McGee’s Moment

It’d been a minute.

The last time the Georgia State University Panthers football team had stepped onto a gridiron was Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, in Boise, Idaho. That day, in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, the Panthers boiled and mashed the Utah State Aggies, 45-22.

On Saturday, Aug.31, the Panthers kicked off their 2024 season against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in Bobby Dodd Stadium, a short stroll from the Atlanta Campus.

For Panthers fans, it’d been a long eight months.

For Antonio Deleon “Dell” McGee, it’d been a lifetime.

Dell McGee is a Georgia native with 22 years of coaching experience, including back-to-back national titles as the run game coordinator and running backs coach for the Georgia Bulldogs.

On the last day in August, the new Panthers coach stepped onto a football field as a full-time head coach of his own college team for the very first time.

Just eight days shy of his 51^st birthday, Coach McGee’s moment arrived. At last. And when the Panthers hosted Chattanooga a week later in their home opener, the team's first win of the season was a fitting birthday present.

At a press conference last February introducing him as the fourth head coach in GSU’s 14-year history, McGee spoke of his lifelong “dream of being a college head coach.”

“I’ve spent 20-plus years coaching in Georgia,” McGee says. “As a native of this state, this opportunity to develop student-athletes here has always been the blessing I knew I was preparing for.”

Preparing for half a half-century.

McGee played football through his youth. He grew skilled enough by high school to win a scholarship to a major college program. He played in the National Football League. He then turned to coaching, first high school, then college and most recently as running backs coach for college football’s premier program, the Georgia Bulldogs. At UGA, McGee helped Coach Kirby Smart capture two national championships.

For a lifetime, McGee has lifted, sprinted, studied Xs and Os. He’s watched film, visited recruits, yelled from the sidelines, burned the midnight oil. He’s pushed young student-athletes to be their best. He’s pushed himself.

“Georgia State is primed for success as a premier institution in the best city in America,” McGee says. “I can't wait to lead this football program as we compete for championships.”

At Kendrick High School in his hometown of Columbus, Ga., McGee’s track-star speed, ballistic-missile tackling and ball-hawking skills caught the attention of college scouts. Pat Dye at Auburn University saw something outsized in the 5-foot-8 defensive back, and McGee lettered four years for the Tigers from 1992 to 1995. His finest hour came with a critical fourth-quarter interception against archrival Alabama in the 1993 Iron Bowl, the turning point in a game Auburn won.

Professional football made note of McGee’s big-stage moment. He went to the Arizona Cardinals in the fifth round of the 1996 National Football League draft, then bounced around the NFL for three seasons. He played four more years in NFL Europe, the XFL and the Arena Football League.

McGee was good on the field. He proved better — gifted, even — on the sidelines.

He started from the ground up in high schools in Georgia, first as an assistant coach at Harris County High School (2002) and then Greenville High School (2003-04).

In 2005, Mama called; a school in his hometown, Carver-Columbus High, was on life support after nine straight losing seasons.

McGee took the school’s head coaching job. He inspired young prep players, raised their game, made them believe in themselves. Overnight, he built Carver-Columbus into a powerhouse that ripped off seven straight seasons with 10 or more wins (2006-12). McGee’s Tigers won the 2007 Class AAA state title.

Turning programs around and winning state titles — these things draw attention in the coaching world. In 2013, McGee heard Mama call again. He returned to Auburn as an analyst.

A charmed coaching life continued.

In his first and only year at Auburn, McGee played a key role on the staff that reached the Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game.

Valuable work as a key analyst for a national championship-caliber team also draws attention.

In 2014, Georgia Southern hired McGee to coach its running backs. He stepped in to mastermind a fearsome ground game that led the nation in rushing in 2014. His leadership proved so impressive that when the Eagles’ head coach, Willy Fritz, stepped away unexpectedly before the 2015 GoDaddy Bowl, McGee was named interim head coach. Georgia Southern bowled over Bowling Green, 58-26.

That 60 GoDaddy minutes of football in an interim head-coaching capacity would be as close as McGee came to running his own program — until last February.

In 2016, the University of Georgia named Kirby Smart its new head coach. Smart had understudied for years with Nick Saban at Alabama, the dynasty program in college football at that time.

Now, Smart needed a staff, and he spotted an in-state coach who seemed to have a Midas touch with running backs.

Dell McGee became Smart’s first official hire as the Bulldogs’ head coach.

Smart’s choice proved, well, smart.

At Georgia, McGee helped develop one outstanding running back after another: Nick Chubb. Sony Michel. D’Andre Swift. Elijah Holyfield. James Cook. Zamir White. All went pro in the first four rounds of the NFL draft.

McGee spent eight seasons as a key part of a Bulldogs program that amassed 94 victories and back-to-back College Football Playoff national championships (2021-22). While McGee coached, Georgia teams won eight bowl games, two Southeastern Conference (SEC) titles and six SEC Eastern Division crowns.

McGee’s Midas touch also extended into recruiting.

Having spent much of his life playing and coaching in Georgia, he personally knew coaches and programs and players everywhere in the state. Homegrown, McGee had authenticity, too. When he went into a young player’s house to talk football and college and opportunity, it was a personal testimony, not a sales pitch.

How would UGA have fared absent McGee? The influential sports media source Rivals.com named him National Recruiter of the Year after the Bulldogs signed the consensus No. 1-rated recruiting class in 2018. McGee helped recruit and develop Georgia’s 56 NFL draft picks from 2017-23, including 15 first-rounders and an NFL-record 25 players drafted in the last two years.

Can McGee bring his recruiting magic to Georgia State?

“I’m all about development,” he says. “We will use the portal to supplement our roster, but we are going to carve our teeth in high school recruiting. There’s a lot of talent that goes unnoticed. This state is heavily recruited because it’s one of the top states that produce NFL football players, per capita. So, we’ve just got to make sure we find the right diamonds in the rough and develop those guys.

“We’re going to find great players who fit our schemes and who also fit the academic profile that we’re looking for in our student-athletes,” McGee continues. “We’re going to be tough and physical. We will demand that in our organization.”

McGee briefly met his Panthers team before the February press conference.

“The atmosphere was very genuine, it was very electric,” says linebacker Kevin Swint, a fifth-year senior. “Everybody was into it, sitting upright in their seats. Just being eager to be coached by someone as great as him, but also by somebody who is a man of character, a man of leadership, who is willing to get us better.”

McGee’s feet are on the ground. He’s a rookie head coach. He’s got a new team to mold. He’s planning to prove himself through years of work, not one opening game or even one season.

“I’m putting our coaches and our players in the best position to be successful,” he says. “I’m not trying to do too much or overdo things. I’ve got to assess situations daily and make adjustments where necessary.”

McGee will surely have one Panther’s best interest at heart.

Coach and his wife, Linda, have a son, Austin, who joined the Panthers football program in June with the 2024 class. Like his dad, Austin is a standout defensive back.

Season one, watch for signs of McGee’s “four Cs” in Panther performance.

“Our traits are making sure that we’re connected, competitive, committed to the process and that we have composure. These four Cs are very important to being consistent. To be a consistent champion, we must embrace those four traits daily,” McGee says.

“We have to do a great job as coaches to reiterate what that standard looks like, and our players must uphold that standard.”

The Sun Belt Conference, where the Panthers play, is on the rise. Still, it’s not the big, rich SEC where McGee coached for the past eight years.

“It’s different for sure,” smiles McGee. “Most SEC schools have every bell and whistle known to man. We have to do more with less, but that’s just fine. We’ve got a really good thing going here, and we have a tremendous stadium and university. I want to see this program grow, and we’re poised to do that.”

Panther passion can make a difference.

“I would love for 30,000 faculty, students, fans and families to be in the stands at every single home game,” McGee says. “I want a hostile environment in our stadium. I want to make it very hard for the opposing team to operate.

“With us being in the heart of Atlanta, I think we can provide that,” he says. “I do think our student section needs to get bigger and louder, and we definitely want a tradition of having our student body involved throughout the entire game.”

As he talks, McGee projects a clear vision.

“This is the most important job I’ve had,” McGee says. “I don't take this lightly. This is a big job, and I want to make this program a household name.

“It’s really important to me, because there are other prospective minority coaches out there who are striving to be head coaches. So, personally, I want success, and I want success for this school and to get some big wins and help change the overall narrative about Georgia State football,” he says.

On kickoff Saturday, as Panthers fans left the big pregame tailgate party at Tech Green and crowded into Bobby Dodd Stadium — and as Coach McGee stepped onto the gridiron for the first time leading his own college team — a certain irony was at play.

In 2022, while McGee still worked with the running backs at UGA, writer Seth Emerson in the sports magazine The Athletic speculated about a Georgia Tech team needing a coaching change.

“Georgia Tech,” Emerson wrote, “may in the coming days and weeks get a nibble from other candidates who are clear home runs. They would do well to at least give McGee a call.”

The football coaching cycle consumes, and never really stops. In spare moments, though, McGee loves to read. He loves family time. He’s comfortable with who he is and how he is. He accepts his role as a father figure to young men.

“The football part is easy and fun,” McGee says. “I think that takes care of itself. What’s really important to me are the lives of these kids and trying to mentor them and help them grow beyond football.

“When a parent entrusts me with their son,” he says, “I’m going to return him as a man.”