You know, most coaches would have enough Gawd-given sense not to pretend a close win over a vastly inferior opponent was something other than what it was. The “we’ve got to play better than that” coachspeak writes itself, you’d think.
But you’re not Dan Mullen.
Can you imagine Kirby Smart saying something similar after the 2016 Nicholls game?
Filed under Blowing Smoke, Gators, Gators...
How good was my man Tindall Saturday? Good enough that he managed to overshadow Nakobe Dean’s impressive performance (11 tackles, 1 sack, 2 TFLs and a pass defended).
This play, in particular, was absolutely ridiculous.
Filed under Georgia Football
Outside of Arian Smith, the injury news isn’t too bad.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to think about Smith and Wyatt during Saturday’s game. The good news is Charleston Southern this week, so there should be plenty of R&R time before the Tech rumble.
Filed under Georgia Football, The Body Is A Temple
If I didn’t know any better…
… I’d say Georgia gave Tennessee more respect after a 24-point win than vice versa.
Filed under Georgia Football
I doubt any of y’all are surprised to learn the game time for Tech.
Filed under Georgia Football, SEC Football
Empirically speaking, I know this should be the case, but it’s still a little weird to see it in black and white like this:
Filed under Georgia Football, Stats Geek!
Jeebus, is this bad? It sounds bad.
Butch Davis, who led Florida International to three bowl games and the biggest win in school history against Miami in 2019, will not return as the Panthers’ coach, he told The Action Network.
Davis’ contract expires on Dec. 15. Davis’ agent had asked FIU for a one-year extension, but FIU officials would not extend his deal.
Before Davis arrived at FIU in 2017, the Panthers had five consecutive losing seasons and had only been to two bowl games in school history. FIU had only two winning seasons in 13 years before Davis’ arrival.
However, Davis immediately turned around the program, with back-to-back winning seasons. In his first three seasons, FIU was 23-16, the best three-year mark in school history.
Oh, that’s not the part I was referring to. This is:
Davis’ success at FIU was more impressive, considering the challenges he faced at the school from his administration.
Davis said he was allowed to only offer one-year contracts to assistants, hampering his ability to hire coaches who could get multi-year deals elsewhere.
When Davis arrived in 2017, he found out all the shoulder pads were at least 10 years old. The school wouldn’t provide the money to purchase new shoulder pads, but an assistant coach had a contact at Mississippi State. The Bulldogs’ program had shoulder pads that were five years old, but they were replacing them, so Mississippi State gave FIU its shoulder pads at no cost.
“They were five years old,” Davis said. “But they were new to us.”
In today’s college football world, where some schools get new uniform combos literally every game, FIU is using uniforms that are nine years old, Davis said.
Davis also said his coaching staff was not allowed to go on the road recruiting the past two years because of the school’s financial reasons and COVID-19.
In early October, the school ultimately undercut Davis. After five games, FIU posted on the school’s official website and also the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) website an opening for the head coaching position.
The school said FIU’s university website lists job postings for each head coach and assistant in every sport even when there are no openings but did not address the AFCA posting.
“This year has been a nightmare,” Davis said. “You can imagine the players’ reaction when a head coach’s job was posted online. The administration has been sabotaging the program.
“Their decisions to post the job has resulted in a major negative impact on the football program and our ability to recruit and retain players.”
Good luck on that replacement hire, FIU.
Filed under It's Not Easy Being A Mid-Major
Mr. Conventional Wisdom is here to help.
Some of us figured it out before Week 11, but I guess Tony wanted to be really, really sure before he went out on that particular limb.
Filed under Mr. Conventional Wisdom
I think Andy Staples is a good pundit, but the description he provided of McGarity a few years ago as a “sharp athletic director” struck me as either odd or coming from someone who didn’t follow the program as closely as he thought.
So, how else to explain the lede to his piece ($$) about the current state of affairs with regard to Dan Mullen?
In November 2015, Greg McGarity watched his team celebrate an overtime win against Georgia Southern as if it had just won the Super Bowl. That’s when he knew. McGarity, then Georgia’s athletic director, had been under pressure to make a coaching change for a while. But firing Mark Richt was a huge step. Georgia didn’t stink by any stretch of the imagination. That team finished the 2015 regular season at 9-3. But the Bulldogs weren’t meeting expectations.
That same week, Alabama coach Nick Saban had launched into his infamous “shit through a tin horn” rant — which, coincidentally, was about Georgia Southern in 2011 — as the Crimson Tide prepared to play Charleston Southern. Alabama beat its FCS opponent 56-6 on the same week Georgia needed overtime. The Tide didn’t need to celebrate as if they’d won a championship, because they had played to the level of their talent. McGarity and the rest of the Georgia leadership decided they wanted that mindset. They wanted to look and play like Alabama did. So out went Richt and in came Kirby Smart.
“That’s when he knew.” That makes at least the third different time frame for that decision I’m aware of — Georgia Southern, Florida and hell, 2014, when events led up to Mark Richt addressing the rumors at his presser after the Belk Bowl victory. For what’s supposed to be a story about a decisive guy, that’s not very decisive sounding.
And of course the take is truly ironic in this specific context because Dan Mullen was McGarity’s guy back then, as Dan Wolken related at the time.
McGarity, who has been Georgia’s athletics director since 2010, has never conducted a coaching search of this magnitude. He previously worked under Jeremy Foley at Florida, and it is expected he would lean heavily on Foley’s advice should he find himself in the middle of a coaching search.
Multiple people told USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity that McGarity has a very high opinion of Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen from their time together at Florida. Though that does not necessarily line up with Foley’s opinion of Mullen — he was not considered a candidate for the Florida opening after last season — Georgia is a job that worries Mississippi State athletics director Scott Stricklin, according to one person with knowledge.
Sometimes, Occam’s razor is your friend. Somewhere in the middle of the 2015 season, Mark Richt burned his last bridge with influential boosters who directed McGarity to can him and hire Kirby Smart. The insistence that McGarity pulled all the strings by his lonesome is about as convincing as his need to spend money on a search firm to help with the hire then.
That’s all there is to it.
Filed under Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles
Every team was in action, some more than others, as you’ll see. (As always, stats via cfbstats.com.)
Turnover margin, after week six:
Observations:
Filed under SEC Football, Stats Geek!
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