Georgia football: Jim Chaney’s departure both good and bad

The Good:

UGA has more important coaches on staff that need to be retained.

Look, as good as Jim Chaney is, the fact is that UGA has more valuable coaches on its staff and they need to be rewarded more than Chaney. The money that Chaney has been offered is frankly incredible. $1.7 million a season, and there are rumors of a substantial pension when he decides to retire from what will likely be his final job. Georgia couldn’t justify matching that sort of money for a coach who is quite frankly, the 4th most important coach on his side of the ball on this team.

Dell McGee, Sam Pittman, and James Coley are all more important to UGA than Jim Chaney. Look at how well they have all recruited over the past couple of years. Not only that, but look at the development that we have seen from the positions that they have coaches. McGee and Pittman are quite frankly the best of the best at what they do and Coley is an Alpha recruiter for both sides of the ball. Want to know how Georgia signed Tyrique Stevenson away from Miami despite not having a secondary coach on staff? James freaking Coley people, thats how. These three guys are absolutely critical to the long term success of Georgia and they need to be retained no matter what.

You know what doesn’t retain assistant coaches like that? Paying a coordinator $1.7 million and them less than half of that. They will quite rightly want to go elsewhere if they feel like they aren’t being respected and even while we might see $500k a year for Dell McGee as being a lot of money, it’s fair for him to think that he’s not one-third of the coach that Chaney is.

Even with all of the support that Kirby Smart has, the fact is that there is not a bottomless pot of money in Athens. He can’t suddenly pay all of his assistants over $1 million a year and the contract Chaney was offered was frankly out of whack with the current market. Kirby can and likely will use those resources to keep the rest of his very good staff together and will likely promote from within at the OC position.

Some tweaks on offense wouldn’t hurt.

As good as Chaney was as a play caller, he wasn’t flawless. He stubbornly stuck to his game plans at times and in each of the Dawgs 5 losses the past two years, he made substantial mistakes. Like I said earlier, he’s a fantastic game planner, but he struggles at adapting in a game when other teams have prepared well and he doesn’t often seem to have an effective plan B. That’s something that UGA needs going forward because frankly, it’s just necessary against the top teams.

I don’t know if James Coley will be any better. Nobody does and we’re going to have to wait and see if Kirby brings in somebody else to give him a hand. But the fact is that Georgia needs to make some tweaks to an otherwise great offense. Why they don’t use the screen game remains a mystery and there are more creative ways to get playmakers in space than they often use. Hopefully, a new play caller can find them.

Tennessee could suffer from its own coaches down the line.

I’m not going to rip the Vols for this hire. As I said before, I think it’s a good one for them and I give Pruitt a lot of credit for poaching a guy from a rival. That being said, he now has to deal with the same issue I mentioned regarding his salary. He’s paying Chaney insane money and he’s doing that despite the fact that Chaney is not going to be an Alpha coach like Dave Aranda.

If I’m Kevin Sherrer, who coached with Chaney for 2 years in Athens, the first thing I’m doing is marching into Pruitt’s office and demanding a raise. Sherrer is making less than half what Chaney makes and he’s also the best recruiter on the Vols staff. Theres absolutely no reason that Sherrer should be making less than $1.2 million if this is the new reality for Vols coaches. That would be more than 50% pay raise and frankly, he’s not the only one who should be demanding more. Sherrer isn’t even making the most money on his side of the ball, his OLB coach Chris Rumph makes $100k a year more than he does which is quite frankly ridiculous.

Brian Neidermeyer, the tight ends coach is young and comes from the Alabama tree. He’s only making $200k right now, which is a pittance compared to Chaney. The same can be said for Charles Kelly, their secondary coach who is making $330k. I get that this is a lot of money for us in the real world, but thanks to the Chaney deal, in that locker room, it’s now absolutely nothing.

This is going to be a challenge for Pruitt to manage. Ego is one thing but money is another and right now, he’s got a clear class system with his coaches. If his athletic department opens up their checkbook and doubles everyone’s salary then that’s fine, but there is no indication right now that is going to happen. If it doesn’t then he’s vulnerable to losing young coaches like Neidermeyer who are young and undervalued in his program. That’s not a good thing for him, but it is good for Georgia because Pruitt doesn’t strike me a guy who manages internal strife particularly well…