After four years, James Coley‘s watch has ended in Athens. The former University of Georgia football offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach is headed out to College Station to join Jimbo Fisher‘s coaching staff at Texas A&M per TexAgs.com‘s Billy Liucci.
He is expected to be tabbed for the Aggies’ tight ends coach.
Coley began his college coaching career with Fisher when he served as a graduate assistant on his staff at LSU from 2003-04. When Fisher joined Bobby Bowden‘s staff at Florida State as the Seminoles’ offensive coordinator, he brought Coley over from FIU in 2008 and tabbed his as his tight ends coach. After Fisher took over as head coach for the Noles’ in 2010, he promoted Coley to offensive coordinator.
After Kirby Smart brought on former Cleveland Browns’ assistant Todd Monken to join his staff on January 17th, Monken was given the offensive coordinator title while Coley remained on for the time being as an assistant head coach. Although UGA had planned to keep Coley on staff, he had no specified role.
Coley has been part of Smart’s staff at Georgia since 2016 where he first served as the wide receivers coach from 2016-2017. In 2018, he moved from receivers to coaching the quarterbacks and was given the co-offensive coordinator title. In January of 2019, after Jim Chaney left to join Jeremy Pruitt’s staff at Tennessee and become the Volunteers’ offensive coordinator, Coley was promoted to fill Chaney’s vacancy.
While Coley took a lot of criticism from fans and media over the Bulldogs’ offensive struggles this past season in 2019, he is a highly touted recruiter, especially in the south Florida area.
Even though Monken was brought in by Smart to take over coordinating and coach the offense, he filled the vacancy left by former Georgia special team coordinator Scott Fountain when Fountain left to take the same role at Arkansas on Sam Pittman’s staff back on January 4th. With Coley’s departure, there is now one on-field coaching spot vacant waiting to be filled. How will Kirby choose to fill that spot?
Smart brought on former Southern Miss offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner to the staff as quality control analysts last week on January 25th. It is possible Faulkner could be promoted to an on-the-field coaching position, but it is also possible Kirby could decide to bring in another new face onto Bulldogs’ staff. Stay tuned…