"Who would you rank as the coaches most important to UGA's success?"
A DawgsCentral user posting under the name PiousMonken posed that question to me in the spring of 2023, and I quickly realized that a good answer would require quite a bit of consideration.
When thinking about the question, I kept coming back to an old football cliche, "It's not the X's and the O's, but the Jimmys and the Joes that make the difference." I found myself considering the players who suit up on Saturdays. Good gameplans and great play calls are key to the success of any college football program, but they are usually only as good as the personnel executing them. With that in mind, I decided to broaden the scope of the rankings beyond members of the coaching staff.
It sparked a series of longform articles called 23 For 2023. The premise was simple- Profile the 23 people who were most important to Georgia’s success on the gridiron in 2023. To create such a list, one must make value judgments on what on and off-field assets are most important to a modern college football program.
It focused on players and coaches within the UGA program. Collectively, the series served as a giant preview for the season ahead. It became a favorite of subscribers, and it forced me to ask questions that I hadn’t before.
This year, I am bringing the list back once again. Naturally, it will be called 24 for 2024.
With his former mentor now manning a microphone on ESPN, Kirby Smart is college football’s most accomplished coach. In 2024, Smart will have to navigate significant staff turnover and seismic changes within the sport itself. Georgia came up short of a third straight national championship in 2023, but winning it all this season would give the Bulldogs three titles in four years. That achievement would cement the program as a modern dynasty.
Whether or not Georgia can reach that lofty pedestal, and how they go about trying to do it, will be largely influenced by the roles these 24 individuals play.
Today we continue the rankings with #6 and #5. Let’s get after it…
Previous Entries
#23 - Will a True Nose Tackle emerge for the Dawgs?
#16 - Trevor Etienne + #15 - Josh Crawford
#14 - Daniel Harris + #13 - Donte Williams
#12 - Earnest Greene + #11 Stacy Searels
#10 - Malaki Starks + #9 -Travaris Robinson
#8 - Mykel Williams + #7 - Tray Scott
#6 - Colbie Young + #5 - James Coley
Miami transfer WR Colbie Young's first visit to Athens stayed mostly under the radar. We here at DawgsCentral broke the intel first, but many Georgia fans shrugged Young off as just one of many portal visitors who were likely to come through the Classic City before ultimately ending up elsewhere.
Young was different though. He only visited Athens and Happy Valley before choosing Georgia over Penn State. Why did it matter? In Young, the Dawgs got a type of wideout that they didn't currently have on the roster. His addition could bring a previously missing element back to the Georgia offense.
Young was the seventh ranked JUCO wideout in the 2022 cycle before committing to Miami and enrolling in Coral Gables in June of that year. Do you want size on the boundary? If so, Young is your kind of guy. He has a frame that is a legit 6'5" and he weighs in at 215 pounds. His stats are not totally eye-popping on the surface, and that's probably why his addition wasn't a bigger story at first, but there are some indicators that point to Young having the potential for a breakout season if he is paired with the right quarterback.
He had 63 targets with 47 receptions for 574 yards and 5 touchdowns at Miami in 2023. That is a 74.6 percent reception rate, which was the highest of any Miami wideout who played consistent snaps last season. The other intriguing thing about Young was his 64.7 percent contested catch rate in 2022. He pulled down 11 out of his 17 receptions contested catch opportunities, which was a higher percentage than anyone on UGA's 2023 roster. Young's 11 contested receptions was four more than Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint's 7, which led the 2023 Bulldogs.
Hard to answer
After Georgia’s 51-13 win over Kentucky in Athens this season, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was asked about the play of WR Rara Thomas. The UGA wideout had five receptions for 63 yards and an acrobatic touchdown catch in the win over the Wildcats. Smart answered the question by talking about the challenges a good contested catch receiver can create for a defense.
“It loosens your whole defense up when you’ve got a guy at X that can win some one-on-ones… Because there are a lot of answers you can have, it’s hard to answer if the guy can go up and catch the ball one-on-one.”
Smart succinctly explains why he believes his offense needs big bodies at the X position. When UGA got the commitment from Young it looked like they were going to have two, but the summer dismissal of Rara Thomas adds even more importance to the presence of the Miami transfer.
Young could be a weapon high-pointing the ball on contested throws both along the boundary and in the end zone. His combination of size and height means he is never truly covered by one defender. Put simply, Young doesn’t need separation to make big plays.
The height and size that Young has is coupled with better speed than you might expect. Don’t sleep on his ability after the catch. He isn’t just shifty for his size. He is shifty for any receiver. Normally one thinks of a smaller receiver being on the end of screen passes from the quarterback, but Young had 12 catches behind the line of scrimmage in 2023, and he averaged 11.1 yards after the catch per reception on those plays. Young forced 10 missed tackles with the ball in his hands last season. The only UGA player with more missed tackles forced after the catch in 2023 was Brock Bowers. The star tight-end had 18 missed tackles forced, but no receiver on the Georgia roster had more than 7.
When you consider the amount of weapons that UGA will have surrounding Carson Beck next year, Young could find himself in some situations where forcing one missed tackle after the catch might allow him to break into space and score a touchdown.
Georgia’s 12-0 season ended in a three-point loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship. The Dawgs were missing starting x-receiver Rara Thomas that day. WR Ladd McConkey and TE Brock Bowers were both playing on injured ankles that kept them from running routes as effectively as usual. Georgia’s pass catchers struggled to create separation against an elite group of DB's, and it ultimately cost UGA a chance to win a third straight title.
With Young on the roster, the Dawgs will have a true X body type to isolate one-on-one on the boundary. Against the best secondaries Georgia plays, Young’s contested catch ability could be a massive asset to Carson Beck and the passing game. Young played over 25% of his receiving snaps while lined up in the slot in 2022. He wasn't targeted often during those snaps, but his familiarity sliding inside could be valuable if UGA finds itself struggling to create separation again. Young could give Carson Beck a big target who can wall off defenders with his size when Georgia needs a slant converted on 3rd & 6.
Young’s physical tools are what you would want if you were drawing up a boundary receiver in a lab. His size, speed, and aerial ability bring lots of interesting possibilities to the Georgia offense, and the buzz around him has been consistent since he arrived in Athens for spring practice. He made an impressive TD catch against CB Julian Humphrey on G-Day, walling off the corner and using his size to make himself the only player with a chance to grab the ball. Early in fall camp a source shared that Young might be the most improved player on the team from fall to spring.
Scheme flexibility
Even before coming to Georgia, Young has shown the ability to make plays against different defensive looks. His size gives him an advantage against man coverage, but he actually feasted on zones in 2023. He saw 31 TGT/27 REC for 399 YDS and 2 TD's while averaging 14.8 yards per catch against zone. That 87.1% target to reception ratio would be impressive in any offense, but it is particularly impressive considering Miami's QB struggles last season.
Those numbers tell us that Young isn't just a big body who is posting up defenders. Young is a savvy route runner with field awareness and he knows when to sit down in a gap between defenders. He averaged 6 yards after the catch per reception on those 27 catches versus zone coverage as well. He can accelerate back up to full speed quickly, and he also caught 7 of 8 contested targets versus zone.
In total, Young's production gives him a gaudy 2.79 Yards per Route Run against zone. If he has the breakout 2024 that it feels like he could, that 2.79 YRR could be a canary of sorts. Georgia's athletes on offense have been too good in recent years for most teams to play man against. In 2023, the Bulldogs' pass catchers saw man coverage on just 13.6% of targets. If Young is a 2.79 YRR receiver against zone coverage at Georgia then he's going to be a household name for all college football fans by the time the season ends.
The 11 contested catches that Young made in 2023 are more than any UGA wideout has had since Lawrence Cager made 12 contested catches on 14 contested targets in 2019. Just like Young, Cager joined the Georgia for his final season of eligibility after transferring from Miami. Cager was also 6’5 and 220 pounds, which is the exact same size as Young.
Cager was one of the bright spots in a 2019 Georgia offense that struggled mightily at times. He had 33 catches on 40 targets for 476 yards and 4 touchdowns. He made key contributions in UGA’s wins over Notre Dame and Florida that season. It would be a major boost to the 2023 Dawgs if they can get similar contested catch production out of Young.
Having Young creates more options for Georgia OC Mike Bobo. It also means Carson Beck has somewhere to throw the ball even when everyone is covered. Those might be luxuries in most of the games the Bulldogs play next year, but those contested catches could be the difference UGA needs against some of the better teams on its schedule. There is a good chance that Young will see his highest target numbers against the best secondaries that Georgia plays. That makes him an extremely important player for the Dawgs.
Coming full circle
Young wasn't the only person with South Florida ties that Georgia added this offseason.
If you had made a list of former Smart assistants who you might guess would return to Georgia, James Coley may have been last on the list. He spent one ill fated season as UGA's offensive coordinator in 2019 before the Bulldogs hired Todd Monken the next offseason. It's worth noting that Smart never actually fired Coley, but he left UGA for the WR coach position at Texas A&M after the Bulldogs brought on Buster Faulkner and Monken that winter.
Georgia fans probably remembered him as the man before the man. The 2019 Bulldogs were just 70th nationally in creating explosive plays (20+ yard gains). That year’s Georgia team had a suffocating defense that led the nation in scoring defense while allowing just 12.6 points per game. Despite that, they went 12-2 and were held back by an offense that was ineffective in its attempts to modernize.
Coley was hired on Smart's original UGA staff and had held titles of WR coach and Co-OC/QB coach before being promoted to OC in January of 2019 after Jim Chaney left for Tennessee.
Coley tried to take UGA out of the run-first philosophy that predecessor Jim Chaney had implemented. In Chaney’s final season of 2018 the Bulldogs ran the ball on 57% of downs. Coley evened out UGA’s run/pass ratio a bit, with 2019 UGA throwing the ball on 47.5% of downs. The problem was that UGA wasn’t successful in doing so. Smart spoke candidly about Georgia’s offensive ineptitude after their 37-10 loss to LSU in the 2019 SEC Championship.
In hindsight, it was a turning point for Smart. He came to the realization that his offense must be dynamic enough to go blow for blow with the best units his defense would come up against. Georgia might shut down 13 out of 14 opponents in a given year but no matter how good UGA’s defense might be, they would eventually run up on an offense that was too good to be held down for four quarters.
The Monken era modernized Georgia’s passing concepts and shifted to more gap scheme run concepts after Chaney had been so reliant on zone runs. In 2019, Coley called Inside Zone or Inside Zone Read on over 27.5% of UGA’s snaps. Monken came in and started to vary the offensive scheme, but UGA also underwent an overhaul on the offensive line. The switch from Sam Pittman to Matt Luke coincided with UGA looking for more athleticism in its OL recruits.
It would have been strange for Coley to be in the building while a new regime was working to change what he had been part of building and executing. Jimbo Fisher had employed Coley at FSU from 2008-2012, and he had helped Fisher recruit a team so talented that it cruised through the regular season on its way to a national title. At A&M, he helped Fisher upgrade the talent.
He spent two years coaching WR’s before being promoted to Co-OC/TE coach in 2022-2023. When Fisher was fired, Shane Beamer targeted Coley to join the staff at South Carolina. The two had worked together at Georgia from 2016-2017, but he came home to UGA when WR coach Bryan McClendon left UGA for the NFL this spring.
Looking back to project forward
Georgia's receiver recruiting has become a topic of tension for some segments of the fanbase in recent years, but it wasn't always like that. The Bulldogs recruited WR's well early on in Kirby Smart’s tenure. Before any national titles or SEC championships, there was the 2017 UGA recruiting class. It was ranked 3rd nationally, and it announced the Georgia program as ascendant to the rest of the college football world. One of the key pieces was Jake Fromm, and the blue-chip QB helped convince Top 100 WR Jeremiah Holloman to come to Athens with him.
The man who recruited Holloman was James Coley. A South Florida native, Coley’s ties in the Sunshine State helped UGA land heralded talents like James Cook, Tyrique Stevenson and Tyson Campbell. He was such a strong recruiter that he helped Georgia land big names like Campbell and Stevenson despite them playing on the other side of the ball. Coley's time in Athens started in the WR room, which he oversaw in 2016 and 2017 before he moved to working with QB’s and calling plays as the offensive coordinator.
Before the failed 2019 campaign as a play caller, Coley helped UGA stack the WR talent that would allow it to breakthrough and win its first national title in over four decades. Here is a list of wideouts that he helped bring to Athens…
- 5* George Pickens
- 5* Dominick Blaylock
- 4* Kearis Jackson
- 4* Jeremiah Holloman
- 4* Riley Ridley
- 4* Javon Wims
Cortez Hankton was hired from Vanderbilt and named WR coach when in 2018 when Coley shifted over to working with QB's. Bryan McClendon replaced Hankton when he left for LSU after the 2021 national title. You can see that Georgia's WR recruiting quickly changed directions when Coley left Athens.
- The 2021 class featured AD Mitchell, who was an overlooked three-star that the Bulldogs did a fantastic job of evaluating. The only other WR recruited was three-star Jackson Meeks. He is now at Syracuse.
- UGA’s 2022 class included 4* De’Nylon Morrissette, who was the 35th ranked WR in the class and never came close to cracking the rotation in Athens. He has since transferred to Purdue. He was joined there by CJ Smith, another recruit from that class who was the 52nd ranked WR in the country. That class did include a 3* WR named Dillon Bell out of Houston, TX. He was another guy who Todd Monken pounded the table for, and he seems primed to become a household name this fall.
- The 2023 cycle saw UGA land its first top 100 WR since Coley left the program when it signed Tyler Williams. The problem is that Williams was raw and needed time to develop. He left UGA this offseason for Minnesota. That class also included Anthony Evans, who was a Top 200 player and the 27th ranked wideout in the cycle. He has loads of speed, and he could become a contributor this season. Georgia also saw #31 ranked WR Yazeed Haynes come into the program and leave for Syracuse after just one year.
The 2023 cycle was notable because UGA supplemented its high-school prospects with transfers Rara Thomas and Dominic Lovett. The Bulldogs brought Thomas into the program to be a true X-WR who could be physical in the air and high point 50/50 balls. Mitchell served that role in 2021 and 2022, but UGA lacked anyone with his size/speed combo after he left. It lacked it again in the 2023 SEC Championship due to Thomas's injury. Lovett was the speedy technical route runner UGA needed to man the slot.
- In this past recruiting cycle, UGA once again missed out on a true blue-chip wideout. Nitro Tuggle was brought into the program as one of the 25 best receivers in the class. He is speedy and has decent size at just over 6 feet tall, but he is not a true X-WR either. UGA also signed 5’9” Sacovie White. The 3* is already looking like he has a future as a productive player in Athens, but he will have to create space to get open.
Georgia went harder after WR’s in the transfer portal this year than it ever has after any position. It signed the big bodied Colbie Young to be a bully in the red zone. It also brought in 6’3” London Humphreys from Vanderbilt to deepen the pool of outside receivers. Michael Jackson III was added from USC to help Georgia with yards after the catch and compete for the now open Z-WR position where McConkey had shined.
Getting back to how business is done
Kirby Smart has always used the portal, but the addition of this many players at one position is not the status quo. The program got to the top of the sport by recruiting elite talent and keeping the best of that talent. It was not built on playing portal roulette. Georgia players are recruited and developed for their physical traits, but also for their mental makeup. They embrace the dirty work, and they understand that the long game pays greater dividends than the short one.
Time will tell if UGA’s newest additions fit that makeup. What's for sure is that a modern college football program has less options when it's relying on the portal to fill needs. Since returning to Georgia this spring, Coley has been fighting to make sure that the Bulldogs won’t have to do that in the future.
UGA signed five WR’s ranked among the Top 15 players at their position in the last two cycles Coley was with the program. The Bulldogs have signed 0 in the four cycles since he’s been gone. In June, UGA snagged a commitment from WR Talyn Taylor. The 9th ranked WR in the 2025 cycle, by landing Taylor, Georgia snagged an elite wideout who has a total package of skills. The Bulldogs also continue to work on flipping 4* CJ Wiley, the 13th ranked WR in the 2025 class.
UGA has dealt with negative recruiting in recent years because it spreads the ball around and hasn’t had a 1000 yard pass catcher since Terrence Edwards in 2002. It has also had to deal with the fact that Brock Bowers was a focal point of the offense. Rivals have told recruits that UGA doesn’t feature receivers, but a lot of UGA’s best wideouts have failed to play full seasons. If not for injuries, the stat lines for some UGA receivers could have been very different.
Details matter
Now back in Athens, Coley will coach a 2024 WR room that looks deep on potentially productive players.
The buzz around Coley this offseason has been positive, and the players in his room have told people that his attention to detail has helped them perfect different aspects of their games. Coley has coached offensive football for decades, and it has given him an appreciation for things that many coaches tend to overlook. He puts considerable time into helping his players have complete route trees by focusing on building from the ground up. He might spend an entire practice period working with his receivers on nothing but how they take their first step off the line of scrimmage at the snap. Once that's done right, they can build a release that is more technically sound.
Coley expects perfection on every detail, and he has that in common with his boss. Understanding Kirby Smart's standard for the Georgia program has made his transition back to Athens a smooth one. He is competitive on every level and he tells his wideouts that he expects them to set an example for hard work and execution instead of trying to chase the work ethic being displayed by a different position group.
Coley's coaching helped a lot of Georgia receivers go into the summer with plenty to work on. They worked to better those details on their own and came back to fall camp as better players than they were at the end of spring. Young may have made the biggest leap of any player on the UGA offense. Freshman slot receiver Sacovie White has emerged as a player who the Dawgs should be able to depend on this fall. Vanderbilt transfer London Humphreys has started adjusting to Georgia's standard because of Coley as well.
It will be interesting to see how the season progresses, but it is likely that some of UGA's wideouts will improve rapidly once Coley gets game tape to dissect and provide teaching points on.
Coley's first group of wideouts is likely to include Dillon Bell, Dominic Lovett, Colbie Young and Arian Smith. The skillsets of those players should compliment each other well. Lovett and Bell have shown they can work underneath when needed but also have histories of making big plays when sent downfield. Young's size and speed should allow him to function over the middle and down the boundaries.
The x-factor is Smith. Some wondered if the speedy Florida native might just be a gadget player, but Coley has helped revive his hopes of becoming an NFL wideout. He helped recruit Smith back when he was Georgia's OC, and now he is trying to unlock the potential that many have been waiting for him to realize ever since. His ability to stretch the field has never been in doubt, but Coley has helped him develop short and intermediate skills that might make him nearly impossible to gameplan for. If defenses are forced to respect his ability to catch a deep curl or a 12-16 yard in-route then it will unlock an array of double moves and deep shots that could make this UGA passing game as explosive as any we've seen under Smart.
That first group will be pushed and spelled by players like tough USC transfer Michael Jackson III, the long and speedy Humphreys, twitchy burner Anthony Evans, freshman Nitro Tuggle and the aforementioned White. Who emerges from that group as dependable parts of the offense will be interesting to see. How well the entire room replaces the production of Ladd McConkey and Brock Bowers will determine whether this Georgia offense is special or merely good. If the group proves to be deep then these Dawgs could be harder for defenses to gameplan for than last year's team.
Last year's Georgia offense only had one regular WR with a PFF Run Block grade of over 70 (Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint - 71.3). The 2022 Bulldogs had one above 80 (Kearis Jackson - 80.4) and four above 70 (Blaylock, Rosemy-Jacksaint, McConkey, A. Smith and Bell).
Coley's influence on Georgia's downfield blocking was extremely positive in the past. Javon Wims was Georgia's #1 WR in 2017, and he also was the best perimeter blocker on the team. That set an example for the rest of the room, and the dirty work that UGA's wideouts did to pave the way for Sony Michel and Nick Chubb allowed the Bulldogs to come within a whisker of a national title.
Those nuances may seem minor to many, but sealing a block on the edge on a third down screen can be the difference between a punt and continuing a touchdown drive that changes the shape of an entire game. At the level UGA is playing at, everything matters. Coley doesn't just understand that. He also embraces it.
That made him the right man to lead Georgia's WR room as Kirby Smart looks to push his team back to the mountaintop in the first season of the sport's expanded playoff era. If he can get that detail oriented approach to show up on the field then his WR room will help Georgia create explosive scoring plays. They could do it even when they're not touching the football.
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