There's a head football coaching vacancy at Georgia State, and two candidates from power-conference schools in the state have emerged as possibilities: Georgia running backs coach Dell McGee and Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, according to Seth Emerson and Bruce Feldman of The Athletic.
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SOURCES: Georgia’s Dell McGee, Georgia Tech’s Buster Faulkner have emerged as strong candidates for the Georgia State head coaching vacancy, sources tell @SethWEmerson and me. https://t.co/zP2UiOZ0oZhttps://t.co/zP2UiOZ0oZ
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) February 21, 2024
Last week, Shawn Elliott left the Georgia State program two days into spring practice to take a role at South Carolina as the tight ends coach and run-game coordinator.
Now, Georgia State is the only Football Bowl Subdivision school currently without a head coach.
In addition to McGee and Faulkner, another candidate is Trooper Taylor, the associate head coach and running backs coach at Texas A&M.
McGee and Faulkner have been in Georgia for many years, "making them attractive" to Georgia State. The football program there began in 2010 and immediately went into the FBS.
McGee, 50, has been with Georgia since Kirby Smart became head coach in 2016. Before coming to Georgia, McGee was at Georgia Southern. He was an interim head coach when then-head coach Willie Fritz left for a head coaching gig at Tulane.
He also played football at Auburn and coached high school football in Columbus, Georgia, from 2005-12, winning multiple state titles.
Faulkner, 42, is coming off his first season as Tech's offensive coordinator. They finished third in the Atlantic Coast Conference after finishing 11th in the previous year. He was at Georgia for three years before landing at Tech, working as an offensive analyst with Todd Monken, who's now with the Baltimore Ravens.
Faulkner is from Georgia and played quarterback at Valdosta State. He began his coaching career there, too. In 2017, he became the offensive coordinator with Arkansas State, then landed the same position at Southern Miss in 2019 and later joined Georgia's staff.
Georgia State went 7-6 last season. Before Elliott joined Georgia State, he was at South Carolina since 2010. His family stayed in South Carolina, and he cited the travel as a reason to return to the program there.
Now, we'll see if Georgia State brings on McGee, Faulkner or a potential dark horse in Taylor.
