According to ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Brett McMurphy, the University of Miami is set to hire former-University of Georgia head coach Mark Richt to the same position. He made the same assertion regarding Smart’s future Thursday while appearing on SiriusXM College Sports Radio. Richt was the fifth-winningest active coach in Division I football and had won an average of 9.6 games a season as Georgia’s coach.
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The head coaching job at Miami brings about a lot of the same pressure that Richt dealt with at Georgia.
Durkin also worked at Stanford on Harbaugh’s staff and started his career as a graduate assistant at Bowling Green when Urban Meyer was the coach there.
With 145 wins, Richt is proven and that makes him an anomaly for an incoming Miami coach. That opened the door for Richt to return to the Hurricanes, who fired head coach Al Golden mid-season. Richt said on Monday that “about five” schools had already contacted him.
During a farewell press conference on Monday, Richt implied that he was not done coaching and would pursue other jobs. “I’ll say this: if and when I do coach again, I’m looking forward to coaching again, in terms of being hands-on”, he said. “The coaches really care about the players and I think the players care about the coaches”.
While it is not official yet, Richt wants to be more involved in the offense and perhaps taking charge in play-calling. “I miss that part of it”, he said.
Richt exited the Georgia job less than a week ago in what was described by athletic director Greg McGarity as a “mutual” parting.
The recruitment of longtime Georgia Bulldogs blue-chip quarterback commit Jacob Eason is quickly evolving.
Miami Herald sportswriter Barry Jackson contributed to this report. He also coached and recruited the likes of current National Football League stars such as Matthew Stafford, A.J. Green, Benjamin Watson and most recently Todd Gurley and Chris Conley.
Golden was sacked in October, one day after Miami lost 58-0 to Clemson for the worst loss in the 90-yard history of Hurricane football. It is unknown if Scott will remain on the staff.
He and wife Katharyn Francis have four children: Jonathan, a 25-year-old coaching assistant with the Buffalo Bills; David, a 24-year-old aspiring singer/songwriter in Athens, Ga., and Zach (19) and Anya (18), whom they adopted from Ukraine in 1999. “I spoke [to]him earlier before the news broke”.
Rose Bowl management committee chairman Scott Jenkins said the Rose Bowl isn’t required to take the next highest ranked Big Ten team behind the conference champion. “I pray all of his hard work and dedication will be noticed”. He was 19-3 against ACC teams at Georgia.
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That group includes Florida coach Jim McElwain, who stuck around through the BCS championship game to end the 2011 season before going to Colorado State.
