Kirby Smart comments on adding former Mark Richt assistant to staff
By SDS Staff
Published:
Ahead of Georgia’s season-opener, it was reported that John Jancek, a former UGA defensive assistant under Mark Richt, had returned to Athens to join Kirby Smart’s staff as a quality control assistant.
Smart confirmed the addition of Jancek during his Tuesday media opportunity.
“We had two quality control positions that we weren’t able to fill before the pandemic broke. We were on vacation or on spring break, and we had a couple spots that were open that we were unable to fill,” Smart explained to reporters. “We put the hold on those and didn’t know if we were going to have a season, so we weren’t sure we were going to fill them.
“Then a week before or maybe a few days before the Arkansas game, we decided to fill that role. (Jancek) breaks down the opposing team’s defense, and coaches the coaches in terms of the insights of what that defense does and what their tendencies are and [is a] a defensive mind on the offensive side of the ball, which is very common in the NFL, and it was important to Coach [Todd] Monken that we had somebody that could fill that role.”
Jancek was the Bulldogs’ linebackers coach from 2002-09 and added “co-defensive coordinator” to his responsibilities for his final season in Athens.
After coaching at Georgia, Jancek was the Cincinnati Bearcats’ co-defensive coordinator from 2010-11 and promoted to sole defensive coordinator in 2012. In 2013, Jancek joined the Tennessee coaching staff as defensive coordinator, a position he held through 2015.
Following his time on Rocky Top, Jancek coached safeties at South Florida in 2016 and was a consultant in 2017. Most recently, Jancek was Mike Bobo’s defensive coordinator at Colorado State for the 2018 and ’19 seasons. Bobo is now the offensive coordinator at South Carolina.
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
