UGA football loses top staffer to the Big 12

The Georgia Bulldogs have lost one of their top ranking staff members to the Big 12. Georgia’s director of football operations, Neyland Raper, is departing the Bulldogs’ football program.

Raper has been a fixture throughout the Kirby Smart era. He started his time in Athens in 2017 and worked his way up through Georgia’s football operations department.

Support staffs are getting larger and larger in modern day college football. The football ops department overseas Georgia’s travel, budget, recruiting and schedules for the team. A lot of logistics are involved behind the scenes before the players suit on Saturdays.

Raper, who graduated from Tennessee, briefly held a role at Colorado during the Mel Tucker era. Raper returned to Georgia in 2019 and was named as the Bulldogs’ director of football ops in 2021.

This offseason, Georgia lost assistant coaches Bryan McClendon, Dell McGee and Fran Brown. Additionally, Will Muschamp is taking on a smaller role for the Georgia defense.