Silly season has begun in college football. Mark Richt is out at Georgia. Gary Pinkel is out at Missouri. Les Miles has nine lives and is returning to LSU to coach their prestigious football team. Allegedly. Probably. Maybe.
Richt was fired at Georgia after a 9-3 season, but those three losses were to two of Georgia”s biggest rivals— Florida and Tennessee. The other loss was a blowout at the hands of Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide in October. Richt won 145 games during his 15 year tenure at Georgia. The Bulldogs decided to depart with Richt on Sunday and will look to hire a new coach immediately.
University of Georgia head football coach Mark Richt recently stepped down. (Courtesy: Georgia Athletics)
Georgia is undoubtedly a top 10 job in the college football world. With top-tier facilities and a fertile recruiting base, a coach can succeed there. The issue, however, is that Georgia may have trouble finding a better coach when they fired arguably their best coach in program history after a 9-3 season.
Names to look at for Georgia are Kirby Smart, Dan Mullen, and Larry Fedora.
Smart is currently the defensive coordinator at Georgia and is regarded as one of the best assistant football coaches in the country. Smart is an alumnus of Georgia and played for the Bulldogs. He was rumored to be interested in the South Carolina job earlier this month, but if that was true, it has probably been put on hold at this point.
Dan Mullen is a very good football coach. Mullen has done more at Mississippi online casino State than any other coach in the history of their program. Mullen”s downfall at Mississippi State is his inability to attract top tier recruits. Mullen wins with average recruiting classes in Starkville. Imagine what he could do at Georgia, a place where he would undoubtedly recruit much better players.
South Carolina”s Steve Spurrier announced that he was retiring earlier this season. (Courtesy: South Carolina Athletics)
Fedora has turned North Carolina around even after a lackluster performance in 2014. Fedora took over the North Carolina program in 2012, and has made it a nationally relevant program. North Carolina is in the middle of NCAA sanctions from some academic mishaps, so Fedora may be looking to making a move.
The South Carolina job is still open, too. Steve Spurrier retired in October, and South Carolina only won one game after his retirement. South Carolina lost to the Citadel. Yeah.
I think a name to look at for South Carolina is Todd Monken from Southern Miss. Monken took over a Southern Miss program that went winless in 2012. Monken won only one game during his first year at Southern Miss, but two years later has them in the Conference USA Championship game.
Southern Miss has a solid football program, but they won”t be able to match the money that a place like South Carolina could give him. I’m not sure if Monken is in a hurry to leave a place that gave him his first head coaching job, but if he is, South Carolina would be a good place to start.
