Shane Beamer: UGA’s new tight end/special teams coach
By John Buhler
Shane Beamer will join Kirby Smart‘s staff at Georgia as the Dawgs’ next tight end and special teams coach. Beamer last worked for his dad at Virginia Tech.
ESPN’s Chris Low reports that “New Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has added Shane Beamer to the Bulldogs’ staff as tight ends coach and special teams coordinator.” Beamer spent the last five years in Blacksburg, Virginia working for his now-retired father, former head coach of the Virginia Tech Hokies Frank Beamer, as an associate head coach and a running backs coach.
With this hiring, Kirby Smart has now filled both the reported special teams coordinator job, as well as all the position coaches on his new offensive staff for the 2016 Georgia Bulldogs. Georgia notoriously did not have a special teams coordinator under former head coach Mark Richt, to much of Dawg Nation’s chagrin.
Beamer is supposedly a fantastic recruiter, coached on both sides of the football, and has a ton of SEC coaching experience. Low writes that the younger Beamer served on Steve Spurrier‘s staff at South Carolina, Sylvester Croom’s staff at Mississippi State, and on Philip Fulmer’s staff at Tennessee.
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Reportedly, Kirby Smart met with Shane Beamer down in Jacksonville this past weekend during the Georgia Bulldogs’ bowl game versus the Penn State Nittany Lions in the TaxSlayer Bowl. While Smart ended up hiring James Coley from Miami and Dell McGee from Georgia Southern to his offensive staff, it seemed like Beamer would come to Athens as part of this staff in 2016 in some capacity.
While the tight end coach’s position seems like a lateral move for Beamer, I think it is the opportunity to become special teams coordinator in the SEC that is so appealing for Shane Beamer to join up with Smart and the Dawgs in Athens.
When Justin Fuente was going to replace the elder Beamer as the next head coach for the Virginia Tech Hokies, it was probably in Shane Beamer’s best interest to distance himself from the iconic head coach has father was for the Hokies by leaving the program. Since he already has tremendous familiarity with coaching in the SEC, this transition for Beamer should stand as a smooth one.
Kirby Smart’s staff is almost complete. Shane Beamer is the final piece to the new offensive staff of coordinator Jim Chaney. Beamer will coach the tight ends, Chaney will coach the quarterbacks, Sam Pittman will coach the offensive linemen, James Coley will coach the wide receivers, and Dell McGee will coach the running backs.
Smart still has a few more positions to fill on the defensive side of the ball, most notably defensive coordinator. While defensive line coach Tracy Rocker and outside linebackers coach Kevin Sherrer will stay in Athens as a part of Smart’s new defensive staff, my guess is that the final two/three positions available on the staff will go to coaches currently on Nick Saban’s defensive staff at the University of Alabama.
Next: Georgia Bulldogs hire Coley, Malchow, and McGee to staff
Saban will likely let new Alabama defensive coordinator and former Georgia defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt build part of his own staff now that he works in Tuscaloosa. One name to keep an eye on is Tosh Lupoi, the Alabama Crimson Tide’s outside linebackers coach.