After aiding in the turnaround of Georgia’s special teams, Scott Fountain is moving back to an on-field role at another SEC school.
Fountain, who served this season as an off-field analyst for UGA, will be hired as Mississippi State’s special teams coordinator, according to a report from FootballScoop on Tuesday.
The move is expected to happen after the National Championship Game, which is Monday night.
Fountain was earning $115,000 this year at UGA. Fountain had been the special teams coordinator the past few years at Auburn before not being retained earlier this season.
Georgia’s special teams, which struggled in Kirby Smart’s first season in 2016, improved greatly this season. Special teams coordinator Shane Beamer spoke this past week about the impact Fountain had on the team.
“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.
“Scott’s been a great resource, having been around great special teams at Auburn the last few years.”
Georgia has two known openings on its assistant coaching staff, with outside linebackers coach Kevin Sherrer leaving to become Tennessee’s defensive coordinator after the season is complete. UGA is poised to hire Dan Lanning to replace Sherrer, Football Scoop reported on Monday. Lanning is the inside linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator for Memphis, but worked at Alabama in 2015 as an analyst, along with current Georgia inside linebackers coach Glenn Schumann, and Smart, of course.
The NCAA is also allowing teams to add a 10th on-field assistant. Fountain’s move means he will not be the 10th assistant at Georgia. There hasn’t been any word yet on Jay Johnson, the former Minnesota offensive coordinator who was also in an off-field analyst role for Georgia this year.