With the recent hiring of Lovie Smith as head coach at Illinois comes a late round of assistant coaching shuffling. Louisville offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Garrick McGeee will reportedly leave the Cardinals to join Smith at Illinois. Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com was first to report the move.
McGee joined the coaching staff at Louisville in 2014 after a two-year run as the head coach at UAB. It was there he was reunited with Bobby Petrino, who had coached with at Arkansas. McGee will return to the state of Illinois and the Big Ten by joining the Illini staff. McGee was a wide receivers coach at Northwestern in 2004 and 2005 and was bumped up to offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2006. He held that role for two seasons before heading to Arkansas. There is a past connection between McGee and Smith. Smith actually recruited McGee to Arizona State in 1991. Smith was a linebackers coach for the Sun Devils from 1988 through 1991.
Smith has already assembled part of his coaching staff with the addition of offensive line coach Luke Butkus from the Jacksonville Jaguars. The addition of McGee as offensive coordinator comes a day after it was thought Smith could be targeting Mike Sherman to be the offensive coordinator among a few other potential targets for various jobs. Whether this means there is no room left for Sherman is undetermined, although it seems unlikely.