The Georgia backfield is young, and so is their coach – after two years as a graduate assistant, former Georgia receiver Bryan McClendon is enjoying his first season as Georgia’s running backs coach. McClendon, at just 26, is the youngest Bulldog coach.
First & Goal caught up with him this week.

ON HIS FIRST YEAR SO FAR:

It’s going good. There’s a little more, of course it’s just a lot more responsibility, but as far as the workload and everything else, it’s not much more than when I was a graduate assistant. But the responsibility is much greater. I work with a great group of guys and it makes it easy. I work with guys that want to come out and want to be great football players. And they’re great kids, so that makes my job really easy.

ON IT COMPARED TO EXPECTATIONS:

I sort of went in not trying to expect one thing or another so nothing would really take me off guard. But it’s going great. I’m up here, I’m having a blast, the kids are having a good time and we’ve just got to keep it going.

ON WHAT PLAYERS HAVE TAUGHT HIM:

They teach me. There’s constant things every day. The thing they’ve taught me the most is there’s no way possible you can overlook anything, or just assume anything. You have to make sure that you’re hitting everything from A to Z and being as meticulous as you possibly can. That’s something that I’m just trying to do.

ON MISSING THE RECEIVING SIDE:

I’m just happy that everybody’s happy. I’m happy that I can help this team in any way, and I can help this institution in any way. I think [wide receivers coach, and former running backs coach Tony] Ball’s done a great job and I couldn’t be more fulfilled in that area.