Georgia football: Predicting UGA’s next Defensive Coordinator

With Mel Tucker heading to Colorado, Kirby Smart is looking for a new Defensive coordinator. Our writers make their guesses who it will be.

Now that Mel Tucker has moved on from Athens to take over as the head coach at Colorado, it’s time for Georgia fans to start pondering potential replacements for the Dawgs’ vacant defensive coordinator position. Tucker won’t be easy to replace as Georgia finished 12th, 6th and 21st in the country the last three seasons in total defense. Those numbers were also good enough for 4th (2016), 2nd (2017) and 3rd (2018) in the SEC. Tucker has also been a key recruiter and helped send players such as Roquan Smith and Lorenzo Carter to the NFL.

While also serving as the defensive backs coach, Tucker will almost assuredly have another first-round pick to add to his resume in senior corner Deandre Baker, who won the 2018 Thorpe Award for the nation’s best defensive back. All of this may make it sound as if Tucker is irreplaceable, but one thing that Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has proven is that he is capable of hiring quality assistant coaches. Internally our writers have been talking a lot about potential candidates and so far, we’ve landed on three main names.

What’s most exciting about all of these guys is that all of them coached 1st round draft picks last season. They all have a track record of putting guys into the league and that’s going to be a must for this school. Tucker had a proven NFL track record which UGA is going to miss but all of these guys can point at their resumes and show success. So let’s first start with the most likely potential internal hire in Glen Schumann.