ATHENS — Besides the array of other support staff, Georgia’s administration is giving new head coach Kirby Smart another high-level adviser.

Mike Cavan, a former Georgia player and assistant coach – when he was credited with signing a recruit named Herschel Walker – who has also been the head coach at three other programs, has been named to a newly-created role: Special assistant to the head coach.

Athletics director Greg McGarity said Cavan will report directly to Smart now. McGarity referred any other questions about Cavan’s role to Smart.

Cavan, 67, has been around the team and the athletics department for more than a decade in his role as a fundraiser for the Bulldogs. In his new role, he offers up experience both as a player and assistant coach at Georgia, and as a head coach elsewhere.

He played quarterback at Georgia from 1968-70, then was an assistant coach under Vince Dooley from 1977-85. He was the lead assistant on the recruitment of Walker.

Cavan left Dooley’s staff to become the head coach at Valdosta State, where he went 37-22-2 in six seasons. Cavan then spent five seasons as the head coach at East Tennessee, going 30-27. Then he became SMU’s head coach in 1997, going 22-34 in five seasons there.

Georgia re-hired Cavan in 2002 to be a fundraiser, and since then he has been present at practices, games and other functions.