Georgia hires Hartley away from Marshall for recruiting role

ATHENS - In another sign of the increased importance of support staff roles, Georgia has hired away an on-field coach from a team that finished in the top 25 this season.

Todd Hartley, who was a coach at Marshall the past four years, was officially announced as the Georgia football team's new director of player personnel, which is basically the director of on-campus recruiting. He replaces Ronnie Letson, who was in the role for one year before joining Mike Bobo's Colorado State staff as quarterbacks coach.

Hartley is a Gray native and a former graduate assistant at Georgia. He was also the recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach the past two seasons at Marshall, which went 12-1 this year and finished No. 23 in the final AP poll. He was Marshall's safeties coach from 2011-12.

Five years ago, after the firing of Willie Martinez and most of his defensive staff, Hartley served as the interim defensive backs coach for Georgia in the Independence Bowl.

“We’ve worked with Todd in the past at Georgia and he did an excellent job including his interim role with our defensive staff,” head coach Mark Richt said in a statement. "He’s a tireless worker and having served as recruiting coordinator and on-field coach in recent years he has a strong sense of what we are looking for in a student-athlete at Georgia.”

Strength staff completed

It appears that two new hires were made to Georgia's strength and conditioning staff, including a familiar name moving over from another part of the program.

Kelin Johnson, a former Georgia defensive back who served as a graduate assistant last year, is now listed on UGA's web site as a member of the strength and conditioning staff.

The site also lists Aaron Feld, who had been at UAB since 2012 as the speed coach. Feld replaces Sherman Armstrong, who is no longer with UGA's program. Feld played at Mississippi State as a long snapper, then worked as a trainer.

John Thomas, the associate head strength and conditioning coordinator, is still listed on UGA's web site. So is Gus Felder, who was part of the strength staff last season. Felder played at Penn State, where Thomas was Joe Paterno's longtime strength and conditioning coordinator before coming to Georgia.

Mark Hocke was named the head strength and conditioning coordinator last month, after working on Alabama's strength staff the previous six years. He replaced Joe Tereshinski, who has moved into another role with the program.

This story was originally published January 13, 2015 at 4:54 PM.