If the Chaney hire is met with a lack of total enthusiasm from the Georgia fan base, my guess is that Smart’s other move will not be greeted in such a lukewarm manner.
Per Otis Kirk at Hawgs247, Kirby Smart has tabbed Arkansas offensive line coach Sam Pittman to work with new offensive coordinator Jim Chaney.
According to Kirk, Pittman turned down a similar offer to stay, only taking a $25,000 raise to leave for Georgia.
Pittman is considered one of the premier offensive line coaches and recruiters in the country, and also held the title of associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at Arkansas.
Pittman has coached two first-round picks along the offensive line in the past two years, and has been in charge of a unit that has allowed the fewest sacks in the SEC for four-straight seasons – 1.00 sacks per game in 2015, 1.08 sacks per game in 2014, 0.67 sacks per game in 2013 and 0.67 sacks per game in 2012.
In 2014, Arkansas offensive linemen did something no other unit in the country was able to accomplish, helping block for a pair of 1,000-yard rushers.
That appears to be a home run hire. On paper at least, Pittman is the best offensive line coach Georgia’s had in a couple of decades. Plus, he appears to be an above-average recruiter. If Kirby got this hire right, it could fix one of the consistent weak points of the Richt era.
I think I’m excited.
Get The Picture 
Hopefully, this will help fix one of UGA’s most glaring problems.
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YES! I have no problem playing defense and then letting our O-line wear the other team out. Those massive offensive lineman at Arkansas have been the absolute anchor of that team and Bert should have kept his mouth shut when we took a run at his OC. Good luck replacing Pittman
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Didn’t Pittman and Chaney used to work together?
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Pittman a lot older than our last 3 OLine coaches and was being paid well at Arkansas. He’s been all over the map too. He doesn’t need OTJ training.
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And yet he agreed to come to Georgia for only 25,000 more. He must have really loved Bert.
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One article stated he and Chaney had worked together in the past. The speculated that this was a package deal. I will take a vanilla OC to have a superstar line coach. I would suspect that Pittman and Chaney will have more tools in the toolbox at UGA than they have had at any other stop. It is amazing how much smarter you look when you have 5 star talent to work with.
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If we really do have Eason, and can add Nauta….. 🙂
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The tip for recruiting Nauta is showing him clips of Hunter Henry at Arkansas (I remember he ate us alive when Arkansas nearly got back in the game after trailing by 31 at the half last season.)
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Kirby mentioned getting bigger, well with these two hires we definitely got bigger, both these dudes pushing 300+
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Yup, pictures don’t lie. LOL.
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I would say dragging 300 +, not pushing it. Both would probably field dress about 280.
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Great hire. Happy the pieces are starting to fall into place. As someone stated previously, I knew once the Senator left the country the wheels would start turning. Thanks, Bluto.
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Maybe the Senator would schedule a vacation….ah, never mind.
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You meant a longer one until 2017. LOL.
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It seems to me the notable thing about this hire is that Kirby has recent direct experience with Pittman’s product, on the field. Not so recent, but this is also true of Chaney. If I a DC, I’d like to have people that gave my defense a hard time on my staff when I moved to the head office.
I’m told the Kharmic Bitchez do not care for either of these hires. 😀
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It’s exactly why Richt hired Van Gorder, That worked out pretty well.
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For a while.
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As will these work for awhile😴
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The weird sense of deja vu will get even weirder when Bama plays OU later on…
Meanwhile, if we are hoping for anyone else to come over from Bama’s staff, if Smart could somehow convince Billy Naiper to take the lateral move to be WR coach here, that’d be huge.
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From what I’ve been reading in the Senator’s links, either hire is solid. But together it’s a home run.
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That’s the key. And have worked together in the past, unlike, say, Sale/Schotty.
200+ ypg/rushing both years at Arkansas even though Allen was inexperienced and not that great at the time is really impressive.
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CKS seems to be hiring on the side of experience over exuberance. I’m good with it. Hiring assistant coaches is probably more about personality and fit than scheme.
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Love it. LOVE it. Games are won on the line of scrimmage.
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Good bye Sale and your crappy zone blocking schemes. Best hire by Smart now let’s get some big uglies…
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Sale had done a good job recruiting big uglies remember he was working with the kids already recruited.
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And somehow made them worse
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The frequency of zone blocking was on Shotty, not Sale. When watching a game, it looked like Shotty had a six sided die he used to call plays that said:
Inside Zone
Inside Zone
Inside Zone
Roll again, if Inside Zone call B-gap ISO, otherwise call Bubble Screen
Wildcat, Roll again, if Inside Zone, run zone-read else jet-sweep read
Other!
If Sale had anything to contribute is would have been not teaching the OL to zone block well. IIRC, Sale comes from the Stacy Searels school of “block just long enough”.
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If…Your Oline and Dline coaches are beasts like say,a Tracy Rocker or a Chris Rumph or maybe a Sam Pittman you are ready kick ass and take names. The best Oline hire since cavemen.
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And Radi Nabulsi tweeted earlier today that Sherrer is likely to be named DC. This would make sense as I posted yesterday that rumors were he was gonna hire a young guy he could groom for a couple of years before turning the D over. Wouldn’t mind seeing BMac and Rocker retained as well but we’ll see. If Kirby wants to bring Napier over from Bama, I’d say that means no room for BMac unless either he or Napier were willing to take over the TE’s.
But Pittman coaching on one side and Rocker on the other would be a nice combo to address our LOS issues.
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Rev, you have touched on my biggest concern. We had a defensive staff that was pretty damn good and a D which had become the strength of the team that, to borrow a phrase, got “thrown out with the bath water.” I understand the fascination with trying to repair the broken O but dammit why do we have to fix something that isn’t broken. I smell McGarity in all this, denials by CKS notwithstanding. I’m still pissed that they ran Pruitt off. Back to starting over on D with a new DC and D staff–how can that be good for next season?
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We need Scott Cochran to come on board, I believe that the line of scrimmage is the most important area on field. Except QB
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I gotta say. I have been so down on Richt and the Dawgs for so long where I cheered my ass off for my team and got let down (IMHO) too many times that now, my head might just explode from optimism. I have not been this excited as a Dawg in a while.
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As an old offensive lineman, hiring one of the best OL coaches in the country makes me smile. I was never all that thrilled with our seeming lack of focus on developing big time O-linemen under Richt.
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Pittman is a better hire on paper than Stacy Searels was? I remember schools trying to poach that guy every year.
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SS never really produced and can you really say he has produced since leaving UGA? Pittman has produced elsewhere and at the end of the day, our O-Line play has been horrible for more than just a few years. There is a reason the only thing we really lost when SS left was just a good recruiter, but really by the point he left our staff had become pretty good recruiters.
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At the end of the day, we have 1 more year of Chubb and Michel, then we have 2 more great backs coming next year. Those guys will shine if we can get an O-line that is better at any level then our current line.
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Can Pittman and Kirby teach our lineman how to hold without getting caught? Like Alabama’s been doing for years.
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Sometimes they held, most of the time they just ran everybody over.
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Pittman didn’t have a non-compete clause like the Arkansas OC? Bert be bummin’.
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Both hires look solid, and Pittman looks like a home run. Good job, Kirby. Now go get the QB.
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I totally misread the articles about Kirby wanting to make the team bigger at certain positions. I guess looking at the new staffing hires, it’s not limited to the students.
I think we just found Todd Grantham’s doppelganger.
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I will enjoy 3rd and 1 now instead of fearing it.
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