coach, was Smart’s first hire after just three years. With the exception of the 2023–24 athletic cycle, a Georgia assistant has been appointed as a coach every cycle since 2019. Smart has a coaching tree that reaches from New York to Oregon, with a few stops along the way.
In order to make up for those losses, smart people typically move quickly and remain with well-known brands. Four of the seven assistants added to the team to replace those let go due to internal promotions. One of the three outside appointments is Matt Luke, a former coach who came to Georgia’s aid in 2020 as the offensive line’s leader following seven years at Ole Miss.
Now that Dell McGee, hired by Georgia State, has joined the fray, it seems fitting to take a retrospective look at the branches that Smart’s ever-expanding coaching tree has already produced.As part of Smart’s first coaching staff, Tucker oversaw defense. He remained with the Bulldogs until 2018, at which point he became the first assistant coach to advance to head coach under Smart. Although Tucker is most remembered for his stint at Michigan State, he was hired by Colorado in 2019 and played for the Buffaloes for one season, helping them to a 5-7 record and three Pac-12 victories, their most since 2016. However, Tucker left the team after just one season.
Under Tucker, the Spartans were at their best in 2021, finishing in the top 10 of the AP poll and winning the Peach Bowl to end a 10-2 regular season. But the Spartans were severely hurt by the loss of running back Kenneth Walker, winner of the Doak Walker Award. They finished 5-7 in 2022, and after accusations of sexual harassment surfaced, Tucker was dismissed two games into the 2023 campaign. Tucker hasn’t yet resumed any kind of coaching.
When Pittman joined Smart’s staff in 2016, he already had a good reputation as an offensive line coach, but it was his experience with the Bulldogs that helped him land his present job at Arkansas.
When Pittman took over the Razorbacks in 2020, they were a club that had lost two SEC championships under previous coach Chad Morris and hadn’t had a winning season in three years. Following a 3-7 performance in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, Pittman gave Arkansas’ program a rocket-propelled boost with a 9-4 2021 effort. Although Pittman’s 7-6 season in 2022 represented a small regression, it demonstrated steadiness, as the team went 2-0 in bowl games. Following a 4–8 2023 campaign, Pittman is now facing uncertainty over his future as he prepares for a pivotal 2024 cycle under offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino, a former Hogs coach.
Shane Beamer, the renowned head coach Frank Beamer’s son, led Georgia’s tight ends and special teams from 2016 to 2017. In the hopes that his relative freshness and enthusiasm would reinvigorate a moribund team, South Carolina hired Beamer, then 43, in 2021 after he left the Bulldogs in 2018 to assume an associate head coaching post at Oklahoma. Beamer’s recruiting efforts have undoubtedly been noted, and so far, he has done a decent job of maintaining South Carolina’s relevance in the bowl conversation.
Since Beamer took charge, the Gamecocks have produced top-25 signing classes in each of the last three complete cycles, and he has brought in three of the program’s top-10 ranked prospects ever. But in the face of a much more formidable SEC schedule, Beamer must lead the Gamecocks back to a bowl after a 5-7 2023, or else his seat may get a little toasty.
Unquestionably the most prosperous Smart disciple to date, Lanning’s rising coaching career is impressive. He worked as a graduate assistant at Alabama nine years ago.
After that, he worked for two seasons as Memphis’ inside linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator before Smart appointed Lanning, then thirty-two, as the outside linebackers coach in 2018. At the age of 35, Lanning became the youngest major conference coach when he was hired by Oregon in 2022 after being appointed defensive coordinator at Georgia in 2019. He’s won 22 games with the Ducks since then, including a Fiesta Bowl victory. With Lanning continuing to mature, Oregon is a good chance to contend for a berth in the 12-team postseason for many years to come.
With strong links to the Northeast, the New Jersey native was an assistant at Temple and Rutgers. In 2022–2023, Brown served as Georgia’s defensive backs coach, assisting the Bulldogs in carrying on the tradition of defensive brilliance started by their historic 2021 national championship-winning team. For the past two seasons, Georgia has averaged less than 220 yards passing per game. The Bulldogs will probably add a few defensive backs to their current roster this spring, considering they had two defensive backs taken in the 2023 NFL Draft. During the 2024 cycle, Brown was the top-ranked recruiter on 247Sports, serving as the main source for three five-star and four top-100 signees. He now gets his first opportunity as an Orange coach, going back to the area where he had a tooth cut.
McGee is by far the most recent coach to be hired, having grown up in Georgia. A product of the Peach State, he worked as an analyst at Auburn, his alma university, and attended a number of high schools in Georgia before accepting a position as an assistant coach at Georgia Southern. Following Willie Fritz’s departure as interim head coach, he guided the Eagles to victory in the 2015 GoDaddy Bowl. In 2016, he became an assistant head coach and running backs coach for the University of Georgia. Since 2019, he has taken on the role of run game coordinator and led one of the most successful and reliable rushing offenses in the country.
For the past three seasons, the Bulldogs have averaged at least 190 yards rushing, and McGee has routinely produced running backs who are selected in the NFL Draft. In addition, he’s a master recruiter and has frequently been Georgia’s go-to guy for some of the state’s greatest objectives. It’s realistic to anticipate success from his time at Georgia State given his growth history and strong links to the state.
