Georgia coach Kirby Smart may not be the most tenured college football boss, but he’s already establishing a dynasty — and a coaching tree — unmatched by most of his peers. In a relatively short eight years as a head coach, the former Bulldogs defensive back has already won two SEC titles and back-to-back national championships from 2021-22, a feat matched only by Nick Saban’s Alabama during the College Football Playoff era.
Smart’s success, and Georgia’s consistency, can be largely attributed to his high hit rate with assistant coaches. Six former assistants have left for head coaching jobs elsewhere, five of which embarked on challenges at the power conference level. Two are still at schools in the SEC.
It took Smart just three years to produce his first coach in the form of former Michigan State boss Mel Tucker. Since 2019, a Georgia assistant has been hired as a coach in every single athletic cycle except for 2023-24. Smart’s coaching tree extends coast to coast, from New York to Oregon and several stops in between.
Smart usually works fast to replace those losses and tends to stick with a name he knows. Of the seven total assistants brought on to replace those lost to othert jobs, four have been internal promotions. The three external hires include a former coach in Matt Luke, who joined Georgia’s staff in 2020 to lead the offensive line after seven total years at Ole Miss.
With Dell McGee, who was hired at Georgia State, becoming the latest entry, it felt appropriate to look back and track the branches that have already sprouted from Smart’s ever-growing coaching tree.
Mel Tucker
Tucker served as defensive coordinator on Smart’s inaugural staff and stayed with the Bulldogs through 2018 before becoming the first assistant of Smart’s to move up the ranks to head coach. Though he’s known for his time at Michigan State, Tucker was hired at Colorado in 2019 and spent one season with the Buffaloes, guiding them to a 5-7 finish with three wins in the Pac-12 — their most since 2016 — before jumping ship after one season. The Spartans reached their peak under Tucker in 2021, capping a 10-2 regular season with a win in the Peach Bowl and a top-10 finish in the AP poll. But the loss of Doak Walker Award-winning running back Kenneth Walker hit the Spartans hard. They dropped to 5-7 in 2022 and Tucker was fired two games into the 2023 season after allegations of sexual harassment became public. Tucker has yet to return to coaching in any capacity.
Pittman had quite a reputation as an offensive line coach when he joined Smart’s staff in 2016, but it was his time with the Bulldogs that propelled him to his current position at Arkansas. Pittman took over the Razorbacks in 2020, inheriting a team that hadn’t posted a winning season in three years and went winless in the SEC in two seasons under former coach Chad Morris. After a 3-7 showing in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, Pittman strapped a rocket-propelled booster to Arkansas’ program with a 9-4 2021 effort. A 7-6 2022 season was a slight step back, but it showed stability and Pittman improved to 2-0 in bowl games. Now, after a 4-8 2023 season, Pittman enters a crucial 2024 cycle with former Hogs coach Bobby Petrino as the offensive coordinator and questions about Pittman’s future swirling.
The son of legendary head coach Frank Beamer, Shane Beamer coached tight ends and special teams at Georgia from 2016-17. He left the Bulldogs in 2018 to take an assistant head coaching position at Oklahoma and remained there until 2021, when South Carolina hired the then 43-year old Beamer with the hopes that his relative youth and energy would revitalize a stagnant program. So far, Beamer has done a good job of keeping South Carolina in the bowl conversation, and his recruiting efforts certainly haven’t gone unnoticed. The Gamecocks have posted top-25 signing class in each of the three full cycles since Beamer has taken over, and he’s netted three of the top-10 highest rated recruits in program history. After a 5-7 2023, though, Beamer needs to get the Gamecocks back to a bowl amid an even more competitive SEC slate or his seat could start to warm some.
Dan Lanning, Oregon
Inarguably the most successful Smart acolyte thus far, Lanning’s ascendant coaching career is something to behold. Nine years ago, he was a graduate assistant at Alabama. Then he spent two seasons as the inside linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator at Memphis before Smart hired Lanning, at 32 years old, to coach outside linebackers in 2018. Lanning was named defensive coordinator at Georgia in 2019, and in 2022 he was hired at Oregon, becoming the youngest power conference coach at the age of 35. Since then, he’s won 22 games with the Ducks and already has a Fiesta Bowl win under his belt. Oregon is a safe bet to compete for a spot in the 12-team playoff for years to come as Lanning steadily grows.
The New Jersey native is a former Temple and Rutgers assistant with deep ties to the Northeast. Brown coached defensive backs at Georgia in 2022-23, helping the Bulldogs continue a run of defensive excellence established with their historic 2021 national championship-winning squad. Georgia has averaged fewer than 220 yards passing per game in each of the last two seasons. The Bulldogs had two defensive backs selected in the 2023 NFL Draft and will likely add at least a handful to that total this spring. Brown was 247Sports’ top-ranked recruiter during the 2024 cycle as the primary recruiter for three five-star and four top-100 signees. Now he gets his first shot as a coach with the Orange, returning to the region where he cut his teeth.
Dell McGee, Georgia State
The most recent coaching hire, period, McGee is a Georgia coach through and through. A native of the Peach State, he spent time at various high schools in Georgia and was an analyst at Auburn — his alma mater — before taking an assistant coaching job at Georgia Southern. He led the Eagles to a win in the 2015 GoDaddy Bowl as interim coach after Willie Fritz left and joined Georgia’s staff in 2016 as assistant head coach and running backs coach. He added run game coordinator to his list of responsibilities since 2019 and has since guided one of the nation’s most prolific and consistent rushing attacks. The Bulldogs have averaged at least 190 yards rushing in each of the last three seasons, and McGee has consistently produced NFL Draft picks at running back. He’s also an ace recruiter and has often served as the point man for some of Georgia’s biggest targets. Given his track record of development and deep ties to Georgia, it’s reasonable to expect success from his Georgia State tenure.
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