As things stand now, only two of Georgia’s coaches in bowl practice next week and in the Jan. 2 bowl game will be sticking around the next day: Defensive assistants Kevin Sherrer and Tracy Rocker.
The offensive staff is experiencing a complete housecleaning: McClendon is leaving for South Carolina, running backs coach Thomas Brown is going to Miami, offensive line coach Rob Sale is going to Louisiana-Monroe (according to 247Sports), and tight ends coach John Lilly has already cleaned out his office, according to two people familiar with Georgia’s program.
Lilly turned down a chance to join re-join Mark Richt in Miami, said one of those with knowledge of the situation.
The other full-time assistant coach on Georgia’s offense this year, quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, is already gone, not coaching in the bowl after his job was filled by Jim Chaney…
When in the course of one season you fall from 37th to 76th in total offense, from 7th to 30th in offensive yards per play and from 8th to 84th in scoring offense, it’s obvious that a lot of the blame for that has to fall on the coaching staff. (And, yes, that includes the guy who thought bringing Schottenheimer in was a good idea.) Sure, losing Chubb for much of the season didn’t help production, but you can’t lay all of the dramatics on that.
Given that, it’s hard to get choked up too much by the departures. Let’s just hope Smart and Chaney have some good replacements in the pipeline coming.