Allen Smith - Defensive Line - Football Coaches

Allen Smith

Title:
Defensive Line

Smith comes to the Banks of the Hudson in 2025 after a three-year stint (2022-24) at Georgia State, where he served as the defensive line coach.

Smith will coach the defensive line for the Black Knights.

Before his stint at Georgia State, Smith spent one season with the Houston Texans (2021) as an assistant defensive line coach.

Before his year coaching with the Texans, he spent three years (2018-2020) as the defensive line coach at Wofford, helping the Terriers to back-to-back berths in the NCAA FCS playoffs in 2018 and 2019.

In both playoff seasons, Smith helped coach the top defense in the Southern Conference. In 2018, the Terriers led the conference in rushing defense, total defense, and scoring defense, ranking No. 12 or higher in FCS in all three categories.

In 2020, Wofford once again led the league in total defense and sacks, while ranking second in both rushing defense and scoring defense.

Smith developed and coached All-American and All-Southern Conference nose tackle Miles Brown, who signed a free agent contract with the Arizona Cardinals, appearing in nine games in 2019 and then spent time on the Tennessee Titans’ practice squad in 2020.

Smith served one season as the defensive line coach at VMI (2017) and one season at Duke as a defensive operations assistant (2016). In 2015, as a defensive graduate assistant at Appalachian State, he worked with Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year Ronald Blair, who was a fifth-round draft pick by the San Francisco 49ers in 2016.

He began his career as an assistant coach at Calhoun County High School in 2014.

As a player, Smith was a standout defensive lineman at Wofford who helped the Terriers to four straight NCAA FCS playoff berths, including SoCon titles in 2010 and 2012. He served as team captain as a senior, playing under Army defensive coordinator Nate Woody, when he was the defensive coordinator at Wofford from 2000-2012.

Smith earned his bachelor's degree in business economics from Wofford in 2012. He and his wife Joy have two daughters, Harleigh and Emori.