Georgia Reportedly Targeting WVU Assistant Larry Knight

According to Pete Nakos of On3, Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is looking to hire West Virginia edges/pass rush specialist Larry Knight.

WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez recently added Knight to the staff in January. Knight spent the 2025 season at Arkansas State, where he served as defensive ends coach and defensive run game coordinator under head coach Butch Jones.

Arkansas State’s defensive front elevated under Knight’s direction in one season. The unit registered a Sun Belt best and sixth nationally with 39 sacks. The Red Wolves recorded a season-high nine sacks against Troy, matching the top single-game total in the nation. Three of the league’s top seven sack leaders came from Arkansas State, and all four starting defensive linemen earned All-Sun Belt honors. The unit finished fourth in the conference in tackles for loss and scoring defense, improving eight spots from the previous season and ranking No. 30 nationally in tackles for loss.

Prior to Arkansas State, Knight returned to Temple as defensive end coach for two seasons. He helped develop All-American Athletic Conference standout Diwun Black, who totaled three sacks, six tackles for loss and eight quarterback hurries.

From 2019 to 2022, Knight served as defensive line coach and defensive recruiting coordinator at Georgia Tech. While with the Yellow Jackets, he helped secure the second-highest recruiting class in program history in 2020, and the school’s highest-rated defensive line recruiting class in 2021.

His tenure included the development of multiple All-ACC performers, including Djimon Brooks, who rose from an unrecruited walk-on to an All-ACC starter in 2021 and developed Keion White, a 2022 All-ACC honoree who tied for third in the conference in sacks and tackles for loss before being selected in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots.

Knight’s first stint at Temple from 2017-2019. He was tabbed defensive and recruiting quality control assistant before being promoted to director of player personnel. He was later elevated to outside linebackers coach and defensive recruiting coordinator. The Owls reached back-to-back bowl games, including a victory in the 2017 Gasparilla Bowl, and fielded a 2018 defense that ranked among the nation’s top four in defensive touchdowns.

Knight served as outside linebackers coach Georgia State from 2015 to 2016. He was instrumental in turning the defense around. The Panthers were the most improved defense in the FBS in 2015 to lead the program to its first bowl appearance, earning a berth in the Cure Bowl.

Knight gained Power Four experience earlier in his career at Tennessee from 2013 to 2014 as a defensive graduate assistant and defensive quality control coach.

Knight began his collegiate coaching career at Cincinnati from 2011 to 2012 as a graduate assistant.

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