Georgia announces Scott Cochran, Darrell Dickey resigned to pursue other opportunities
After reports surfaced earlier on Wednesday, the Georgia Bulldogs have announced special teams coordinator Scott Cochran and offensive analyst Darrel Dickey are no longer with the program.
According to a press release, the duo resigned to pursue other opportunities, and won’t be members of the Georgia football program any longer.
“Special teams coordinator Scott Cochran and offensive analyst Darrel Dickey have resigned to pursue other opportunities, the team announced Wednesday,” a press release read, shared to X (formerly known as Twitter) by Seth Emerson of The Athletic. “Kirk Benedict, who served on Kirby Smart’s staff as special teams analyst the last two seasons, will be promoted to special teams coordinator.”
Continuing, Georgia coach Kirby Smart provided a statement, thanking the two men for their contributions to the program.
“I want to thank Scott and Darrel for their contributions to Georgia football,” Smart said, via press release. “We wish them all the best moving forward.”
In the past, Cochran has stepped away from the team for lengthy amounts to time to deal with personal issues in the past, but Kirby Smart’s belief in his friend and longtime assistant never wavered.
Moving forward, it’s evident Cochran and Dickey are looking for opportunities elsewhere, and it remains to be seen where they end up.
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Moreover, Cochran originally stepped away from his position temporarily to deal with personal issues prior to Georgia’s 2021 national title run. Then, in July of 2022, months after returning to Athens from his absence, the longtime friend and co-worker of Smart revealed his battle with addiction in the past, sharing he was at the time one year sober.
At the following SEC Media Days, Kirby Smart reaffirmed his commitment to helping Scott Cochran through his personal issues as a member of the Georgia staff. While it weighed heavily on him and the players, knowing that his well-being was put first became most important.
“We commit to having conversations,” said Smart. “And the commitment to Scott (Cochran) was that he’s committed to our program and getting better. You look at what he’s done with our players, I don’t think you’d find – we have a lot of exceptional people in our organization, Jonas Jennings, Brian Gant, Scott Sinclair, I could go on forever – but Scott Cochran spends a tremendous amount of time with our players on a personal level. And they value the relationship that he creates with them. He spends time with them, meaningful time with them.
“I think a lot of our players saw the human side with Scott, and that we all know addiction is real. It probably affected me as the leader of the organization for the first time to have someone on your staff be involved with that. And I got a lot of help from outside sources on how to do it.”
Evidently, Kirby Smart holds Scott Cochran in high regard, but his time with the Bulldogs has ended ahead of the 2024 campaign.