Kirby Smart coaching tree: Ranking every coach to come from Smart’s management
By John Buhler
Kirby Smart is developing quite the coaching tree not even a full decade into his run of dominance at Georgia.
Kirby Smart may be an outstanding head coach, but you cannot deny the great support he has had from his staff while leading Georgia.
The long-time Nick Saban assistant left Alabama for his alma mater in 2016. While his first year at the helm was a bit of a struggle, Smart has returned Georgia not only to glory, but taken the program to new heights. He was won back-to-back national titles, played for a third in 2017 and has had the Dawgs playing in a New Year’s Six bowl every holiday season since his second year.
While great assistants come and go, Smart’s ability to recalibrate a staff on the fly is almost as impressive as his recruiting and motivational chops. He has former head coaches on his staff currently in college friends Mike Bobo and Will Muschamp. Other top assistants such as Glenn Schumann, Bryan McClendon and Dell McGee could one day be leading their own college teams.
As of 2023, four former Smart assistants have gone on to lead their own programs. Here they are!
Kirby Smart coach tree: Ranking the head coaches who have served under him
Mel Tucker is a great defensive mind, but only has one great season in four years
Sincerely, I wish nothing but the best for Mel Tucker. He was Smart’s trusted defensive coordinator from 2016 to 2018. Tucker left Athens for Colorado, where he had a respectable 5-7 season for CU standards before getting a tremendous opportunity to replace Mark Dantonio at Michigan State. Given that Tucker served as a graduate assistant there under Nick Saban, he had to take it.
In four years as a college football head coach, Tucker is 23-21 overall. The good news for him is he had a fantastic 2021 season at Michigan State, one where the Spartans went 11-2 and won the Peach Bowl over ACC champion Pitt. The bad news is his three other seasons as a Power Five head coach are all of the sub-.500 variety, including this past year’s 5-7 disaster in the Big Ten.
Tucker is well-respected in the industry. Even if it doesn’t work out for him in East Lansing in the end, he could get pretty much any defensive coordinator job in the Power Five, as well as several in the NFL. Keep in mind he was the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars and Chicago Bears previously. Simply put, Tucker needs to win in the worst way this year.
Michigan State is not the easiest job in the world, but it is a top-15 job with now top-15 resources.