Per Dan Wolken,
Though Georgia rallied to win four in a row — none impressively and all against weak competition — the decision had been made. According to one person with knowledge of the situation, Georgia quietly made moves to start a coaching search over the last week. And McGarity, according to another person with knowledge of the situation, was not part of the locker room celebration after the Auburn win, which was noted by the coaching staff.
The next day, when Richt flew across the country for a very public meeting with the Bulldogs’ future starting quarterback, it signaled he knew sentiment of Georgia’s most prominent supporters had turned against him.
None of that surprises me. I just hope McGarity’s been putting that time to good use.
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UPDATE: Nice touch, this.
Get The Picture 
maybe he can lure Jim Harrick back to campus while he’s at it…
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Dooley hired Harrick. Why do you hate Coach Dooley?
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Adams had Dooley hire Harrick. Adams also had a second buyout deal with Donnan that he didn’t tell Dooley about. But thankfully, Adams is gone.
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Dooley hired Harrick because Adams gave him no choice. hell, let’s bring Adams back while we are degrading the school.
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right, that clown got a med school and an engineering school on campus, what degradation!
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the HOPE scholarship built our academic capacities more than Adams could conceivably take credit. this firing basically announces that winning the right way is less important to the institution than winning one or two more games a season with a mercenary TBA. very embarrassing.
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THIS!!!
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I didn’t say Adams gets that credit, he DOES get credit for med and engineering. Stick with the facts, Z.
HYPO: If the law school hires a hotshot prof who clerked on the SCOTUS and went to Harvard and he publishes some epic law review articles and an entire chapter in a treatise in his first 5 years and then for the next 10 years he doesn’t publish & teaches a course that is lightly registered you know what happens (assuming no tenure)? His contract is not renewed.
If you support life-time tenure for CMR, good on you. I don’t.
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i think winning without integrity is worthless. might as well just cheat and be transparent about it.
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False choice. Find a coach that can do both. Winning at the highest level and integrity are not mutually exclusive notions. Geez.
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i wish i shared your optimism.
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Are you Mike Adams?
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I know we’ve talked skepticism over the ability for the BM administration to get this right, but it sure seems like McGarity is off to a good start.
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this alumn thinks McGarity is an embarrassment.
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Yeah, I got that. But this alum thinks he’s doing the right thing.
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You want someone to believe you could get into a college, come on dip shit.
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Dan Wolken? Really??
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I’ve heard some of the same stuff from others.
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I know. It’s just….Dan Wolken?? Lol
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For me, I’m heartbroken to see Mark Richt go, but I understand why it happened. Anyone other than Chip Kelly, Gary Patterson, or Kirby Smart is going to be a HARD sell for me.
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Kirby doesn’t excite me at all. We need a head coach, not a coordinator who wants to see if he can be a head coach, remember Muschamp?
My fear is the AD and BM crowd will continue the Georgia Way and go cheap and we end up with another 5 year experiment that doesn’t work.
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Richt was a coordinator.
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You mean the guy you wanted fired? 😉
And I thought Georgia was such a great program now that it could go out and get anybody it wanted.
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I’ve never been among those who has said “we have to get THIS guy” or that we have the clout to pull Belichick. I know you read through way too many of our Bs comments to remember what any one individual said, but I said a few weeks ago I don’t think we have to land a “rock star” to get better. Not to say that I think Smart should be the guy, I’m just saying if he IS the guy, I wouldn’t be disappointed.
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McElwain was not a rock star but from the looks of it he may become one
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I know, right! The way he got his team to lay in the fetal position last night had to be the most impressive thing I’ve seen him do. Btw, Muschamp had a good year once, too.. and then proceeded to completely wet the bed.
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Let the crawfishin” begin.
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and we know how you feel about him.
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Right chili but McGarity’s perception is we are an annual 10 win a season program. So why would a search to maintain his perception be relegated to a coordinator?
With all due respect, why do you believe McGarity has made all the right moves in this process. Given the expectations, a fire and immediate hire would have been more in order. Firing a 9 win a year coach and then interviewing or hiring a search firm for the next coach seems to define there is no plan in place.
In my memory, there have been 2 examples of firing a coach with a high winning percentage, both took more than 12 years to right the ship. Do you believe our fan base and more importantly the Hartman fund contributor have the patience to wait that long?
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JC, we haven’t agreed on the direction of the program, and I know you want the best. I completely agree with you about Kirby Smart.
I honestly wish we could go after David Shaw. Stanford is tough and fundamentally sound. I’m preparing myself to be underwhelmed by the UGA administration on this transition.
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No to Kirby – we don’t need Muschamp part 2…
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Exactly. Mac-a-weeny is a fraud, too. I’m guessing Bama makes the gators effort look like we actually put up a fight..
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This Alum thinks McGarity screwed up big time. Time will tell.
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Amazing how many who wanted change are ok with said change stopping at the HC. Talk about being fooled. Oh well…I’m well studied in the art of being a Georgia fan during hard times.
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I’d like to think there’s a plan, but my guess is right now McG and a couple others are huddled around a conference table brainstorming names on a legal pad
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The program was going nowhere. The move had to be made.
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In Re. Airplane:
Last I checked, UGA has a 4 seat turbo-prop. Is that the best way to travel to Washington?
Maybe they’ve got a G IV? I’m not aware of it, though.
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You telling me UGA doesn’t have the coin to commission a private jet?
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I’m sure they do. Should we use a private jet every time the coach wants to have flapjacks with a high school recruit?
Seem’s a little indulgent. What’s the old Delta slogan about being ready?
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Not saying they should have – just saying that Schlabach had a point that Richt should have seen the writing on the wall. If Georgia was planning on keeping Richt, I don’t think they’d have much of a problem commissioning a jet for him to go re-assure his biggest recruit in years that he’ll be back, ya know – since they made that big $ commitment to his recruiting budget this past year and whatnot. That was my point – nothing more, nothing less.
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I think CMR should’ve seen the writing on the wall last year in Jacksonville when his team got curb stomped yet again, though it was only his 14th season so maybe in the 15th, such a game would not occur,
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Sure we do, and the lack of brain trust at BM would never spring for it – hell they wont spend for anything. They like to sit around and gloat about the huge pile of cash they are sitting on. And as long as we keep giving them more, that’s all that matters.
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“they won’t spend for anything”
like the IPF that was given when the assistant coach demanded it?
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The “demand” isn’t the entire reason why. Probably had a lot to do with the fact he told them he actually used that against us in recruiting. And we were the only SEC without one.
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Debate the decision and its merits all you like, but don’t fool yourselves- these are college athletic administrators we are talking about. The decision was made for 1 reason only: one or more whale donors said MR is gone or my check is, and GM didnt find a bigger fight on the other side from the keep Richt at all cost donor whales. Thus today happened, end of.
Nothimg to do with records, merits, etc. Money rules the day. McG didnt even really make the decision, some key whale donors did. McG is just like most in athletic administration- maximize revenue because it makes you look good and gives best chance at career advancement & reward. They’re mostly just like spineless self-serving middle management corportate types.
It helps to acknowledge & understand this as our fanbase debates the merits of the decision for the weeks/months/years to come.
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I won’t argue that the big donors have some pull, but remember when McGarity first arrived he said he expected our programs to compete for league titles. In the past three years, has Georgia football, our highest profile program, competed for the SEC? No, it has not. But, to your point, the big donors care most about football, which is why Mark Fox is still coaching.
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Name me a McGarity hire who’s competing for league titles.
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I got nothing.
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Which is what we’ll get form any of a hundred less than stellar candidates for this job. We are about to see what Nebraska and Tennessee have lived for 15 years.
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Robert, let’s just say that the least exciting candidate gets hired in Kirby Smart. That is STILL a better hire than any of Tennessee’s last three or Nebraskas last hire. Don’t be so apocalyptic. Georgia is a much more appealing job than either of those two.
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If everyone is so high on Smart, why not promote Pruitt for continuity on the top 10 D and recruiting class. Both are coordinators and I suspect Pruitt has a closer understanding of HC having served under a few good ones and not just be a Saban puppet.
Not saying Pruitt should be the guy, just that I don’t understand the love for Smart over Pruitt.
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Nevermind. I read these backwards and just went throught the previous post comments.
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I wouldn’t bet my paycheck on that….
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Truer words have never been spoken..
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Wow, if the pettiness apparently displayed by the A.A. isn’t enough how do you manage to not let the assistant coaches and apparently the team know before the official media release! Sure the press may have known sooner, after all they have loose lips over there, but to officially acknowledge it before the coaches and players are officially told is shameful.
Whether it was right or not to let Richt go now ( I would have let there be another season but recognize that there was/is a good case to let him go now) this “leadership” by the A.A. is appalling. It reeks of incompetence and may put the AD on the very hot seat regardless of whether one thinks it was time to fire Richt or not.
Gross mis-management.
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Herman at Houston please
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“Coach, I will approve the expense but you have to connect through Dallas. And about those frequent flyer points…”
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McGarity is a No Talent Ass Clown. What an embarrassment.
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Well said.
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That sullies the good name of ass clowns.
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Why would we want Smart over Bobo, or vice versa? Not advocating, just wondering what arguments can be mustered either way.
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The way this was handled is the new normal — social media has changed everything in this regard. Doing it the old “classy” way — tell the victim, let him tell his staff (and in the case of sports, players), means the whole thing erupts on social media and the institution is a spectator to its own news story. The people in charge have an obligation to the institution to have a story to tell, and to make sure they tell the story.
It’s too bad, but that’s the way it is now. Not saying Buttsmear is well-run, but it did handle this the same way a well-run organization would have.
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I agree it is the way things have to be done now. They all know and trust Mark Schlabach and allowed him to break the story.
Given the immediate decision on who is going recruiting, I anticipate they also already know who Coach Richt’s successor is.
We have a different man in charge these days.
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Gee they could have done it while players were being told. Sad excuse that social media changed this. It is not true the media could have always been leaked to it was the coward’s way to do it. The kids were not even respected enough to let them hear it from their Coach. This was and still is a PR nightmare.
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