BTW, one useful thing about that Connelly preview of Florida is that he linked to an old Football Outsiders post of his about new coaching hires that I searched like mad for when Georgia hired Kirby Smart and couldn’t find.
Here’s the link. Read it and maybe you’ll understand a little better about my frustration with the hiring process (using the term loosely, ya’ know) that led to Smart’s hire.
Two-year change at BCS Conferences Based on Coaching Type
Coaching Type N 1st Yr
Chg.Avg. Two-Yr
Chg.Applicable 2010 Teams College Assistant 30 -0.8% +1.4% Florida State, Kentucky, Louisville, Vanderbilt BCS Conf. Coach 18 +0.5% +5.4% Notre Dame, Texas Tech, USC Non-BCS Conf. Coach 12 -0.8% +2.3% Cincinnati, Kansas, South Florida, Tennessee Fired BCS Conf. Coach 5 +2.0% -1.1% NFL 7 -7.6% -4.8% FCS Coach 4 -5.0% -16.0% Virginia Grand Total 76 -1.2% +0.8%
The odds favor bringing on another BCS head coach. That — obviously — doesn’t mean Smart wouldn’t click, but it also strongly suggests that McGarity, who had the premier opening in college football to fill, just as obviously didn’t make much of an effort at performing his due diligence. Sometimes things just work out.
Get The Picture 
Today…in refusing to admit I was wrong……
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What is the Senator wrong about?
Firing CMR? No, the Senator made it clear he was agnostic about the decision.
Hiring Kirby? Once again, based on the Senator’s postings, no. He never wrote Kirby Smart was the wrong person for the job.
Not hiring someone else? No. The Senator never advocated here for the hiring of an individual.
The process? No. The process was flawed regardless of the result.
Tell us where the Senator was wrong.
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You miss his point. His point is not that Smart hasn’t been a great hire. His point is that McGarity’s process in making* the hire was poor and he lucked out.
One analogy is this. McGarity buys a lottery ticket and wins $100,000,000. Yes, he bought the winning ticket but he did nothing to make sure that ticket rather than another was the one spitting out of the machine.
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I disagree. Once they figured Richt was out, they knew who their man was and they went out and got him.
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LOL.
You disagreeing with me makes me “wrong”.
Maybe you should get over yourself.
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Come on, Senator. You’ve been guilty of that a time or two. “You don’t agree with me so you’re wrong.” In any case I do t know why we are still discussing the hiring process or lack of one when it comes to Kirby. No matter how much you hate McG it worked out and worked out better than any of us could have dreamed it would. So what is the point in continuing to grind on this other than trying to prove you were still right even though things have worked out great? McG will likely be gone in a few years anyway. Who cares?
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“Read it and maybe you’ll understand a little better about my frustration with the hiring process…” isn’t my idea of grinding on this. I know there are plenty who disagree with me about it, especially in the light of hindsight, so I thought this was of interest in explaining my point of view.
As far as “who cares?” goes, exactly why are you commenting here?
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LMAO. I knew you were going to say that about me asking who cares. All I meant was, since it has worked out so well, why does it still bother you so much? I don’t like McG either. But man it’s like he ate your last oatmeal pie or something.
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I’ve got people who say I’m wrong about the hiring process and when I try to better explain my thinking, you tell me I shouldn’t bother… or be bothered. Why should anyone bother, then?
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What? This has been discussed here now many times? So it’s still going on because you feel a need to explain to people who still don’t agree with you? Ok. But I still don’t understand why that matters to you. You aren’t ever going to get everybody in agreement with you. So what? Most people here agree with you onMcG. In interest of full disclosure, I didn’t even want Kirby. I think I said so here somewhere way back. I wanted Herman. But I was wrong and am glad I was. The fact that McG still went about the hire stupidly doesn’t matter to me at this point. Why it bothers you that there are still people who aren’t on the same page with you about it to the point that you feel like you need to keep explaining it to them is just weird to me that’s all. We have had a differences of opinion over the years but I love the blog obviously. Still here reading and commenting. Thinking that this horse has been beaten to the point of no longer being identifiable is a minor quibble.
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Because I care about my credibility.
I didn’t post this because I hate McGarity. I posted it because I felt it was proper to explain where I’m coming from when I say the hiring process was flawed.
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You’re wrong about insisting McG ran the hiring process. He didn’t, which literally everyone with even a modicum of insight into UGA athletics knows at this point in time.
It’s laughable to go on an on about McGarity’s handling of it when the decision wasn’t in his hands at any point in the process.
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One more thing about your interpretation of events — if they already knew who their man was, why did McGarity go through the motions of bringing in a search firm after announcing Richt’s firing?
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Window dressing to please guys like you who won’t give this a rest. Maybe you should get over THIS.
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The idea of folks at Butts-Mehre being both completely sure of a hiring decision and at the same time worried about the opinion of a random, small-pond blogger makes sense to you? Really?
BTW, if you read my posts at the time, you’d know I didn’t find it convincing then.
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Either way it’s not a good look for McGarity.
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You and I are agreeing a lot lately. 🙂
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Exactly. Guys like you and every other interested party (or parties – interpret that as you will) who still think that hiring a football coach is a lot like hiring a new school superintendent. It’s obviously not. Like I said, window dressing.
I don’t get why this is an issue still worth mention. Kirby was by all outside appearances, a slam dunk for Georgia. Home grown, coaches son, former player, renowned recruiter, proven coordinator, well liked. You guys all wanted McGarity to have him get in line with Tom Herman and others like they were hiring a store manager at Best Buy, and since he did not, liken the hire to a lottery win? LMFAO. Crazy. Hilarious actually.
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I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
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I would have rather had the AD say, “As the AD here at Georgia to prepare for times like this, I have a list of candidates that we will be contacting. I have decided not to engage a search firm to assist the search. At this point, that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”
Instead, he spent $40,000 on a search firm to cover for his BS line about making the decision on 316 on Saturday afternoon.
As the Senator states so often, that’s a hell of a way to run a railroad.
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$40,000.00 is nothing to check for skeletons in the closet…
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That’s not what executive search firms do. As a state employee, he would have had to pass a background check before hiring.
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Why did Greg McGarity say this in the Richt press conference when asked about a search firm?
“The job is wide open.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ajc.com/sports/college/full-transcript-from-mark-richt-press-conference/8h8SmFdvk1OnkQ9Sp1OL9N/amp.html
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Evidently that comment was meant for me.
I should have been flattered. 😉
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I understand what you’re saying there, but I guess my question is this: what was he supposed to say? “Yeah, we know who we’re going to hire and have been working on it behind the scenes ever since Jacksonville?”
I believe that to be true, but that press conference was neither the time nor the place for that level of brutal honesty.
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From what I’ve heard, it was going on before Jax.
Look, I know what’s going on here (not from you). Some people are going to take criticism of the hiring process as criticism of Smart himself. Nothing I can do about that, except explain the context for my thinking. If someone doesn’t want to make the effort to understand the difference, well, I’ve done my best.
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100, I’m with you. No argument from me that it was clunky at best. My biggest problem with the entire process was that press conference in general.
There was no way for McG to “win” that press conference. At. All. No matter what he did, he and UGA in general were going to get killed.
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“Many people think you hire search firms to identify [coaching] candidates. That’s not how it happens – at least not at Iowa State. I’m not doing my job if I don’t know who the candidates are. What we hired Parker Executive Search for, is to help us strategize and execute our plan. Daniel and Dan allowed us to be in a position to get the person that we wanted to get.”
Jamie Pollard, Director of Athletics, Iowa State University
https://www.parkersearch.com/practices-areas/sports
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What plan? According to you, they’d already made a decision.
Look, man (dude?), I’m happy as hell Smart’s turned out to be a great hire. That’s not what my post is about and you know it. Spend as much time as you want defending the process, but it was flawed. All your rationalizing is doing is making my point.
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Well since you have declared the argument over, could you please again explain to this hapless reader what was so flawed? Thanks….
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I don’t think the issue here is me explaining. It’s you listening.
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I’ll listen this time, I promise. What was so flawed?
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If you’re being serious, go back and read my posts around and after the Belk Bowl, which was when the idiocy started, and then when Richt was fired the next year. I wasn’t exactly subtle about my concerns.
One thing I’ve noticed in your responses here is that you haven’t said a word about Connelly’s research. Do you disagree with my assessment that the odds favor hiring an experienced D-1 head coach? (Again, that’s not the same thing as expecting Smart to flop.)
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Yes, I agree that the odds do favor hiring an experienced D-1 head coach. I believe this blog has pointed that out before, and it cannot be argued.
I honestly think that the coaching change from Richt to Smart was a virtual minefield, impossible to navigate without stepping on a few. You are justified in your critique of McGarity in many functions, but I think you are being a bit unfair on this one and should let it rest. There were just too many moving parts.
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I can live with that. 😉
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Thank goodness it was going on before Jax…that debacle in Jax sealed the deal.
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DAMN!!….
Senator, where was this metric when Ray Goff was hired????????
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Ray had the experience of Kirby?
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Any C-suite executive worth his/her salt has a succession plan in place for every key person on the team. If that person decides to go outside, he/she probably has a list of people to contact sealed in an envelope in the personal safe to pull out when necessary.
If McGarity did that, I bet Kirby would have been on that list. That’s why my comment above at 8:31 would have been the right way to go. It would have said I have a plan, and as the leader of the athletic program, I’m going to make it happen. Instead we got a bunch of “window dressing” that had a bunch of holes in it, so everyone could see that he wasn’t being truthful with anything at that press conference.
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This whole thing about McGarity having a list is part of the issue. The only name on his “list” was Dan Mullen. Smart was something influential boosters pushed for to which McGarity acceded.
There are all sorts of tells out there that indicate how disjointed the process was — McGarity being rebuffed in trying to can Richt after the 2014 season, the whole search firm feint, letting Sexton use the South Carolina rumor to get Butts-Mehre to the table. But there are none so blind as those who will not see.
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Hell of a way to run a railroad … 😉
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You can even have the opposite. When Dooley retired, Knapp went through what appeared to be a process to find the right successor. Because he botched the process (in particular, with Erk and Dick Sheridan), we ended up with Ray Goff.
When Dooley was hiring Donnan’s replacement (whom he didn’t want to fire), he went through a thoughtful process, found the right guy and hired him with no drama.
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Uh yeah……not exactly. Google: Glenn Mason + georgia.
Donnan interviewed, was passed over, then they came back to him after Glenn Mason backed out.
Really, that sentence tells you all you need to know about UGA football, circa 1995.
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No doubt. I thought about that one as well.
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My point was the hiring of Richt to replace Donnan. There was a process, very little drama, and the right hire.
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Agree, I can’t believe he’s still harping on this.
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Based on comments, I suppose it is a good way to run a railroad, I mean blog.
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If you don’t want to read it, there are plenty of other posts up today.
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Putting your life savings on black and winning doesn’t mean you’re fit to be a millionaire.
The process of hiring CKS was a complete joke, any idiot can see that. It’s part of the reason that so many Richt haters watch Miami games and pull for them to lose. They know if Richt wins it all with the Canes before Smart does they’ll all look like fools. I don’t think there is a real threat of that happening, but still.
Just because the process was idiotic doesn’t mean I’m not glad that CKS has worked out well thus far. He has fully endeared himself to me as a fan.
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Ah, my bad, misread that. Carry on.
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Kirby was the obvious choice. We could have had (1) a coach with prior success as a head coach, though not at an elite program, and no proven results as a recruiter in the SE; or (2) a coach with no prior experience as a head coach but a proven recruiter in the SE – that also happens to be an alum.
If (1) fails you are left with a substandard roster. If (1) succeeds, you have to fight off his dream job down the road. If (2) fails, you are left with a loaded roster. If (2) succeeds, he is at his dream job and you just have to pay him.
This was a no-brainer. The decision makers needed to get it right – not go through a charade of a process to arrive at an obvious decision. I hope that anyone that can’t see this learns to listen to those that did if they have any influence on UGA athletics.
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On your point #1, you are making a large leap with really no background because no other calls were made. Your argument is that Kirby was the obvious choice because we couldn’t hire Nick Saban or Urban Meyer. I would suggest there were a couple of candidates at top 15 programs with recruiting success in the Southeast I would have at least contacted to determine interest (maybe that happened, but according to the AD, he made the decision to change the day before on 316 East).
IMHO, Kirby was the high risk/high reward choice. Thank goodness for all of us that it’s working out.
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Don’t think (1) is a big leap. We could not get Saban and likely did not want Meyer. Chip Kelly and Chris Peterson had not coached at an elite program (sorry Oregon and Washington, you’re not there yet), and neither had proven recruiting ties in the SE. Herman had no elite HC experience and no SE recruiting ties. Mullen had no elite HC experience and is not a great recruiter.
The only coaches that came close to meeting this criteria were Jimbo, Dabo, Gus, Les Miles, Petrino, Chizik, Butch, Spurrier, and Muschamp. Jimbo and Dabo weren’t leaving in 2015. If you think we should have tried to hire one of Gus, Les Miles, Petrino, Chizik, Butch, Spurrier, or Muschamp then I see no need to discuss this further with you.
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I’ll leave you with one name … David Shaw. Stanford may not be elite in your definition, but they had won a ton of Pac 12 championships. Shaw has recruited the southeast well even from California.
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Wow, critical of a process that did not take a harder look at Stanford’s coach. Recruiting the SE well and cherry picking a kid or too here and there to play at the top academic school in the country that has a respectable football program are two different things. Further, Stanford is not SEC or even top-level ACC ball. So glad the decision makers zeroed in on the obvious choice and got it done.
A process is needed when there is not an obvious choice. Early reviews seem to be good on the Crean hire where a process was used. The UGA decision makers that thought a process was necessary hired Ray Goff instead of Erk. A process is for a situation where the answer is not obvious. Most people need a process to solve algebraic problems but not for 2+2. This world has two kinds of fools, the ones that can’t use the process to solve algebra and the ones that think a process is needed to solve 2+2. The ones that can’t solve algebra create a lot less problems.
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Why the hiring process matters is because next time we may not be so lucky. It looks to me (from the outside) that the AD locked in on Smart from the outset. That’s not the best way to hire.
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DINGDINGDINGWEHAVEAWINNER!!!!
I don’t know why this is so hard for folks to grasp, especially since at the time of Kirby’s hire, McGarity’s track record in that regard was mediocre at best.
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“piss poor at best” … fixed it for you 😉
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I’ll admit McGarity got the basketball hire right. Looking back maybe we got lucky our first choice didn’t accept (I love how Crean is embracing UGA), but he went through a sound process without drama.
Maybe the football search is just so high profile, as dude mentioned above, that it was unavoidable to step on some land mines. My problem with the process was that everything that was said was the complete opposite of what was done. Morehead should have raked McGarity over the coals after that press conference. Maybe he did … we’ll never know.
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Please don’t tell us you believe ADGM was responsible for the Kirby hire.
We were lucky that the choice was obvious. We are also lucky that decision makers were not dumb enough to use a “process” that could have caused us to miss the obvious choice.
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I don’t think he was. I think he wants people to believe he was.
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I don’t think he cares.
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On that, I can say with confidence that you are wrong.
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#1- There was NO process
#2- Greg Mc. hired the guy he was told to hire
#3- the “search firm” was a PI to investigate Kirby, make sure he did not
beat his wife or do some other “fire with cause” bullshit
#4- I think UGA got real lucky with this hire. We will know more after this
year. One bad year, then one great year, let’s see what happens now.
#5- none of this is Kirby’s fault
#6- GO DAWGS
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Parker is not a private investigation firm. They are a legitimate search firm. The question is why in the world would we hire a search firm to conduct a search that was already completed by the liquor barons.
That press conference after the Richt resignation/firing was a complete sham. If McGarity wasn’t going to answer questions truthfully about the process, he should have introduced Mark and left the room.
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Hey Senator you can like hot dogs but hate the process of making them. I agree.
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Got here late for this post. 1) check the ad’s successive hires (all sports) 2) we have some replacement of head coaches in highly successful sports in the future, just based on their longevity at UGA. Will the ad hire CKS to coach tennis (both), swimming (both), softball, golf. baseball got it right this year(seniors in the lineup), basketball (both, still don’t see how the s.c. coach got away) is still breathing……bm may not care for those sports as much as this dawg does. The ad’s process seems’s like a flip of a quarter to make a decision ……on ANYTHING.
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