Coaching trees are not everything, but they are something. Many of the best coaches across all sports have one tremendous protege after another thriving after serving under them. Even though Kirby Smart is only entering Year 10 leading his alma mater of Georgia, his coaching tree is already starting to blossom. People tend to forget all the great assistants who have served under him before.
For starters, the most prominent branches stemming off Smart's coaching tree are Dan Lanning at Oregon, Shane Beamer at South Carolina, and Sam Pittman at Arkansas. Fran Brown enters Year 2 leading Syracuse. While Mel Tucker is persona non grata in the college football landscape, he did have that one great year at Michigan State. Dowell Loggains branched off Beamer this offseason, too.
So, while Smart's increasingly robust coaching tree begins to fully take root across college football, why is it that his most loyal assistant has yet to leave? Defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann is firmly in his mid-30s, having followed Smart from his alma mater of Alabama to join his first staff at Georgia in 2016. He has been a defensive coordinator in some fashion for Georgia since 2019, folks.
For as much praise as Schumann got all last offseason, his name hardly came up at all this summer.
Glenn Schumann may not have the personality to be a college head coach
In time, this may be proven oh so horribly wrong, but Schumann does not give off the vibes of other assistants that have served under Smart before. He is a bit soft-spoken, something that could never be said about boisterous former assistants like Beamer and Pittman. Brown was even able to skip the line to lead the Orange as a position coach because he is an elite talent evaluator and leader of men.
Throughout Schumann's tenure at Georgia, it has almost sort of come across that Smart is propping him up to prove a point. Again, not everybody can be a head coach at this level, and that is totally fine. However, someone who has held a premium position at a premium program like Georgia for this long should have been able to lead his own team by now. It might come in 2026, but we are still waiting.
For now, Schumann must avoid the same sort of issues that plagued Eric Bieniemy as a part of Andy Reid's offensive staff with the Kansas City Chiefs. Who is really calling the shots here? As far as where Schumann could conceivably go, what if it does not work out for Mark Stoops in Lexington? Former Ketuncky linebacker Jon Sumrall may be the first call, but what he does not want to come home now?
Schumann to Kentucky could happen, but that does not exactly inspire a ton of confidence either.