Per Weiszer,
ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach tweeted Sunday that he is “hearing” former Florida offensive coordinator Kurt Roper will interview early this week for the job and that Western Kentucky offensive coordinator Tyson Helton is also a possibility.
Helton is pretty much the opposite of yesterday’s flavor, Mike Bloomgren. Western Kentucky’s offense runs a pass-oriented, hurry up scheme. It’s been prolific – check the crazy stats from this game – this season, too, in contrast to Stanford’s. Consider a few national rankings from Marty’s site:
- Fifth in yards per play;
- Fourth in yards per game;
- Second in passing yards;
- Sixth in scoring offense.
All of those were better than Georgia’s. And while WKU didn’t run the ball as much as Georgia, there is this.
The Hilltoppers became the first team in FBS history to have a 4,500-yard passer (Doughty) and 1,500-yard rusher (Leon Allen). They also scored 577 points to shatter the old record of 432 scored by the 2002 team and finished with 76 touchdowns. The 1973 team scored 62 TDs, the previous program standard.
As MaconDawg sums Helton up, “Helton is the only realistic candidate whose 2014 numbers don’t pale in comparison to the Bobo-led UGA attack.” It’s likely he’s been brought to Richt’s attention by Neal Callaway, who’s the offensive line coach at WKU. (In case you’re wondering, Western Kentucky finished the year 28th in sacks allowed, with 19.)
Presuming Schlabach is right, if nothing else, it seems that Richt is willing to cast a pretty wide net to catch Bobo’s successor.
Get The Picture 
FWIW… Another name muddying the waters in the rumor mill today for the OC job is Freddie Kitchens, former Bama QB & current Arizona Cardinals QB Coach. He was roommates for 4 years at Bama with Pruitt & Friend. Supposedly a serious candidate for the Bama job that Kiffin wound up with…
#dunno…
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All I’m thinking about right now is a wide-open passing attack simply flaying Bama in next fall’s showdown in Athens, so this Helton character has got my interest up.
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I hope a recommendation is all that we are contacting Neal Callaway about.
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His OLs were pretty good, though, right?
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Good position coach, awful talent evaluator. If Richt brings him back, he’d better do so without giving Callaway control over which o-linemen Georgia signs.
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I was really glad when UAB hired Callaway away. Like many offensive players/coaches from the early Richt era Callaway is probably more fondly remembered by some than his performance warranted because his teams were backed up by consistently good defenses. You throw Callaway in the Bobo era pressure cooker of having to score all the time because the defense hemorrhages points and he would be a huge goat fast. The 03 offensive line was one of the worst ever. It was inexperienced granted but it would have been hard to perform worse as an OL than that unit did.
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My guess is that if Calloway did bring Helton to Richt’s attention, it was pitched as a package deal. Maybe Callaway 2.0 could be successful if Richt told him “We’re just going to go after 4 and 5 star guys.” But I can’t recall if Calloway was a strong enough recruiter to make that work.
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Food for thought per Helton’s gaudy O stats. Todd “Towel Boy” Grantham has managed to keep Louisville in the top ten with their rushing D. Bonus time?
Marshall is no slouch but this is an interesting slug fest as well. How does a team that far behind in their bowl game score 34 in the 4th quarter?
1 2 3 4 Total
Central Michigan 7 7 0 34 48
Western Kentucky 21 21 7 0 49
Now that looks weird doesn’t it. I’m not feeling WK’s schedule was all that daunting. Evidently Marshall didn’t either as the Hilltopers handed them their only defeat of their season. Doesn’t pay to take another team for granted. Is that what happened to us in the WLOCP? Whatever we did to get the Dawgs up for Auburn we certainly forgot to pack in our jump bag for the trip to Florida.Eeyore Dawgs can bitch all they want about not winning another National Championship in 14 years . 10 win seasons are not easy to come by in the SEC. That lost against Tech stung. That ass whipping we put on Toddy took some of the swelling out.
http://www.fbschedules.com/ncaa-14/conf-usa/2014-western-kentucky-hilltoppers-football-schedule.php
http://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/strength-of-schedule-by-team
http://www.fbschedules.com/ncaa-14/conf-usa/2014-marshall-thundering-herd-football-schedule.php
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If it’s Roper I’ll be devastated. If you told me the WKU guy wouldn’t push Eason out the door I’d be all for it, but that concerns me a bit. I’d prefer the Stanford OC or perhaps a NFL QBs coach to be honest. But really anyone but Roper.
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Mr. Roper’s not that bad. Once you get to know him
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Promoting Lilly is sounding better all the time.
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Not sure why, but I suspect it’s a moot point. I think all the names you’re hearing early are ones who have expressed interest in the job. I have little doubt that there are names not on the radar who Richt will strongly consider. Remember Pruitt’s hire.
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I recall the way the Pruitt hire went down was almost like a head fake by cmr. I don’t see that happening this year… although it would be great if it did.
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Dunno what that means. All I know is it wouldn’t be the first time Richt’s hired a coach nobody was talking about.
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sounds like you got it.
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I thought Lilly called a good game in the bowl and he knows the system we run. Promoting from within is not a bad thing. There are many advantages, you just have to be willing to pull the trigger on a replacement if it does not work out not wait 5 years like Richt did with Martinez. The names we are hearing aren’t really blowing my skirt up. I hope you are right but based on the names we’ve heard so far I’d rather promote Lilly.
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Promoting from within is not a bad thing. There are many advantages…
I don’t know what your experience is, but I spent 25 years making these kinds of decisions. My experience is that it is rare that promoting from within works well. Sometimes it does, often times it bombs. When you are dealing with driven people with egos (coaches?), its hard for many to take direction and commands from someone who just days ago was their peer. It runs some good employees off. Especially vulnerable are the ones who think they were being considered to the position.
You’re right, there are some advantages. I think there are as many disadvantages.
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A valid point about ego driven professions. However Martinez’s problems weren’t due to insubordination of former peers. He was terrible at putting his players in a position to succeed on gameday. If I was hiring a coordinator from outside I’d make it clear such coordinator would have complete authority to pick his own assistants. That would provide some incentive to line up behind the internal guy. I wasn’t in management for 25 years but Ive seen these decisions play out both ways with a variety of clients. All I am basically saying is that just because Lilly is internal should not disqualify him when the names being bantered about seem just as risky if not more so. Lilly at least knows our system, personnel, and opponents well and was part of a team that had far more success against these opponents than Kurt Roper.
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I’m not sure Martinez is a good example. Especially if you’re considering hiring from within. I don’t see this as Oregon promoting Helfrich. My guess is that the brain trust at Oregon knew Helfrich could be trusted. That is not known about Lilly, I don’t think. There are examples where promoting from within have worked well, for sure. I have no idea if Lilly is capable of continuing what Georgia has been doing, but the sample size of games called is basically 0.0 in my book.
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1.0, I think it’s critical to know what part, if any, he had in Pruitt’s bachelor party and/or wedding ceremony
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LOL.
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“Hand the ball to Chubb” is not really “calling a great game.”
Granted, it is nice he didn’t get cute and screw it up. But lets be honest, there wasn’t a whole log of creative playcalling going on there. Our general gameplan strategy for this season/team had long since been designed by Richt and Bobo.
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Couldn’t Helton adjust his play calling? He would be taking over an offense with a green QB, but a stable of racehorse tailbacks. Plus Richt is not a throw every down guy, and he’s going to have input into what style of offense Georgia runs. My concern when Bobo left wasn’t the run game, it was Bobo’s ability to coach QBs and insert a dynamic, play action heavy passing game to compliment our running attack.
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I don’t remember…was Jeremy Pruitt ever on the speculative list to replace Grantham…till Richt hired him?
Also…an observation that Georgia was more interested in keeping Pruitt than they were in keeping his predecessor…what’s his name? We are paying Pruitt more money than what’s his name was offered by…you know?
There is a connection between and among the guys on the staff who were at Alabama together in days of yore, and that connection is Neil Callaway.
I remember thinking at the time Callaway left that he had been allowed to leave, but I wanted to think that for some reason. The truth is we have no idea why Callaway left other than to be a head coach at UAB…which did not work out too well for Callaway.
Will Friend was one of the coaches who had a connection to Callaway from Alabama and so is Jeremy Pruitt.
Blutarsky has postulated that Callaway’s problem at Georgia was recruiting top talent, not coaching, and maybe that is true.
All I am saying is that if Neil Callaway called Mark Richt and suggested Georgia ought to look at Helton, then Helton probably would get some interest.
It is the function of the Blogosphere and reporters to put names out there.
Everybody wants to have a list of names to blabber about.
Whether any or none of those names has any relation to who Mark Richt may or may not talk to about the OC job remains to be seen. According to many reporters who cover Mark Richt, he is a very fine poker player.
This would tend to serve him well during an OC search.
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I’m not sure anyone had time to speculate between Grantham’s departure and Pruitt’s hire. It was pretty quick.
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I thought we were hiring guys with bama connections, not UAB castoffs. But Helton seems like an intriguing candidate – lots of upside AND downside potential. Am I the only one who’s sick of seeing Callaway’s name associated with our OL opening? We can do much better than callaway as OL coach.
And I don’t see any history that shows either of these guys can recruit worth a damn.
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“I thought we were hiring guys with bama connections, not UAB castoffs.”
Paul Bryant, Jr., thinks it okay. At least they have a med school
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Whoever the OC and OLC will be has to be made rather quickly due to recruiting. Doubt that Bobo and Friend will be like Franklin leaving Vandy going to PSU…try to steal some recruits.
Strongly doubt it will be Roper or Bloomberg. Not sure where the former UF OL coach went after the HC change or if retained. And CMR is not going to hire a combo OC / OLC. Last year the D side was cleaned out for Pruitt. Do not think CMR will do that to the current remaining O staff.
Tight balance for CMR. Can he find a new receivers / qb coach and a new OLC and move Lilly to OC.
Thought Lilly handled the player rotation very well against Grantham. He did not burn Chubb out in the first half like Bobo had a tendency to do in the UF and the GT game.
All depends on CMR, current staff, CMR’s budget, and CMR’s cash reserve.
Plus you have to factor in the recruit base and how strong the Dawgs finished 2014.
Not sure how the bloggers and sportswriters think of the year end SEC power ratings and rankings.
But right behind Bama I put the Dawgs…paws down and pissing on the polls. No doubt Dawgs were the 2nd best team in the SEC.
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Helton and Kitchens sound like fine talent to speculate about. Both have high-flying Os with less talent than we have. The comeback by Central Mich can be D coaching at halftime, AHD. Not sure what that game should mean about the O proficiency he has shown all year(s).
These guys fit the O bill and I’m sure the details will matter to Richt and Co. Young offensive minds to drive Bobo’s big shiny machine? Titillating thoughts indeed.
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If Richt deals with Callaway, that would be up to him since he has more knowledge in that area than we do. Let’s don’t create an “Evil Callaway” from speculation. That’s not fair to those making the decisions we entrust to them and for which we will hold them responsible. You can see the thread developing as generating more fear of Callaway’s presence than there is substance to hiring an O coor.
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Looking at their current titles and responsibilities, could there be a chance Richt is looking at going co-offensive coordinators: Helton as QB Coach, Co-OC (passing game coordinator) and play caller, and Bloomgren as OL Coach and co-OC (running game coordinator)?
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That way each co-coordinator could ask
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A f(l)an can wish, can’t he? Great work on the art – I fell honored!
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As she was pudding everything together, that’s exactly what she said!
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Now that would be a nice result
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