Georgia brings Scott Fountain back as assistant coach

ATHENS ― Georgia is bringing back Scott Fountain, this time as a full-time assistant coach.

Fountain, who left to become the Mississippi State special teams coordinator a month ago, has been re-hired at Georgia, a source close to the situation said on Wednesday morning.

Mississippi State head coach Joe Moorehead confirmed later on Wednesday that Fountain was going back to Georgia.

Fountain was a special teams analyst for Georgia last year, after spending several years at Auburn as special teams coach. Fountain was credited by many with helping to turn around UGA’s special teams in 2017.

It has not been confirmed that Fountain will be Georgia’s special teams coordinator. But that position has been vacant since Shane Beamer left to become assistant head coach at Oklahoma on Jan. 23.

Beamer also coached tight ends for Georgia, and that position has yet to be filled.

Bringing back Fountain offers UGA some continuity on special teams. Beamer, speaking before the Rose Bowl, offered some thoughts on what Fountain brought to Georgia.

“Auburn had been very successful over the years on special teams. And he had a familiarity with the SEC, from having been at Auburn for so many years,” Beamer said. “Familiarity of playing Georgia every year and trying to attack us. And he’s been great – it’s not like he came in and we overhauled and changed schemes. Other than punt, we’re doing the same things we did last year. We’re just doing them better. Some things that we changed from a practice standpoint from last year to this year I think have helped us this year. Just trying to be better on fundamentals and techniques and things like that.”

Georgia now has one assistant coach opening left on its staff. It also lost Kevin Sherrer, the outside linebackers coach from 2014-17, to Tennessee as defensive coordinator, replacing him with Dan Lanning, who had been at Memphis.

This makes two straight years that Georgia has hired an assistant coach away from one of the SEC’s Mississippi schools after that coach had only been there a month. Tray Scott was hired as defensive line coach at Ole Miss in January 2017 and moved on to UGA the following month.

Now, both of the high-profile analysts hired by Kirby Smart last year are set to be back on staff. Jay Johnson, the former Minnesota offensive coordinator, agreed last month to return for another year as an offensive analyst.