FootballScoop is proud to announce that Todd Hartley (Georgia) is the 2021 FootballScoop Tight Ends Coach of the Year presented by AstroTurf.
The 2021 season was widely recognized as the Year of the Tight End in college football. Seemingly everywhere you looked, teams were in 12, 22 or even sometimes 13 personnel. And in the Year of the Tight End, no tight ends had a better year than Georgia's.
The Bulldogs are led in receptions, yards and touchdowns by true freshman tight end Brock Bowers. The former 5-star recruit has hauled in 52 grabs for 846 yards and 12 touchdowns, setting a school record for receiving yards by a tight end and surpassing all Dawg receivers for single-season touchdown grabs. The SEC Freshman of the Year and ESPN.com First Team All-American set an SEC championship game record by hauling in 10 catches for 139 yards and a touchdown, most ever in the title game by a tight end.
Bowers was his team's top target from day one, leading the Bulldogs with six catches for 43 yards in their 10-3 opening night win over Clemson. So far this season, he's led the team in catches and/or yards eight times in 14 games thus far; topped the 100-yard mark on four occasions; posted a multi-touchdown effort five times; and gone over 100 yards with two touchdown catches three times.
Should Georgia prevail over Alabama on Monday night, Bowers would become the first tight end to lead a national champion in receptions and receiving yards since Oklahoma's Keith Jackson in 1985 as well as the first freshman -- at any position -- to do so since Calvin Ridley in 2015.
Bowers was not Georgia's only threat at the tight end position. Sophomore Darnell Washington, a mountain of a man at 6-foot-7, 265 pounds, has caught nine passes for 145 yards and a touchdown, and junior John FitzPatrick, sophomore Brett Seither, and sophomore Drew Sheehan have contributed nine grabs for 125 yards and a touchdown.
A Georgia graduate, Hartley began coaching as an undergraduate and later served as a GA for his alma mater. His first full-time job came in 2011 as Marshall's safeties coach before moving to tight ends in 2013. He returned to Athens, Georgia, as director of player personnel in 2015, then joined Mark Richt's Miami staff the following year as tight ends coach and special teams coordinator. Hartley returned to Georgia a third time in 2019.
The FootballScoop Coaches of the Year awards presented by AstroTurf are the only set of awards that recognize the most outstanding position coaches in college football. The finalists (Cody Booth [Colorado State], Malcolm Dixon [Coastal Carolina], John McNulty [Notre Dame], Freddie Whittingham [Utah] and Hartley) were selected based off of nominations by coaches, athletic directors, and athletic department personnel.
Hartley is the first FootballScoop Tight Ends Coach of the Year.
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