Georgia football Scott Cochran Kirby Smart

ATHENS — Kirby Smart and his Georgia football team stressed “connection” during their Friday Zoom press conference, knowing then the Bulldogs would need to pull together in the midst of an unexpected staff change.

UGA announced on Sunday that special teams coach Scott Cochran, on the verge of starting his second season with the program, is taking an indefinite leave while “dealing with health issues.”

Former South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp, who was brought on staff as a senior defensive analyst, started working with special teams earlier this week according to multiple sources, and as first reported by 247Sports.

Smart will stay involved as well.

“I’m involved in our special teams, and always have been and always will be,” Smart said when Cochran was hired after the 2019 season, “because I think it’s a really important part.”

Here are five takeaways from the Bulldogs’ staff shuffle:

1. Recently hired special teams ace

Muschamp is more than qualified to manage personnel and has as good of an understanding of special teams as any head coach, but the Bulldogs also have a special teams‘ wild card on their staff in Robby Discher.

Smart hired Discher away from Louisiana in February to aid the special teams unit as an analyst, and now his role becomes even more valuable.

Discher is a two-time special teams coordinator of the year, winning the award from FootballScoop while at Oklahoma State (2014) by from Phil Steele while at Toledo (2018).

2. Staff experience runs deep

Smart said even after hiring Cochran from Alabama after the 2019 season that the Georgia football staff runs deep with special teams experience.

“‘Glenn Schumann, Dan Lanning, Todd Hartley, Cortez *Hankton), Dell (McGee) …. have all had special teams duties in their career, so this is not like Scott Cochran is the only special teams guy on our staff,” Smart said when Cochran was hired.

“And then I’m involved in our special teams, and always have been and always will be, because I think it’s a really important part.”

3. Elite, experienced players

The players already rallied around Muschamp last week, and there’s no reason to anticipate any drop-off on special teams..

It helps having a senior punter who ranks among the best in the nation in Ray Guy Award candidate Jake Camarda.

Georgia also has junior kicker Jack Podlesny, a Lou Groza Award candidate who capped the 2020 season with a game-winning 53-yard field goal in the final seconds of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl game.

Junior captain Kearis Jackson is expected to be recovered from his offseason arthroscopic knee surgery in time to handle the punt return duties against Clemson on Sept. 4.

Junior Kenny McIntosh, who ranked second in the nation in kick returns last season when he suffered a sprained knee, is expected to be among those deep returning kicks again this season.

4. Something to build on

Georgia led the SEC and ranked fifth in the nation with a 29.70 kick return average last season, using McIntosh (6-218 yards, 36.33 average), Jackson (11-298 yards, 27.09 average) and Zamir White (3-78, 26.0-yard average).

The Bulldogs also led the SEC in kick return defense, allowing 16.8 yards per return to rank eighth in the country.

The punt teams have room for shoring up on both punt return defense (7th SEC, 68th nationally), or punt returns (7th SEC, 61st nationally).

5. Preseason ahead

There’s never a good time for the sort of issues Cochran is dealing with, or for a team to get thrown unexpected adversity, but the fact it happened before the start of fall camp allowed for adjustments.

Georgia was making plans to account for Cochran’s absence during voluntary workouts and has scripted special teams practices with Muschamp running the units.

The players have been hardened by an offseason of intensity that reach point-break levels at times, Smart doing his part to sharpen is players on the verge of fall drills.

The Clemson opener is fast approaching, but Smart made it clear the focus is on his team these first couple of weeks of practice.

“We believe camp should be physical, tough and a time when you can work on your connections, strengthen habits that you want to have as football players, men and students at Georgia,” Smart said.

“We want to get tougher and have physical practices for what is going to be a grind of a season. We’re really focused on us and camp, not really that first game.”