Now that the regular season is over, this time of year becomes Career Builder meets college football. Some schools opted to send a clear message midway through the season and fire their coach early, allowing an interim coach to run the team while a search committee of some form or another looked into suitable replacements. Other schools made their move as the game clock had barely hit zero on the last regular season game and interim coaches will fill in if a bowl game is on the horizon.
Georgia Football; The Job Has Some Bite
The Miami job is expected to be filled any day now by former Georgia coach Mark Richt. While Richt was one of the most successful coaches in Georgia football history, he did not compete for enough conference championships to make the boosters satisfied. When he was fired Sunday, no immediate replacement was named, but it quickly became apparent that Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart was the top target for the job. Smart was a defensive back at Georgia from 1995-1998 and has been an assistant coach at various schools for the 20 years since then, including the last nine seasons at Alabama. The firing of Richt was both expected and arguably unwarranted; and Smart has never been a head coach. But he is seemingly well on his way to taking the helm of a program that is not going to give him a long leash when it comes to winning division and conference titles, so it worth a look at the program, the internal demands, and the external pressures that the next coach is going to get.
University of Georgia Bulldogs: The program has a lot going for it; a seemingly unending flow of donor money for both the school and the athletic department, an ample budget for the athletic department, new on-campus facilities for the football team, and existence in a state that is loaded with some of the top high school recruits in the country. What it also has is a tremendously high opinion of what the football team can and should accomplish, as evidenced by the firing of head coach Mark Richt on Sunday. Richt won 74% of his games over a 15 year tenure. That gives him a better winning percentage than Bulldogs coaching legend Vince Dooley (71% over 24 years), but Dooley has a statue on campus and Richt has termination papers.
The recruiting war for Georgia’s high school football elite is fierce. The entire state has a population of just over 10 million. That makes it a distant fourth behind other states known for their high school football prodigies, (CA = 39 million in population, Texas =27 million, Florida = 20 million). Yet Georgia has produced 30 five star high school football recruits (using Rivals.com rankings) over the last 10 years. Proportionally, Georgia is right there with the other big three when it comes to turning out high school football stars. The challenge for the Bulldogs has become keeping the in-state stars at home. Over that ten year period, UGA got “only” 11 of the 30 five star recruits. UGA fans can’t be happy watching Deshaun Watson lead Clemson into a shot at the College Football Playoff, knowing the quarterback was a five star recruit from Gainesville, GA, less than an hour drive away from the Georgia campus. The state’s high school football landscape has also been pillaged with some level of success in recent years by Alabama, Auburn and LSU. The faithful are even having to stomach watching one of the best defensive backs in college football, Vonn Bell, play for Ohio State, knowing he is a product of Ridgeland High School in Rossville, Georgia. Ironically, Richt had secured the commitment of one the current highly touted quarterbacks in the nation who actually was not from Georgia, but since Richt’s firing on Sunday, Jacob Eason is now opening his recruiting to other schools.
The recruits are there for the coach that can sell the product. That product is also getting a facelift as the school breaks ground this month on a new 109,000 square foot indoor football facility that is expected to cost about $30 million, most of which has been donor financed. This comes on the heels of a $33 million expansion of existing football facilities that was completed within the last five years. That expansion included new locker rooms for football, new coaches’ offices, and a new trainer’s room. The irony of the project, that will be breaking ground in the coming weeks, is that it was first proposed in 1998 when Jim Donnan was the head coach. It was shelved for various reasons, but resurrected early in Mark Richt’s tenure. It went through years of delays because of infighting over the exact location of the project. In the end, Richt got his way for the location. Of course he will not be at the University of Georgia to see it completed.
If the money for these projects sounds like a lot, it is a drop in the bucket for the university. According to public records, the school has had 10 consecutive years of fundraising that exceeded $100 million dollars with approximately 20% regularly earmarked for athletics. Those same files show that in the 2014-2015 academic campaign the school got a record $144.2 million in donations and gifts with about $28 million going to athletics. Not surprisingly, the football coach at the University of Georgia is going to be well compensated. Prior to the start of the 2015 season, Richt got a two year contract extension and an $800,000 pay raise, bringing his annual compensation package to $4 million and making him the highest paid state employee in Georgia.
The facilities are there. The devoted, if not somewhat myopic, fan base is there. The money is there. It all seems like a utopian place for the next coach. But buyer beware. Mark Richt had 7 top 10 seasons in 15 years. Vince Dooley needed 24 years to hit that same threshold. Richt won the conference title in 2002, and it was the first one in 20 years for the school. He won another in 2005 and the expectations game was ramped up. He hasn’t won a conference title since and was fired for it. Kirby Smart, or anyone else, needs to sign that contract with their eyes wide open.
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