Over Kirby Smart’s entire, exceptional eight-year tenure at Georgia he’s relied on Dell McGee to coach the running backs. But with a head coaching opportunity suddenly opening up for him, McGee is taking it.
According to Seth Emerson of The Athletic, McGee is leaving Georgia to become the new head coach at Georgia State. The Panthers job opened up last week when head coach Shawn Elliott abruptly resigned to become the tight ends coach at South Carolina.
McGee spent the last eight seasons with the Bulldogs, with the first three serving as assistant head coach & running backs coach, and the last five as the run game coordinator & running backs coach.
McGee has one game of college head coaching experience under his belt, serving as interim head coach for the Georgia Southern Eagles for the 2015 GoDaddy Bowl. He also has eight years of high school coaching experience from working at Carver-Columbus High School in Georgia.
McGee got his first college football coaching opportunity at Auburn – his alma mater – in 2013 as an analyst under Gus Malzahn. He parlayed that one year into a two-year run at Georgia Southern before being hired by Smart for his first Georgia Bulldogs staff in 2016.
Losing Dell McGee so suddenly and this late into the hiring cycle is no small blow to the Georgia Bulldogs. Kirby Smart is suddenly without one of his most experienced lieutenants overseeing one of his team’s most essential positions.
Who should the Bulldogs hire to replace him?