ATLANTA — Georgia State introduced its new football coach, Dell McGee, with a news conference on Monday as the former UGA positions coach said he was ready to fashion a "consistent winning program."
McGee, most recently the run game coordinator and running backs coach at UGA, was named the new Panthers head coach over the weekend. He comes in to replace Shawn Elliott, who left after seven seasons to return to the University of South Carolina program.
McGee has 22 years of coaching experience in all, and said his chance to lead a program as head coach was a "long time coming."
McGee added he'd received support for taking the head coaching job from UGA coach Kirby Smart and others at UGA who "believed in me, gave me a lot of confidence in taking this job and I can't thank them enough for everything that I learned."
Georgia State President M. Brian Blake joked at the press conference that he'd had "so many people from UGA curse me" for bringing McGee over from the Bulldogs.
"So excited to have you, you have my total support, you have the university's support," Blake said. "Let the McGee era begin."
The coach himself said he had talked with GSU players who were "comping at the bits to work."
"They're enthused, I just see a bunch of great young men that have an outstanding future ahead of them," he said.
The new Panthers head coach added: "As far as our football team is concerned, we're gonna be tough, fast, physical. We will demand that in the organization. There will not be one stone that goes unturned while I'm your head football coach, we'll be diligent in details, we'll look for new ways to do things, we're not gonna stay stale, we're gonna be reinventive."
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