Report: Georgia baseball to hire Kentucky assistant Will Coggin to staff, retain Brock Bennett

New Georgia baseball coach Wes Johnson is set to add a rival assistant to his staff. He’s also expected to retain a staffer from the previous regime.

Kentucky assistant coach Will Coggin is set to come on board as an assistant coach at Georgia, D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers reported. He’ll serve as Johnson’s top assistant and be the Bulldogs’ recruiting coordinator. In addition, Johnson is keeping Brock Bennett on the staff as a full-time paid assistant after he served as a volunteer assistant under Scott Stricklin.

Coggin has been on the staff at Kentucky since 2020 as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. He previously worked at Mississippi State, where he worked his way up from coordinator of baseball camps to assistant coach. He also finished his playing career in Starkville and go this coaching start with the Bulldogs from 2009-12.

Bennett has been on Georgia’s staff since 2019 when Stricklin brought him aboard as a volunteer assistant. He currently works with the catchers and serves as the Bulldogs’ first base coach. He will now be moving up to a full-time assistant role for the first time since 2019 when he was at Georgia State from 2017-18. A former Alabama star, Bennett joins Coggin as an assistant coach who played baseball in the SEC.

Johnson is set to take over for Stricklin after previously serving as the pitching coach at LSU. He had his introductory press conference this week and reaffirmed his plans to finish out the season with the Tigers, who are currently in Omaha preparing for the College World Series.

It’ll be an interesting balance as he prepares to put together his staff, but he’s ready for it.

“I wake up really early, I go to bed really late, and I drink a lot of caffeine in the middle,” Johnson joked during his introduction. “But I actually sat down and wrote out my days how I need to. I’m trying to lead those young men to a national title. From roughly five to eight, I was doing LSU game prep. Getting ready, getting our day ready. Breaking down film of other teams and so forth.”

Johnson and LSU will open the College World Series on Saturday with a high-profile matchup against Tennessee. First pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET from Charles Schwab Field in Omaha. Bracket play will be in a double elimination format, and the winners of each side will face off in a best of three championship series.