Inquiring minds running bowls want to know.
The TaxSlayer Bowl’s Twitter account on Wednesday posted this: “Georgia Fans! Does the possibility of @MarkRicht not coaching UGA’s bowl game affect whether you travel to the game?”
That tweet was quickly deleted…
It may have been deleted, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t serious when they asked.
Get The Picture 
I think a Georgia vs. Miami bowl game, with Richt on the Miami sideline, would get huge ratings.
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I doubt Richt would coach against Georgia right now.
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I could see ESPN asking Richt to sit in the booth and talk about the game and the players and hopefully how crappy ADGM is.
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I think this would be awesome. He could speak about his former players and learn about his new ones out loud. It would be interesting to hear what sort of things stick out to him about our players and what sort of things he is looking for in his new ones. I would watch.
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Are you implying you won’t watch our bowl game otherwise? (I’m asking seriously, not as a snark). Surely you plan on watching our bowl game regardless?
For the most part, the fans of the teams playing who are gonna watch the game, are gonna watch the game no matter what. The people that would make a difference are people who don’t have a rooting interest in either team deciding to turn the game on. Having Richt involved or not involved just isn’t gonna make that much of a difference. It’s not like people who aren’t fans of either team would tune in just to hear Richt’s thoughts. They’re gonna tune in if they think it will be a good game.
I could potentially see some of those eyeballs (not fans of either team) tuning in out of curiosity if Richt were actually coaching in the game. But short of that, I just don’t see how Richt creates that interesting of a storyline for a UGA-Miami matchup in the current circumstances.
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Me, too, to hear especially the crappy AD part
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Here’s the thing though – Richt wouldn’t be on their sideline, at least not coaching. The interim coach will still handle the bowl game. Richt would be reduced to a talking point.
And here’s the other thing – as I understand it, the ratings don’t benefit the bowl itself. I could be wrong, but I think the payout from TV to bowl is already set beforehand. So the fact that it might bring TV ratings may of less consequence to the bowl itself than the number of fans who buy tickets, that’s where the bowl benefits from which teams are there. And all the fans who were planning on traveling to watch simply because it was gonna be Richt’s last game coaching UGA, are they still gonna go to watch Richt stand around not doing anything?
I think the reality is that this gonna be a very poorly attended bowl by UGA fans regardless of where we go, which doesn’t make us desirable from the bowls’ perspective. Good thing I guess is that that bowls don’t have near as much influence over selections as they used to.
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I’d wondered about that when the “UGA vs Miami” in either the Gator or Music City talk came up. Given that Miami has all of 10 fans that actually travel, and we’re not going to be a motivated fanbase, if ratings don’t go to the bowl in any form of extra money, I don’t know if that matchup happens.
Although, if ESPN has anything to do with the selection process…I wouldn’t rule it out.
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Yep, when you look at it, you’d have a team with a notoriously poor fan base (Miami) matched against a team that really doesn’t have anything to provide motivation for the game (UGA), and a fan base likely to travel worse than usual. I see why the natural reaction is to think it would be an interesting matchup, but when you really look at it, I would think a bowl’s committee would hate this matchup.
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However if ESPN2 decides to air the game plus 1,000,000 added incentive to Miami to require Richt coach the team, one can never know what could happen.
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Money, money, money. Where’s the beef?
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Trot him out to toss the coin at before kickoff, he waves to everyone, crowd goes crazy, begin next chapter. I’m so ready for the Richt meme to go away.
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What an interesting thought? Wonder what Vince thinks about it?
It would be a tough thing to do if the bowl game head coach was to have any more input than whether or not to punt or go for it or when to call time out, since he has little first hand knowledge of what the players can and can not do in situations. If Vince was still AD and had more detailed information on the team he could do it.
IIRC there was some retired successful coach serving as AD who coached his team in a bowl when the head coach left or was fired and someone had to be the GameDay coach for a day. Don’t remember who, though.
Great publicity, though.
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Barry Alvarez did that at Wisconsin.
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Thanks.
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He made a lot of extra money too iirc.
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Why don’t we just get a one game contract with Barry Alvarez?
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He’s a price gouger
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/bigten/2012/12/11/barry-alvarez-wisconsin-rose-bowl-paycheck/1761781/
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Why would old Barry work for free? Football coaches really only love the school for as long as they are sending over checks. It is just the fans who would coach for free out of love for the school.
Not sure he was price gouging though … he took 90% of Bert’s monthly salary. Sounds like Wisconsin got a pretty good deal as Alvarez is about 110% better than Bielema as a coach.
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I didn’t know there would be karma arithmetic on Fridays
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I bet Barry put in a call to ADGM, just to let him know that the smart play was to coach the team yourself, 1 month of pay @ $4mm/year, plus a bowl bonus, bonus if you win, and a nice retirement party.
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That would be Wisconsin.
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Let’s just make it like a celebrity pro-am with Dooley the HC, Hines Ward at OC, Bill Goldberg at DC. Samuel L. Jackson with the pregame speech.
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I’d buy a ticket and travel to see that.
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Me, too. What I won’t do is travel to face James Franklin. He is completely withut class.
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I’d also add Wayne Knight, aka Newman, to the mix.
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Please, no Ryan Sechrest.
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What about Deborah Norville?
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Aren’t we forgetting the best alumni coach we have ever produced?
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Honestly, Tax Slayer, the ass-whipping from 34 days ago would have a bigger impact on my travel plans.
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Here’s the thing. I saw that tweet and I responded to it before they took it down. It seemed very curious. Go back and look at Mark Richt’s comments at the press conference Monday. “There may be more opportunities that come in the next few hours, the next 24, 48 hours, that type of thing.” That’s a direct quote. Do you really think the whole Miami scenario transpired in just 72 hours? I don’t. When was the last time we saw Mark Richt make that kind of a decision that fast? It seems logical to me that he had already engaged in significant communications and probably even negotiations by the time of the press conference. Richt isn’t stupid. He knew his job was in jeopardy months ago. Clearly, the folks at the TaxSlayer bowl had some inside knowledge of what was going on. Why else do they ask that question? I believe Mark Richt is a lot more savvy than we’re giving him credit for. I think he saw the handwriting on the wall and was preparing for this transition long before any of us realized he would actually be fired.
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You likely are correct. Radi and his crew apparently reported – even before all this transpired – that Richt’s agent had contacted Miami as far back as October. Not that he was planning on leaving UGA, but more as a “just in case” type of thing (Radi has tweeted about this, so I’m not revealing any “pay” info).
I don’t think the implication was that Richt has been in negotiations all along with Miami or anything, but that the negotiations were made a lot easier because both parties already knew they were a match if Richt became available. So I do think the negotiations really did happen that quickly – but happened that quickly because some groundwork had already been laid.
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Richt said he was regularly being contacted about jobs and he never paid attention to them. I’d put Miami in that group. I’m sure Miami reached out to Richt’s agent earlier, so the connection was made.
But I believe him when he said he wasn’t actively pursuing other jobs.
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The report from Radi – and he’s as accurate as anyone out there with our program – was specifically that Richt’s agent was the one who reached out. You can choose to believe or not believe, but Radi’s track record is pretty solid.
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And again, to clarify, Radi wasn’t saying Richt was actively pursuing Miami. That it was more of a “just in case”. Like Paul’s original point, Richt had to have seen the writing on the wall to a certain extent.
So I’m not trying to imply that Richt was actively pursuing anything else – if McG doesn’t fire him, he’d be our coach next year. But I do think he was actively making contingency plans, to a certain extent. That doesn’t mean anything bad about him – if anything it just means he was being smart (no pun intended).
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That is what good agents do.
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Russ, I stand corrected. Radi just recently tweeted again, and said it was Miami who had initiated the contact with Richt’s agent. I misremembered. 🙂
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I agree. That’s the point I was trying to make. That the groundwork had already been done.
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This is correct. It’s been in the works for the past month.
I am happy for all three parties, Georgia, Miami, and Coach Richt.
To Coach Richt’s credit, his team went 4-0 during that time.
I wish him well.
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If this is all true, and even Loran suggested Richt knew he was “swimming upstream”, then I wonder about the highly unusual personal trip taken to Washinton. Seems there might be more to it.
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Well I think Richt knew there was a chance he’d be let go, but he also probably felt there was a chance he was gonna be retained. And based on that chance, he was gonna do everything possible to make the recruiting as good as he could. And perhaps that was a way of trying to signal how bad he still wanted to be here, trying to convince McG to keep him. Not sure too much else can be read into it.
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Agree with this.
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“I believe Mark Richt is a lot more savvy than we’re giving him credit for.”
I agree.
I think a lot of this “he’s such a great man” stuff is bullshit.
He abandoned these kids that came to play for him. I’m pretty disgusted.
I don’t even give a shit about the bowl game, really. It is just an exhibition. But I do care that he ditched those kids and it is totally contrary to the crap he talks.
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Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Mark Richt was fired.
Even you admit the bowl game is meaningless.
Tell you what – if the kids admit they’re disappointed, then maybe what you say has some validity. But otherwise, who cares?
Time to move on, brother. He be gone.
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I’d like to see Donnan come in for one last game!
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At least we would use the tight ends then.
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The TaxSlayer Bowl gets credit for almost having as good a name as the WeedWacker Bowl (h/t Bob Bowlsby)
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Would love to see Denver host the Weed Smoker Bowl? Could be sponsored by Maui Hydroponic Skunk.
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Is it irresponsible to speculate that Maureen Dowd and Peggy Noonan, as co-celebrities, would do the play-by-play
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Now that is good.
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Needs to be called the High Times Smoka Bowl btw.
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I will forever wonder why Meyer let Newton leave Gainesville and I’ll now forever wonder why Bauta started in Jax. Why would Richt expect his starting qb to run a system he was ill suited for? Why not utilize Bauta’s strengths? Didn’t happen, no one planned it and the utter futility of the offense that day will haunt me for a long time. Who was incompetent that week and why?
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“I will forever wonder why Meyer let Newton leave Gainesville”
It will remain in Irwin’s mind forever that Huntley Johnson must have been on vacation at the time Cam launched the laptop
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Gotta let that shit go, Sniffy…that’s the past…its now, I sure as fuck hope, the Kirby Era. Greatness is just around the next curve. Unless, of course, Kirby throws us a curve.
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LOL, I won’t lie, I kinda had a moment of panic yesterday when the thought hit me…..
What if McG won’t capitulate on the demands Kirby is making, to the point that Kirby walks? Holy smokes will be in a world of hurt then. Not simply because we won’t have Kirby, but because we’ll be starting from scratch, and the coaching community (those guys talk) will know exactly why, and nobody worth a darn is gonna be willing to come.
I will be nervous until that contract is signed. And I will be hopeful that if it is signed, it is because Kirby got the concessions that are needed, and not because Kirby caved. Given which side of the table Sexton is sitting on though, I’m not too worried about Kirby caving.
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“What if McG won’t capitulate on the demands Kirby is making, to the point that Kirby walks?”
McG will implement Plan B From Outer Space –
Dan Mullen Come On Down!
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Ha!!!!
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If you’ve ever been to get a snack at Sanford or Stegeman, you know that our concessions are terrible.
Maybe they’re still waiting on the Doodle County 4-H Club to ring up the cost of Kirby’s concessions.
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LOL, maybe he’s insisting on 4 hot dogs & cokes? 🙂
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He does not appear to have missed many meals.
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I can tell you why. Newton did not do what he had to do academically at Florida and was going to become academically ineligible. He was able at Blinn Junior College to restore his NCAA eligibility.
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Well, to answer the question, yes it affected my travel plans. I was seriously considering traveling to the bowl to see Richt coach once more, but without the opportunity for a send-off, I’ll pass on the trip unless it’s fairly close to Houston.
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Same here. I don’t normally go to the bowl unless it’s close to home, which for me is Aiken, SC. So Atlanta, Charlotte, sure. I was going to make the trip to Jax if that’s where we ended up just to see his last game. But I’ll cheer ’em on from home and save some money.
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Losing Kirby over support would be the best thing that could happen.
Open up eyes as to the leave of support expected and hopefully open the search to actual qualified candidates.
Please, oh please, let ADGM slam his dick in that drawer one more time.
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Didn’t think of it in those terms. You could be right.
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“Please, oh please, let ADGM slam his dick in that drawer one more time.”
That won’t happen. The new improved Butts-Mehre PR team advised him to keep it in a box
and made him watch an instructional film on how to get it in there from outside the box
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/snl-digital-short-d-in-a-box/n12100
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You are on a roll today.
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I suspect they slow played my baloney sombrero lunch sandwich with a sedative today… everything is slowing down…
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Me, I’m all in with BMac for this thing. In fact if Kirby backs out, what the Hell…
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It would be the fifth game for Georgia in that town in the past three seasons.
THIS is the main reason fewer Georgia fans would make the trip to Jacksonville.
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This is really going to aggravate the Mayor
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As some of you have alluded to. Smart is coming from a school where his immediate supervisor has absolute control. I do not think a lot of people outside Alabama realize how much Saban controls at UA. Living in the state and knowing Bama $$ boosters has been an eye opener for me. Will Smart have that amount of control at UGA? I would demand it. If not then so long. Able to tell everyone that walks in the door; AD, trustees, $$$$ boys, kiss my ass, there is the door, don’t let it hit you on the way out , I run this place.
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I just remembered that last week I got my email to sign up for the Mark Richt Women’s Football Camp. I guess that ain’t happening now. 😦
I will try to get down for the Spring Game for sure.
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