Georgia State hired Dell McGee, the longtime running backs coach at Georgia, to be its new head coach, the school announced Friday night.
McGee was one of two assistants who had been with Kirby Smart since the start at Georgia in 2016. McGee was also a championship-winning high school coach. Now at 53, he gets his long-awaited first head-coaching job at the college level.
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The Georgia State job opened suddenly on Feb. 15, when Shawn Elliott took the tight ends coaching job at South Carolina, where he had been before going to Georgia State in 2015. Georgia State had already begun spring practice.
Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner and Texas A&M running backs coach Trooper Taylor also interviewed this week, a school source told The Athletic.
𝗔 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗥𝗔 𝗕𝗘𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗦! 🔥
We are excited to announce @DellMcGee as the 4th Head Coach of the Georgia State Football program!#LightItBlue | #SoundTheHorn pic.twitter.com/TG9TE4TnFR
— GSU Football (@GeorgiaStateFB) February 24, 2024
What McGee brings to Georgia State
Georgia State is still a relatively new program, beginning in 2010 as an FCS program and then moving up to the Sun Belt and FBS three years later. Elliott guided the Panthers to five winning records in seven seasons, although never better than 8-5.
Given the number of FBS-level recruits in the state, Georgia State is banking on McGee’s ability to recruit but also his leadership and organizational skills, gleaned from his time as a high school head coach and working under Smart.
McGee spoke before the 2022 season about his eventual hope to be a head coach and how his time at Georgia had prepared him, which included sometimes putting him in charge when Smart isn’t in the building, and having him speak in front of the team and offensive staff.
“Coach Smart has done everything as a mentor that you could do as a head coach and assistant coach. He’s very, very positive when it comes to his assistants moving on,” McGee said. “We’ve had several assistants who have moved on to become head coaches and being a part of his pedigree is very special to me. But my main job is being the best running backs coach I can here. I feel like I am a head coach every single day, because I am in charge of the running backs and the special teams areas I’m in charge of, and I take all my jobs seriously, just like a head coach.”
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McGee’s son Austin is a cornerback at Georgia State.
What this means for Georgia
McGee leaves institutional knowledge and a long list of recruits he helped pull for Georgia. There were running backs — D’Andre Swift, Kendall Milton, Zamir White — but also Justin Fields, Mykel Williams and Broderick Jones.
Georgia could move quickly to replace him. A school source told The Athletic that the Bulldogs were already talking to Arkansas running backs coach Jimmy Smith about the opening at wide receivers coach, so it would make sense to try to hire him for McGee’s job.
Smith would bring extensive contacts in the state and Atlanta, having been an assistant and then head coach at Cedar Grove High from 2007 to 2018. Smith then left, appropriately, to become the running backs coach at Georgia State.
Smart appeared to be closing in on the wide receivers coach opening, which came when Bryan McClendon left for the same job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. One name to watch there is Josh Crawford, Georgia Tech’s receivers coach, who also has extensive high school coaching experience in the state. Crawford, who went to Morehouse, was at five different Georgia schools for 11 years before going into the college ranks.
These openings on Georgia’s staff came after what was setting up to be another quiet offseason for Georgia’s staff. Last year, the only departure was offensive coordinator Todd Monken leaving for the NFL. Mike Bobo was promoted to replace him. But Smart has ended up having four openings.
Defensive backs coach Fran Brown became the head coach at Syracuse and was replaced by Donte Williams, who had been the cornerbacks coach at Southern California.
Will Muschamp (who was co-defensive coordinator and cornerbacks coach) stepped back into an analyst role. That made room for Travaris Robinson, who was hired off Nick Saban’s old staff at Alabama, and Robinson resisted overtures to stay on Kalen DeBoer’s staff.
(Photo: Jeffrey Vest / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)