And yet Richt has not done enough.
Advertisement
Georgia players met Sunday evening with Richt, with several telling reporters that they will miss him and senior outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins openly disagreeing with the decision.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach was the first to report on Sunday that Georgia head fired Richt after 15 years as the Bulldogs’ coach.
It appears that Richt will stay on to coach the bowl game, but it will be interesting to see if he has any interest in any of the coaching jobs that are immediately available – perhaps Virginia or his alma mater, Miami – or if he’ll take time away from coaching.
Georgia head coach walks out of a huddle during a timeout in the… Plus he has recruited most of his talent in Georgia, a place where SC must reestablish inroads if it wishes to return to competitiveness in the SEC East. Current Florida head coach Jim McElwain, Saban’s former offensive coordinator, was hired by Colorado State in December of 2011, but finished that season with an Alabama team that won the national title. If the worst you can do is Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen or Houston’s Tom Herman – and they’d undoubtedly be interested – you’ve done well.
Richt had a long period of solid success, but he never achieved greatness.
Richt, deeply religious, was respected for his integrity but criticized for failing to keep pace in the SEC’s recent string of seven consecutive national championships. In 2013, Florida State claimed the title.
Highlights: Guided Georgia to its first SEC title in 20 years in 2002….
Richt, 55, said Saturday that the team “came up short of our goal” to win the SEC championship. Whoever Georgia hires will inherit (assuming he can hang on to it) a 2016 recruiting class that now ranks sixth nationally, per Rivals.com, and boasts the No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the country in Jacob Eason. The school made the announcement Sunday, bringing a quick end to its search to replace the retiring Frank Beamer after 29 seasons. The ‘Dawgs were 5-yards and possibly one play away from winning the SEC title in 2012 and a shot in the BCS before coming up short against Alabama.
Head coaching record: 145-51 overall; 83-37 Southeastern Conference. 6939 winning percentage. Wally Butts, whose 140 career wins were the second-best in Georgia history before Coach Richt eclipsed that mark earlier this year, stood at 117-70-9 following the 1957 loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores that dropped his winning percentage to. Firing a coach with that record is always a huge risk. 740 topping Vince Dooley’s.
Advertisement
In 2014, it was a similar script as Georgia had to soldier on when leading running back Todd Gurley was suspended for a good chunk of the regular season, then went down with a season-ending knee injury in November. While most outside the Bulldog Nation fixated on the fate of LSU head coach Les Miles, another classy head coach is now out of a job. That’s a high benchmark, and schools like Tennessee and Texas are case studies of what happens when you don’t respond to coaching changes the right way.
