ATHENS – Asked Wednesday whether he planned to hire a dedicated outside linebackers coach to replace Dan Lanning, Georgia coach Kirby Smart said “we’ll make that decision going forward.” He must’ve meant the next couple of hours because the Bulldogs apparently are on the verge of hiring a young, up-and-coming coach to do just that.
Chidera Uzo-Diribe, a 29-year-old defensive assistant at TCU, is about to join Georgia’s staff, according to people familiar with the search process. Matt Zenitz of On3.com was first to report the news.
If you haven’t heard of Uzo-Diribe, most in the Southeast have not. A former NFL player, he has coached at TCU, SMU, Kansas and Colorado. Uzo-Diribe was hired by TCU in January to the role of defensive line coach. He previously worked under Sonny Dykes at SMU and spent two seasons at Kansas as outside linebackers coach.
Before that, Uzo-Diribe spent three seasons (2016-18) at Colorado working with outside linebackers and defensive linemen as a graduate assistant. Uzo-Diribe was a four-year letterman with the Buffaloes and graduated as sixth on their all-time sacks list with 20.
Uzo-Diribe signed with the New Orleans Saints as a free agent before getting into coaching.
In the summer of 2018, he participated in the Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching Fellowship Program with the San Francisco 49ers, a program created to offer minority coaches more opportunities to learn, coupled with great exposure to job opportunities. He recently was named to 247Sports’ 30-Under-30 list.
Uzo-Diribe’s appointment follows a flurry of activity for Smart. This past weekend he brought in his old friend Mike Bobo to work on the support staff as an offensive analyst. On Monday, Smart confirmed reports that he hired former Georgia coach and wide receiver Bryan McClendon as passing-game coordinator. McClendon had just started as co-offensive coordinator at Miami under Mario Cristobal, for whom he had previously worked at Oregon.
Smart addressed McClendon’s addition during a video conference call on signing day. McClendon was a senior wideout for the Bulldogs when Smart was Georgia’s running backs coach for the 2005 season.
Since then, they have mainly been rival recruiters, Smart at Alabama and McClendon at Georgia.
“I have a lot of respect for him,” Smart said. “I’m big on ‘fit’. Does someone fit the culture we are trying to create? We don’t look at a lot of things that people on the outside world look at. I look at (whether they) can the make our staff better, can they make our players better, do they fit our culture? He checked the boxes, was the best fit and wants to be here.”
Meanwhile, Smart’s best buddy Bobo is following the path forged last year by former South Carolina coach Will Muschamp. Muschamp started in January 2021 as a defensive analyst, replaced Scott Cochran as special-teams coordinator in July, morphed that role into a defensive backfield assistant and, in December, was appointed co-coordinator along with inside linebackers coach Glenn Schumann to run Georgia defense.
Muschamp could have assumed Lanning’s role as outside linebackers coach. Since he is not, that effectively closes the door on Cochran returning on an on-field position. He remains in a support role as a special-teams analyst.
