There are many ways to build a winning football program, but every winning football program has one thing in common: organization. The next championship-caliber football team that doesn't have its ducks in a row off the field will be the first. A peak under the hood at how Georgia staffs and compensates the people in charge of fielding and organizing the Bulldogs' roster reveals the significant level of investment the university commits to keeping Kirby Smart's red and black killing machine moving. Simply put, you don't go 105-19 with two national championships (and counting?) by accident.
For starters, Georgia has equipped Smart with an operations staff unmatched in college football.
The Bulldogs employ 18 staff members in recruiting and personnel, led by a whopping 9-member operations/administration department -- the largest this reporter has seen in college football.
The administration staff is headed by chief of staff Mark Robinson, the highest-paid member of the group at $375,000 per year, according to an open records request filed by FootballScoop. Robinson assumed his position a year ago this month, and is among the most experienced and well-regarded of his kind in college football. A former App State offensive lineman (where he set a school record with a 615-pound squat), Robinson started in 2003 as an operations assistant at Texas A&M and has been a DFO/chief of staff at Arkansas, Florida State, Texas A&M and now Georgia for now 18 seasons. Prior winners chose Robinson as the FootballScoop DFO of the Year in 2015, and he spent six months in the same role at Florida before Smart swiped him away from Billy Napier last January. In short, Robinson is Smart's right-hand man for all off-field matters and serves as the point person for all things travel, on-campus recruiting, budgeting, creative media, and manages the program's day-to-day (really, minute-to-minute) schedule.
Robinson is supported by four staff members who earn at least $100,000 a year, and a fifth who is close to that.
Former Bulldog quarterback and longtime college head coach Mike Cavan has been in UGA's administration since 2002 and now serves as director of football administration, and former Bulldog Bryant Gantt has been with the program since 2011 after 19 years at an Athens law firm.
DFO Anna DeFabio is also a UGA graduate who joined the program as a football ops assistant in 2021 and now heads that department. Hunter Parker is a former East Tennessee State outfielder who joined the program in 2022 as a coordinator of football administration but has since been promoted to director, while director of football management Jay Chapman is heading into his 10th season with the Bulldogs after five seasons as the DFO at Samford.
Football operations coordinator Hailey Hughes is another UGA grad who worked for an Alpharetta, Ga., law firm before joining the program in 2016; operations assistant Drake Jennings began working for Georgia football as a UGA undergrad and has been full-time with the football team since 2023; and fellow ops assistant Greer Moseley is yet another UGA grad who coached middle school basketball as an undergrad and has been full-time since 2024.
Operations
Mark Robinson, assistant AD/chief of staff: $375,000
Mike Cavan, director of football administration: $214,000
Bryant Gantt, director of player support and operations: $210,000
Anna DeFabio, director of football operations: $110,000
Hunter Parker, coordinator of football administration: $100,000
Jay Chapman, director of football management: $95,225
Hailey Hughes, football operations coordinator: $52,000
Drake Jennings, football operations assistant: $25,000
Greer Moseley, football operations assistant; $23,000
Smart is among the head coaches who does not employ a titled general manager, preferring to take on some of those duties himself while splitting others among his 9-member personnel staff, four of whom earn six figures. "We have people that do various things instead of pinpointing the general manager, because I think if I ask every coach what their general manager does, they all do something different. So, I mean, I can't figure out what you define it as because when you ask me what is a general manager, I want to know what you think it does, because in the NFL they do different than what they do at all," he said earlier this summer.
Georgia's highest-paid personnel professional is director of recruiting relations David Cooper. A former Indiana football player, Cooper, who does not have a bio on Georgia's website, worked at Florida and Louisville before taking on his role at Georgia in 2021. “Coop is a great person overall. He connects well with the recruits. We have a group chat with the commits and him. We just talk about life. He’s a real down-to-earth person. He brings the energy when it needs to be brought. All of the players and the coaching staff really appreciate him. He’s just great at what he does," Jalon Walker, a first round pick of the Atlanta Falcons, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2021.
Director of player personnel Will Myers worked his way into the recruiting profession under Will Muschamp at South Carolina and held senior roles at Ole Miss and Louisiana before joining UGA in 2023. Director of recruiting administration Christina Harris is a North Carolina Central graduate who worked as a track coach and a middle school counselor before entering college administration as an academic advisor.
Director of scouting James Ellis is a UGA grad who has been with the program since 2019 and was promoted to his current role in February. Georgia employs three associate recruiting operations directors: Angela Kirpatrick, a Tennessee grad who previously worked as the director of on-campus recruiting at North Carolina; Logen Reed, an Indiana grad who's been with the program since 2019; and Kadeem Wise, a former football player and DFO at Chattanooga. Assistant director of player personnel Kyle Simpson is a 2021 UGA graduate who's worked with the program since he was a student, and recruiting analyst Tess Harrison, who earned her Master's degree in kinesiology at Georgia and has recruited for the Bulldogs since 2022.
Anthony Mauro, still listed on Georgia's staff page as a player personnel coordinator, is now the assistant general manager at Baylor.
Personnel
David Cooper, director of recruiting relations: $200,000
Will Myers, director of player personnel/pro liaison: $200,000
Christina Harris, director of recruiting administration: $145,000
James Ellis, director of scouting: $125,000
Angela Kirkpatrick, associate director of recruiting operations: $80,000
Logen Reed, associate director of recruiting operations: $80,000
Kadeem Wise, associate director of recruiting operations: $75,000
Kyle Simpson, assistant director of player personnel: $44,000
Tess Harrison, recruiting analyst: $29,000
Since 2017, Georgia has never finished lower than fourth in the 247Sports composite, signed three No. 1 classes, and its current class ranks second.