College Football Coaching Carousel Hits The SEC
On a weekend when it appeared one SEC school would lose its successful head coach, it happened.
Except it was not LSU and Les Miles. It was Georgia.
In what might be called a stunning move, the school fired Mark Richt on Sunday.
Georgia is 9.3 but has beat only one FBS team with a winning record, and that was Georgia Southern. The Bulldogs struggled mightily on offense when lead running back Nick Chubb went down an injury in the Tennessee game. Which was a Georgia loss.
The season really fell apart the previous week when the Bulldogs were fired up, undefeated and faced what many people around the country felt was a wounded Alabama team. The Crimson Tide was coming off a loss to Ole Miss and was an underdog for the first time in several years.
Yet Alabama not just won, it dominated, whipping Georgia 38-10. Restless Bulldog fans began to growl that this was typical of a Richt team – tough on paper and the recruiting trail, but often soft on the field.
That’s been the problem with Richt’s tenure at Georgia – it was peppered with big losses in big games and also filled with inexplicable losses to lesser teams (to South Carolina and Georgia Tech, in particular).
So it’s the Bulldogs and not the Bengal Tigers that are looking for a new leader as the college football coaching carousel hits the SEC. With several big openings – led by USC – the timing of this can come into question. Virginia Tech reportedly is set to hire Justin Fuente away from Memphis.
Georgia may have its eye on a big prize, Jimbo Fisher from Florida State. But guess where Richt coached before he was at Georgia? Florida State.
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