About that whole not mentioning Thomas Brown thing from this morning…
Georgia’s release about assistants returning on next year’s staff did not mention Thomas Brown, and there’s a good reason for that.
Brown, the team’s running backs coach this year, is to join Mark Richt’s staff at Miami, multiple people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.
The offer would include some sort of title, possibly co-offensive coordinator. Richt has said he intends to call plays for the Hurricanes.
It sounds like it’s more a decision by Brown than by Kirby, so good for Thomas that he’s looking at what’s best for himself. And it sounds like he may not be the only one doing so.
Miami head coach Mark Richt appears willing to bring a number of his former staffers at Georgia with him to Coral Gables according to a report by the Chip Towers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. After reporting earlier on Monday that running backs coach Thomas Brown will be joining Richt at Miami, the AJC is now reporting that Georgia’s Director of Recruiting, Todd Hartley, will be doing the same as a “defensive assistant.”
Towers is also reporting that Bryan McClendon, John Lilly, and multiple UGA support staffers have also been extended the opportunity to make the move to Miami.
Honestly, I’d be surprised if Lilly didn’t wind up with Richt in Miami, given their long history together. But, in general, it’s good that these guys have options, since it’s the nature of the beast that a lot of them wouldn’t survive a coaching change otherwise.
Get The Picture 
Can’t blame him or McClendon. I think the OC title is a big jump, but Richt’s already said he plans on basically calling plays and doing much of that on the offensive side of the ball. Reminds me of how he set it up with Neil Calloway…and you know Richt will pour all he can into those two guys to put them in position to be HCs some day if they have the chops.
Sooooo….explain to me again how you fire a coach, he’s hired in less than 48 hours at former powerhouse program and everyone else gets promotions…just so weird. (Everyone other than Sale and Schotty, that is.)
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The icing is that one of those promotions was to exactly the position vacated by our new head coach. Either we made a huge mistake, or our AD is a brilliant innovator. I know where I’d put my money.
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You answered your own question. With better hires than the two you mentioned, it’s conceivable that the entire staff would have returned.
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Ironic that Richt is hiring a special teams coordinator after 15 years…
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Yeah, the whole thing makes you wonder if someone else was holding him back from doing that at UGA the whole time…
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. That wins excuse of the year! Kudos!
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right.
McGarity was telling Richt to NOT be good at special teams and to retain Willie, and to hire Todd Grantham, and to hire Schotty…
if only we gave richt ONE more year.
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He actually needed two more to win it all.
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Glad that Brown got a promotion out of this
I sure hate that we are losing so much talent and recruiting chops from our program. Hopefully we keep our running back commits.
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I agree with all of that. But I want to keep BMac.
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I, for one, am glad to see the extensive changeover. As an old compadre once said, “keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting what you’re getting”. Bring on the new blood/regime!
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Well, one thing’s for sure – if they’d rather be somewhere else, we don’t want them here.
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He was offered a better position and higher pay. Why wouldn’t Brown take that?
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Because we have hedges.
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They probably did not pass the Pledge of Allegiance test. LOL.
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Not sure about Lilly, but I’m pretty sure 247’s 2014 recruiter of the year (McClendon) and the position coach for the nation’s best RB for several years running including his time at Wisconsin (Brown) had options.
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Still hoping CKS tries to keep BMac here – and as RB coach. Said it yesterday in a post, but BMac established himself as the top RB recruiter and coach in cfb. Gurley, Marshall, Chubb, Michel – nobody comes close to topping that. Snatching Douglas when we had an extra scholly open. And JJ Green did a fine job filling in when injuries struck. Turman was a 4 star recruit – and hopefully he’ll pan out next year.
CKS had the chance to cherry pick the best of CMR’s staff. Maybe Pruitt had some baggage, but letting a coach/recruiter of BMac’s ability walk away would be crazy. Who could possibly do a better job at RB coach?
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THE Chip Towers??
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My question is about the poor Techsters…. are they looking at the U and their new Coach and realizing they are doomed.They couldn’t beat Richt at Georgia and they will not at Miami.FWIW Miami will win a conference championship before we(UGA) do. We swap a 73% winning percentage coach for a coach who has never won a game. Greg McGarity must go. I’m giving away free money here…. buy the domain name FireGregMcGarity and avoid the rush.
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You may be right about Miami winning a conference champ before Georgia does, maybe not. I feel certain that would have been true if Georgia had kept Richt.
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You are right and wrong both with your statement. CMR would win conference champ at Ga or Miami in 2017.
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Please do us a favor and find a Miami Hurricane blog
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Oh fuck off already. Go but some Miami gear, bc you’re clearly more of a Mark Richt fan than a UGA fan. Richt might kill it at Miami, but this notion that he was thisclose to winning big again at UGA is fucking delusional.
Go coach in the 85 year history of the conference went 10+ years at a school between conference titles.
What in the blue hell makes you think that Richt, who was reactionary as hell and slow to adapt, was going to make history? He had a window and it closed. UGA deciding it was time for a change was the right move.
I truly wish Richt well, but a leopard doesn’t change its spots. Every year, he’s going to face Jimbo, Cutcliff, Fuente, Fedora, and now Mendanhall. All with the help of a fan ad that doesn’t give a shot unless they are winning huge, in a stadium 35 miles from campus.
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Good points. Any fans who believe that winning 74% of the time is good should be Miami fans. UGA fans know better. And don’t try to bring any of that Miami “math” or “logic” around here. UGA fans rely on hedges to bring us unreasonable success. So piss off hurricanes.
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Honestly…is the vitrol really necessary?
If you can’t understand why some folks love Richt and wish he could have seen it through to ultimate success at Georgia, you aren’t a real Georgia fan either. He’s earned real UGA fans respect. Period.
Now…does that mean it wasn’t the right time to move on? I honestly don’t know, but as a UGA fan, I’m certainly doing so with enthusiasm.
But let’s dispense with the whole idea that you know with certainty that Richt wouldn’t have won an SEC championship if he stayed…because you don’t. Just like no one knows if he would have.
I guess Wally Butts going 11 years between championships between 1948 and 1959 wasn’t part of the 85 year history of the conference? I mean…for crying out loud…even Dooley went 8 years and only won in 1976 because they held the tiebreaker. I honestly don’t think either one is actually relevant to the question of whether Richt could have won another SEC title…but if you are going to try to hang your hat on something like that, at least don’t mess it up because you didn’t consider one of the all-time great coaches at the school you claim to love more than a guy you say should post on a Miami blog.
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I hope Richt does well at Miami. I believe I said as much. I was at UGA when Richt was hired and am very thankful for everything he did for UGA.
What I’m sick of is this narrative that Richt was done wrong by UGA. That’s just not true. He was here 15 years, and was paid nearly $35M for his time. Succession planning and moving on is tough, but this narrative that Richt was done wrong is total horseshit.
He made a series of bad hires and a series of horrific in-game decisions that lead McG to believe that he wasn’t going to take he program higher than he already had. That’s it. Nothing nefarious, nothing out of school. It was simply time for a change.
There is just a portion of our fanbase deluded by a cult of personality that truly believe Richt was about to go on a Saban like run, if only McG would get out of the way (despite the fact that he had already driven the program into a ditch once in 2010 before McG).
Like I said, I really do wish him well, but if UGA wins big and Richt doesn’t, then sorry, I’m not going to feel bad about it. The truth of the matter is that Richt is going to have to be a better coach at Miami than he was at UGA to last anywhere near as long. The Good Christian Man trait isn’t going to carry nearly as much weight there as it did in Athens. If he loses embarrassingly to FSU with the same regularity that he lost to UF, his stay at da U will be fairly short.
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So, you agree with McGarity’s handling of Richt’s firing? The leaks? The stories that the decision was made, no it wasn’t, yes it was? Texting the team the news minutes before it broke via twitter? Claiming that the search was wide open days before admitting that you’ve been all in on Smart?
Sorry, but paying one’s head coach millions of dollars in a below-market rate doesn’t give one the right to act like a clown when firing him.
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How McG handled the dismissal has nothing to do with whether it was the best decision for the program to move on. The funny part is the whole ‘cult’ claim..
It is true that UGA had been operating under SEC Championship expectations but with a budget and facilities more in line with the middle or bottom of the conference. That’s not a cult…that’s just the truth. Did he hire the wrong assistants in Schotty and Sale? Seems that’s true, too. But there is nothing cultish about wondering what would have come about if either of those were different.
Speaking of cult…this belief that you have a grasp on what Richt’s 15 years meant and that it wouldn’t play anywhere but UGA is really where I wonder if it takes a cult to know a cult. Seriously? You think that if Miami wins an ACC championship or two…something they have yet to do since joining the conference…that Richt won’t be there for 10 plus seasons?
Hilarious. Hilarious. Hilarious. Richt won SEC Championships in spite of losing to Florida. He’s actually beaten them 3 of the last 5 years and is 4-5 over the last 9 with one loss in OT.
I think it’s delusional to think that anyone on this blog wants Miami to be more successful that UGA. I’m 100% behind Kirby and want to see UGA win the SEC…I assume everyone else is, too.
However, there really was no slam-dunk case for letting Richt go just like there was no slam dunk case for keeping him. I question the grip on reality of anyone who claims otherwise.
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Personally, no. I think he should have been fired after the Florida game, which would have avoided most of the awkwardness you referenced. Had Richt been canned the Tuesday after Jacksonville, his defenders would have been much fewer and quieter than they were at season’s end.
By allowing him to stay, McG allowed himself to lose the PR battle all the while Richt played footsie with Miami behind the scenes (if you think this wasn’t happening, then I have a bridge to sell you), and planning his exit strategy (saying he wanted to spend as much time around the team as possible, he would have asked to coach them in the bowl game, etc., when I don’t believe for a second that was ever going to happen). Coaching deals don’t get done in 2 days–to your point, UGA targeted Kirby basically in November, and by all accounts it took every minute of that time to get done. Yet miraculously, Richt and Miami were sympatico that they came to an agreement in 2 days after one interview. Okay.
Richt masterfully schooled McG in PR during the whole ordeal. That said, it’s done. UGA is still honoring a contract that he never signed, still have him a press conference that allowed him to passive aggressively take shots, still let him come back for his love fest at the gala.
It’s done, I’m all in on Kirby just like I was all in on Richt in 2001. Can you say the same?
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So, you’re saying either (1) Richt wanted to leave Georgia before McGarity canned him, or (2) Richt knew McGarity was going to fire him at season’s end. Either scenario goes against what I’ve heard.
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I 100% believe #2 after Jacksonville, and don’t completely discount #1, though I’m less certain. I wholeheartedly believe Richt needed a change too. Your mileage may vary of course. Just my opinion.
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So, you have no evidence of Richt and Miami courting each other. That’s what I thought. Yes, agreements on the basics of a contract can get done in two days when you’re negotiating with a guy who is famously laid back, in high demand, and doesn’t use an agent.
And your belief in the Evil Richt persona taking advantage of poor ole McGarity is also based on nothing more than enmity. You think Richt asked McGarity to sit beside him at the press conference? You think Richt tricked McGarity into a “no comment” on the reasons for the firing? You think Richt told McGarity to leak his firing instead of giving him time to address the team personally? No offense, but that’s just stupid.
My position is that, regardless of whether UGA should, or should not, have fired Richt, it could have been done in a classier fashion. I also hope Smart succeeds. And I hope Richt succeeds. It just seems petty to try to belittle a man who took UGA’s programs to new heights, didn’t hold us hostage to Jimmy Sexton raise negotiations at the end of every off season, and had no significant scandals while here. And I also think it’s petty that when people express reservations of replacing a proven successful coach with an unknown, to suggest that they aren’t REAL fans of UGA. They should cheer for Miami because REAL fans of UGA would understand that any risk is worth any chance for a title.
Your mileage may vary.
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Of course I don’t have evidence, nor do you. We’re both speculating. You just seem to believe it’s more likely that a deal got done in two days. I find that a stretch.
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But my position is supported by what people have said on the record. Richt has said that he thought he was coaching at UGA next season. You assume he’s lying. I assume he’s telling the truth. Given that he has no history as a proven liar, my assumption is safer than yours.
Not only that, but you’re also assuming a vast conspiracy involving three schools to shuffle these coaches, and it was all kept quiet until the end of the season. Let’s just say that’s unlikely.
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Very excited to see the regime change. Should have happened after the 2014 season.
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It should have happened after the 2010 season.
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Exactly right on that.
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After 2008
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After 2005.
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I like TB. Both as a player and a coach. But with the RB talent we seem to bring in the O-line is a more important job. Gurley, Chubb, Michel etc have made bad lines look good IMO. Hopefully we don’t miss him as a recruiter though. I agree that BMac should be retained if at all possible.
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I think this is a huge loss for Georgia. But I’m really happy and excited for Thomas Brown. It sounds like he may be getting into a position like Mike Bobo was in for the first half of Coach Richt’s tenure at UGA. It sounds like Richt is going to call the plays and do a lot of the work to manage the offense while teaching Coach Brown how to gameplan and how to manage things himself. I think Coach Brown is on a high trajectory and this move is only going to help him rise higher someday.
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