Eh, what’s in a name?

Chip Towers does a pretty good job explaining the Eddie Gran offer.

Yes, of course Kirby Smart offered Gran a coordinator’s position to join his staff. To expect anything different would be ludicrous. At Kentucky, Gran carries the titles of assistant head coach and offensive coordinator, not to mention a contract that calls for an $850,000 salary that’s due to rise to $875,000 this year and to $900,000 in 2020.

At the time Smart spoke to Gran, Jim Chaney had just left for a $550,000 raise at Tennessee. That left the Bulldogs with an opening for a tight ends coach and/or a coordinator or co-coordinator. James Coley, already on staff as co-coordinator and quarterbacks coach, wasn’t going anywhere. Of that, Smart was making sure. So co-coordinator would have been the most UGA could offer Gran.

And, to be clear, Smart needed to offer Gran a title. To believe the narrative that Gran was offered by Georgia only as a position coach would mean you buy two things: (1) That the Bulldogs were willing to pay Gran at least $875,000 to coach tight ends; (2) that Gran would be willing to leave Kentucky for a demotion.

Neither makes sense.

No, the only way Gran would have come to Georgia would be for a raise and at least a lateral move position-wise. Asking him to share the coordinator’s title with Coley is not much of a stretch. In fact, Coley and Gran have worked together in such a capacity before. They were co-coordinators from 2010-12 at Florida State, where Gran also had the title of associate head coach/running backs and Coley coached tight ends.

… So when Gran proclaims to the UK crowd that he was offered the offensive coordinator’s position at Georgia, he’s not lying. But he would’ve had to share that title with Coley, which he understandably wasn’t willing to do.

That’s a coherent explanation to my ears, although it begs the question of why Gran feels the need now to assert the existence of an offer he wouldn’t accept.

Nobody should fault Smart for trying to bring on Gran, or Gran for listening for what he has to offer. At the end of the day, does it really matter?

Georgia will still be Georgia, winners of nine in a row over the Wildcats, and Kentucky will remain Kentucky.

Well, okay.

Advertisement