Kirby Smart 'really excited' by new defensive staff additions for Georgia

Georgia is a preseason favorite to punch its ticket into the College Football Playoff yet again after finding itself just outside of the bubble last season.

However, Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart has added some key pieces to his roster and staff in the meantime. That includes shaking up his defensive staff in the form of Will Muschamp and two highly-touted newcomers in Travaris Robinson and Donte Williams.

“I’m really excited. Both Donte and T-Rob have been tremendous in terms of energy enthusiasm,” Smart said during SEC spring meetings. “It is great having Will [Muschamp] there to kind of coach the coaches because it’s like you get your cake and eat it too. Because you’ve got coach Muschamp out there for all the value he brings in terms of wealth of knowledge, relationships, knows our team. It helps me so I didn’t lose any of that. But I gained these two guys that are now in field and do a tremendous job and they get to go out and go recruiting and Will gets to be about his son more, which I think is really important, too.”

For Robinson, he spent two seasons at Alabama, helping the Crimson Tide win the SEC and reach the College Football Playoff this past season. He is known as an excellent recruiter and has ties throughout the conference while Williams is also well respected in coaching circles.

He will be a quality replacement for former Georgia assistant Fran Brown, who departed this offseason to take the head coaching job at Syracuse. He was named USC‘s cornerbacks coach and defensive pass game coordinator in February of 2020. The assistant coach has spent the better part of the last decade working in the Pac-12, and most of his ties are on the West coast. Still, he’s regarded as a strong recruiter and coach.

While Muschamp isn’t a new face in the Georgia, he is transitioning to a new role for the Bulldogs in 2024. Muschamp helped the Bulldogs win back-to-back National Championships in 2021 and 2022 and the team went 42-2 while he was on the sideline. He served as co-defensive coordinator from 2022-23.

Now that Georgia’s defensive staff is in place and fully immersed in their work, the Bulldogs are still expected to be a preseason favorite to win the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff this season. It would be the third time in four seasons that the Bulldogs would have achieved the feat.