Georgia football: Kirby Smart pulling no punches with recent coaching hires

Georgia football hired Scott Cochran to coach special teams on Monday. Cochran spent the previous 12 years at Alabama as a strength and conditioning coach.

A mark of a great head coach is how they handle attrition within their staff.

It’s why Mark Richt was fired after the 2015 season. Poor personnel moves to hire Todd Grantham in 2010 and Brian Schottenheimer in 2015 prevented Georgia football from reaching its potential in the early 2010s.

While it’s too early to tell, as of right now, this is one area where it looks like Kirby Smart has Richt beat. In the last two months, Smart has filled three coaching vacancies left by offensive coordinator James Coley, offensive line coach Sam Pittman and special teams coach Scott Fountain. And all three replacements look like home run hires.

Smart first hired former Ole Miss head coach Matt Luke to take over the offensive line. If anyone is going to keep the success started by Pittman going, it’s Luke who was a solid offensive line coach at a few schools before becoming a head coach. Luke had two stints as offensive line coach at Ole Miss, bookending stints at Tennessee and Duke. He became head coach at Ole Miss in 2018.

Luke already has one game at Georgia under his belt. He coached in the Sugar Bowl and the new starting lineup looked outstanding in the win over Baylor considering the absences on the line.

Last month, Smart shook up the offensive staff by hiring offensive coordinator Todd Monken from the Cleveland Browns. Monken has 26 years of coaching experience in either Div. I college football or the NFL. He spent three years as head coach of the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles (2013-2015).

In 2015, his offense was electric featuring a 4,000-yard passer and two 1,000-yard rushers. The Eagles won the Conference USA Championship and Monken accepted another NFL assistant job at Tampa Bay after the season. In three seasons (2016-2018) in Tampa, Monken’s offenses improved every year and finished third in total yards his last season.

Smart filled the last position on Monday, hiring Alabama’s strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran to coach special teams. Cochran has never held an on-field position before, but he’s an intense coach who players respect and enjoy. Being on special teams means some key players on both sides of the ball will have close interactions with him.

Hiring two former head coaches is huge, especially one with Monken’s experience. Smart has always had good-to-great coaching staffs, but this is a big league staff. The inclusion of head coaches on offense answers some of Smart’s biggest criticisms; the claims he meddles too much in the offense. What better way to allow himself to step away from the offense than to hire two former head coaches?

Georgia football fans won’t see the results of these hires until football season begins in September, but a preview is coming in April. Spring practices begin next month and that means G-Day 2020 is right around the corner (Apr. 18).