Randy Smith
I recently warned Georgia about firing head football coach Mark Richt. They obviously didn't listen. On a Sunday morning when I was fully expecting Les Miles to be fired at LSU, I find that the Bengal Tigers were keeping Miles and Georgia was firing their head coach after fifteen seasons. Fifteen years with a record of 145 wins and 51 losses; a bowl record of 9-5 as well as six SEC East titles and a pair of SEC championships. He takes an injury riddled team to a 9-3 record in 2015 and Georgia decided to part ways with him; or they decided to "Fulmer" him.
I've written many times before there is no loyalty anymore, on any level. I know the Bulldog fan base is split on keeping Coach Richt or letting him go, but I also know most of them would be willing to give him another year or two to straighten things out. When Tennessee fired Phillip Fulmer the situation was similar in the fact that Fulmer had been head coach of the Volunteers for 16 years, with a very similar record. (152-52). That is where the similarities stop however.
Coach Richt never won a national championship, while Fulmer's Vols took the 1998 national title. In some instances the way Tennessee treated Coach Fulmer was worse than the treatment Richt received from Georgia, because Fulmer was a former player at Tennessee as well as an assistant coach at his alma-mater before becoming head coach. Coach Richt played at Miami and spent 14 seasons as Bobby Bowden's offensive coordinator at Florida State. Still, the whole situation at Georgia stinks. The only good thing about it is the fact that Coach Richt will be allowed to coach the Bulldogs in a bowl game.
There is one other major difference in Fulmer and Richt. Fulmer was fired after his team suffered through a 5-7 season, while Georgia was able to finish 9-3 before the carpet was pulled out from under Coach Richt's feet. His only losing season at Georgia was in 2010 when the Bulldogs wound up 6-7. I'm glad that LSU had a change of heart and decided to keep Coach Miles; it seems their administration is a lot smarter than Georgia's.
Following LSU's win over Texas A&M on Saturday night in Baton Rouge, the crowd stood and cheered for their embattled coach for several minutes, while the players carried him off the field on their shoulders. Before Miles would do the obligatory post-game interview on television, he told the sideline reporter she would have to wait until he and his players sang the LSU alma-mater. The singing wasn't good at all; more like farm animals bellowing at dinner time, though it was heart-felt. Perhaps Coach Richt should have sung a chorus of "Glory, Glory to Old Georgia" after his Bulldogs defeated Georgia Tech on Saturday.
It is somewhat ironic that LSU decided to keep Coach Miles a day after Jimbo Fisher stated he was staying at Florida State and had no interest in the LSU job. That likely had more to do with the LSU decision than Miles singing the alma-mater. I now hope that Georgia has someone in mind for Coach Richt's job, because as former Alabama star Forest Gump once said, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."
I'm willing to bet that what Georgia gets is a bunch of 5-7 or 6-6 seasons, while they wander aimlessly in the SEC desert.