Mark Richt to step down as head coach of the Georgia football team. But from the very opening, when Richt addressed the gathering media throng without waiting for any prompting from his boss of the last five years, Georgia’s ousted head coach owned the room.
Advertisement
Georgia announced Sunday that Richt will not return as coach in 2016.
Athletic director Greg McGarity and University of Georgia President Jere Morehead said Sunday Richt had been offered another position at the school that would include helping former players and fundraising for the university. Reid Park Director of Athletics Greg McGarity announced Richt was stepping down as football coach in a statement issued on Sunday.
“It’s shock more than anything”, said former Bulldogs quarterback David Greene who started for UGA from 2001-2004. The Bulldogs have the seventh-best roster in college football according to the 247Sports Team Talent Composite, which was a factor in Richt’s demise, given his team’s inability to live up to lofty expectations. Now the program heads into the wilderness, where the right coaching hire could finish the job that Richt couldn’t, but the wrong one will make fans yearn for the Richt era.
“I don’t know what the world is coming to in our profession”, Saban said late Sunday afternoon. Mike Leach struggled badly for a few years at Washington State before finally seeming to reach respectability this season.
Alabama coach Nick Saban said Sunday Smart is prepared to take over a team. Speculations about his future with Georgia peaked after the Bulldog’s SEC championship hopes ended following losses to Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida. McGarity said that the athletic association will honor Mark Richt’s handshake agreement on a contract extension set in place early this summer. Herman, who took over the Cougars’ program after coordinating Ohio State’s offense to a national championship in 2014, led Houston to an 11-1 record in his first season at the helm.
If Richt does become a coach again, he said it very well could be as a head coach, offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach.
In the past 10 years, the Bulldogs have only made it to Atlanta for the SEC championship game twice.
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. They speculate about when Smart began discussions with Georgia and how much the Les Miles firing crisis saga played a role in jobs opening or not opening. “People don’t realize the importance of some of the other things that go into college coaching”.
Richt is 145-51 during his 15 years as the Georgia head coach. If Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen leaves, Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin and Ole Miss’ Hugh Freeze would be tied for the third-longest active SEC coaching tenure at five years. Bobo is 7-5 and won his last four regular-season games in his first season at Colorado State. It left London with a 27-46 record at the school.
Advertisement
The reaction in the room was silence, Gause said, and Barchi provided no other details about the Flood decision or what would happen to the assistant coaches.
