Call them quality control personnel or analysts, staff positions are the growth area in college football. UGA resisted employment of quality control (QC) staffers, but in the last couple of years of the Mark Richt era moved into the QC race with programs like Alabama and LSU.
 
 
In a 2010 interview, former UGA head coach Jim Donnan said schools started hiring quality control staffers shortly after NCAA placed a nine coach limit on the number of on-field assistant coaches allowed. The job of QC staffers (who are not allowed actually to coach on-field) is to take as much of the preparation, planning and evaluation detail off of the shoulders of the on-field coaches as possible. Fewer administrative details leave more time for coaches to concentrate on player preparation and to recruit.
 
 
[su_quote style=”modern-light” cite=”The Ann Arbor News” url=”http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/quality-control-coaches-at-the-center-of-ncaa-allegations-against-michigan-football/”] As best Jim Donnan can remember, quality-control coaches came upon the college football landscape a couple of decades ago when the NCAA enacted legislation limiting schools to nine full-time assistants.
 
“It used to be you had unlimited assistant coaches,” said Donnan, the former Georgia coach, and current ESPN analyst. “Back in the day, you had 14, 15 assistants. Now they’re down to nine.
 
“But the staffs around the country, because of so many demands on the head coach – fund-raising, recruiting, what all they got to do – you really do need a lot (more help).”
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Kirby Smart’s mentor, Alabama head coach Nick Saban began the most recent escalation of QC staffers when he took over the Tide. Smart has not said how many QC staffers UGA will have, but he has indicated that the number will increase. Here is what Coach Smart said on national signing day: