Kirby Smart has overcome staff turnover before, can Georgia's head coach answer the challenge again?

The Georgia Bulldogs have lots of reasons to be the preseason favorite in 2024.

They bring back star quarterback Carson Beck, a loaded offensive line room and a young, tenacious defense plush with future NFL Draft picks like Malaki Starks, Mykell Williams and Jalon Walker.  

Kirby Smart just signed another No. 1 ranked recruiting class, and supplemented the roster with impact transfers like tailback Trevor Etienne, tight end Ben Yurosek and wideout London Humphreys, among others. 

The Bulldogs aren’t just the darlings of all the Way-Too-Early-Top 25 rankings, either. Even the advanced metrics are reading red and black. 

Georgia was such an outlier at No. 1 in Bill Connelly’s recent pre-spring SP+ data, that the ESPN analyst wrote “It’s Georgia and everyone else.”

Perhaps that proves true. 

But as Georgia aims to reclaim the throne as the king of college football in 2024, Kirby Smart must prove he can overcome a challenge he’s conquered before — again. 

On the bevy of assistant coaching changes at Georgia 

This has not been the quietest offseason for Georgia’s coaching staff.

Smart has seen a trio of his assistants get promotions elsewhere, while his close confidant Will Muschamp stepped down from his co-defensive coordinator post into a part-time analyst role.

Secondary coach Fran Brown became the head coach at Syracuse. Running backs coach Dell MeGee recently got the top job at Georgia State. Elsewhere, wideouts coach Bryan McClendon took a job in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

To fill the four spots, Georgia swiped Travaris Robinson away from Alabama to take the co-DC gig, while grabbing secondary coach Donte Williams from USC. On Monday, the Bulldogs officially announced their two new offensive hires, with former UGA assistant James Coley returning to Athens and Josh Crawford coming over from Georgia Tech. 

The last time Kirby Smart had to address at least four staff changes in a single offseason, Georgia won a second-straight national championship. 

So the Bulldogs’ bevy of assistant coaching turnover this offseason is not some foreign challenge for UGA’s head coach. 

But what made Smart’s mentor Nick Saban the ultimate GOAT was Saban’s unique ability to have the Midas touch when it came to replacing assistants. The brain-drain never came. The former Alabama head coach didn’t just get it right once when he had to face mass staff changes. He consistently nailed coordinator hires and assistant turnover. 

That’s Smart’s next challenge. He’s done it before. Now can he do it again?

There’s no reason to doubt he can’t, as the two-time national champion head coach has clearly had a keen eye for building his staffs. Only defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann remains from Smart’s inaugural 2016 staff at Georgia, but in the years since, the Kirby Smart coaching tree has proliferated all sorts of head coaching fruit. 

Shane Beamer. Mel Tucker. Sam Pittman. Dan Lanning. And now Brown and McGee. 

It’s impressive stuff.

What makes Georgia’s latest staff remake so interesting is how connected the previous group was, though.

After Georgia dismantled Oregon in the 2022 season opener — the very year Smart had four new assistants, plus hired his best friend Mike Bobo to an analyst role — UGA’s head coach called his staff “the best it’s ever been” because of the group’s “alignment.”

“We’ve always had a good staff, but we’ve got a really great staff right now in terms of guys enjoying the work together and putting plans together, and I thought they did a great job of doing that,” Smart explained.

“The buy-in of those four coaches, the alignment, the understanding of this program’s bigger than me and that I’ll sacrifice for the program. They understand their role.”

The only thing that changed last season was Bobo stepping into the offensive coordinator role when Todd Monken returned to the NFL. UGA went on to go 13-1, barely missing the College Football Playoff and then inking another top-ranked recruiting class. 

So there was little impetus for change. But change there has been, and now we’ll see if Smart has a similar Midas touch as Saban. 

It’s clear that he continues to believe that recruiting and talent acquisition remain the most important part of the job.

Robinson, Williams, Coley and Crawford are all extremely elite recruiters. At first glance, the addition of Crawford may be viewed as a strange fit considering the young assistant has never coached tailbacks. But he played running back at Moorehouse, and he is super-well connected in the Peach State having coached at five different Georgia high schools as he worked his way up the ladder. 

Some scoffed at the decision to bring Coley back to Georgia, too, but all Smart needs to do it point to recent hires like McClendon, Bobo and offensive line coach Stacy Searels, which were all seen as retread hires by some as well and they all worked out really well

Coley is a South Florida recruiting ace, and an excellent position coach who already understands the ins and outs of Smart’s program, so each individual hire makes sense.

The question will be staff chemistry and cohesion. Smart’s previous staff had it in spades, and look at the results. 

Will this one?