Georgia football: James Coley promoted to offensive coordinator

Georgia football ended their offensive coördinator search with James Coley, who served as assistant offensive coördinator in 2018.

The worst kept secret in Athens as been confirmed. James Coley, Georgia’s co-offensive coördinator and quarterbacks coach, accepted a promotion to replace Jim Cheney as the head offensive coördinator.

Since joining head coach Kirby Smart’s original coaching staff in 2016, Coley has climbed the ladder. He originally coached wide receivers before being given a $400,000 raise with his move to coaching quarterbacks and serving as co-offensive coördinator in 2018. The details of his compensation for his new position have not been released.

For Georgia football, this move is a no-brainer. The offense has been rolling recently. For the first time ever, Georgia had four different 1,000-yard rushers in two years. But the passing game has improved the most. The program increased passing yard totals in every season. Touchdown passes, completion percentages and quarterback ratings have also increased while interceptions have dropped each year.

Jake Fromm greatly benefited from Coley’s move to quarterbacks coach. He improved his completion percentage from 62.4 in 2017 to 67.2 this past year. His rise in percentage came with an increase in passes as well. And despite playing one less game in 2018. Fromm passed for 2,761 yards this year, up from 2,615 in 2017. Why would Georgia want to risk stifling that improvement by hiring from outside? Now’s not the time to start over from square-one.

Coley is also an elite recruiter, ranked no. 8 in the nation by 247Sports. His south Florida roots have improved invaluable time-and-time again at Georgia. He recently helped sign Miami’s Tyrique Stevenson, the no. 4 cornerback in the nation. Other south Florida stars signed since Coley’s been at Georgia include Kenny McIntosh (no. 10 running back of 2019), Nolan Smith (no. 1 player overall in 2019), Tyson Campbell (no. 1 cornerback of 2018), James Cook (no. 3 running back of 2018) among others.

With Coley’s promotion it remains to be seen if he’ll continue to serve as quarterbacks coach, though it’s very likely that he will. Georgia now just needs to hire a new tight ends coach to replace Cheney and the 2019 coaching staff will be set.