Dell McGee Named Head Football Coach

Dell McGee, a Georgia native with 22 years of coaching experience, including back-to-back national titles as the run game coordinator and running backs coach for the Georgia Bulldogs, has been named the fourth head football coach in Georgia State history by GSU President Dr. M. Brian Blake and Director of Athletics Charlie Cobb.

McGee will be introduced at a press conference Monday morning at 10 a.m. in the University Club at Center Parc Stadium. The press conference will air live on ESPN+.

"We are proud to announce Coach Dell McGee as our head football coach," Cobb said. "Coach McGee is an outstanding and authentic man with a strong passion for developing young men. His track record of competitive success at the high school and college levels makes me confident that he will lead our football program to its greatest achievements. We welcome Linda and Dell to Georgia State University!"

McGee takes over a Georgia State program that began play 2010 and has appeared in six bowl games in the last nine years, winning four, including three in the last four seasons.

"Thank you to President Blake, Athletic Director Charlie Cobb and the entire search committee for the opportunity to be the head football coach at Georgia State University," McGee said.

"I've spent 20-plus years coaching in Georgia. As a native of this state, this opportunity to develop student-athletes here has always been the blessing I knew I was preparing for.

"I am forever grateful for Coach Smart and the University of Georgia for supporting me in my dream of being of a college head coach," he continued.

"Georgia State is primed for success as a premiere institution in the best city in America. I can't wait to lead this football program as we compete for championships."

The Columbus, Ga., native has spent almost his entire coaching career in his home state. He served the last eight seasons at Georgia, where his abilities as a coach and recruiter have contributed to the Bulldogs' remarkable run of success under Kirby Smart. McGee has been a key part of a Georgia program that has amassed 94 victories in eight seasons, highlighted by back-to-back College Football Playoff national championships in 2021 and 2022 as well as a berth in the 2017 CFP title game, eight bowl victories, two Southeastern Conference titles and six SEC Eastern Division crowns.

Rivals.com named McGee the 2018 National Recruiter of the Year after the Bulldogs signed the consensus No. 1-rated recruiting class, and he helped recruit and develop Georgia's 56 NFL draft picks from 2017-23, including 15 first-rounders and an NFL-record 25 players drafted over the last two years.

McGee joined Smart's original Georgia staff in 2016 as running backs coach, the position he worked with throughout his tenure in Athens. He also served as assistant head coach in 2018, and then in 2019, he was named run game coordinator.

In his eight seasons at UGA, McGee coached four 1,000-yard rushers: Nick Chubb in 2016-17; Sony Michel in 2017; D'Andre Swift in 2018-19; and Elijah Holyfield in 2018. Chubb and Michel amassed over 8,400 combined yards and 87 touchdowns. Chubb, Michel, and Swift, as well as James Cook and Zamir White, were all taken in the first four rounds of the NFL Draft.

Before going to Georgia, McGee worked two seasons as the running backs coach at Georgia Southern (2014-15). In December 2015, he served as the interim head coach and led the Eagles to a victory in the GoDaddy Bowl.

He spent the 2013 season as an analyst at Auburn, his alma mater, and was part of the staff that led the Tigers to a berth in the 2013-14 BCS national championship game, one of McGee's four appearances coaching in the national championship game. He was also part of an undefeated team as a player at Auburn, where he helped preserve the Tigers' undefeated 1993 season with a critical interception against Alabama.

He began his coaching career in the prep ranks as an assistant coach at Georgia high schools Harris County (2002) and Greenville (2003-04) and then earned his first head coaching position at Carver-Columbus High School in 2005. He built that program into a perennial powerhouse that recorded seven straight seasons with 10 or more wins from 2006-2012, highlighted by the 2007 Class AAA state title.

McGee attended Kendrick High School in Columbus, Ga., and then was a two-year starter and four-year letterwinner at Auburn from 1992-95.

He was drafted in the fifth round of the 1996 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals and spent time with the Cardinals and Detroit Lions over three NFL seasons. He also played in NFL Europe, the XFL and the Arena Football League in a seven-year professional career.

Dell and his wife Linda have one son, Austin, a high school senior at Athens Academy and a member of Georgia State's 2023-24 recruiting class after signing with the Panthers in December.