Kirby Smart to Georgia
- Thread starter UKErik
- Start date
Sorry. Miles avg is 10.3.
Still, "much his success was pre-2009?" If you divide his era into two halves.
2001-2008. Avg standing in SEC East is 1.75. And win of 10.25. 6 bowl wins
2009-2015. Avg standing in SEC East is 2.00. And win of 9.14. 4 bowl wins. (I gave them the bowl this yr)
Man he really took a nose dive didn't he.
I agree its a risk hiring him. I like Richt, I wasn't in the camp of Richt must be fired but I would like to win a championship and I don't think that was going to happen with him. The east has been watered down the last 3 years and we couldn't even win it, losing a couple of games a year we shouldn't have lost. That happened every year. We could have stood pat with Richt and gone after 3rd in the east because unless you aren't paying attention, UT and UF have clearly righted things and are on the upward spiral. Kirby may fall on his face, but he has spent 9 years being the right hand man of the top coach in college at the moment. Bama has gone through many coaching changes over the years Saban has been there, Kirby has been the constant, not that he was responsible but he was learning how to do things. He was the guy we wanted, no one else was approached, well the AD wanted Mullen but he wasn't part of the decision and was basically a messenger boy. Kirby's success will depend on him getting an OC who is a good play caller and good qb coach. I was hoping we would keep Pruitt as DC for a couple of years but that doesn't look like its going to happen so he may hire a young guy and run the defense himself. Everyone is excited about him, he is excited about getting the job, if he fails we can do it all again in 3-4 years. But I like the hire.
Our history is we almost always hire an assistant, last 75 years we have hired one coach with head coaching experience and it was at a DII school. So this shouldn't be too big a surprise to anyone and only time will tell if it was a good hire. I was expecting a tough year in 16 with no changes, won't expect anything else now, either we start a true frosh at qb, Eason or someone else, or we play who we did this year.
Muschamp was pretty popular name but looks like he is getting the head coaching job at SCar. Thomas Brown, RB coach, is very likely to be kept unless he follows Richt to Miami. Bryon McClendon the WR coach is the same as Brown. Defensively Rocker the DL coach is the only one being mentioned as possibly staying. Too many names to remember floating around, so I guess its a wait and see right now.
Reading your comments Grumpy about UGA and the watered down SECE, etc, just makes me smh. In the last 3 year period you mention UK has not been competitive with Georgia AT ALL. `Just completely overwhelmed. Same with UT. UK is just so far behind it may never catch up, just a pity an athletic program can get itself in such a desperate state.
The very things you mentioned were the reasons Richt was let go. In 14, UK beat USC, in reality beat UF too, lost to us badly. But somehow we managed to get blown out at UF and lose to USC. Again this year, UK plays UF tight, we beat UK by a safe margin, but yet again get blown out by UF. RIcht teams when they are on are very good, but for some reason, he has 1-3 games a year that looks like the first day of practice. It has been that way every year. Beating Tech and winning 9-10 games a year had gotten him a pass until this one, one of his worse teams, but the UF blowout loss got him canned. The process of replacing him was started the following Monday regardless of what happened the rest of the season. AD had nothing to do with the firing, he tried to fire him after last season and wasn't allowed, 4 boosters and the president made the new hire. You guys think you have a bad AD, the little weasel we have can't look you in the eye, every hire he has made has been a bad one, he turned Gurley's suspension from 2 games to 4 last year. He was the last president's yes boy, who's duties at UF was keeping up with tickets sold at events.
Really, why? What makes Smart a great HC candidate.....he's been holding Nick Saban's hand for years, leaving the nest could be tough for him.
I think any of us could have coordinated Alabama's defense and looked half decent.
I don't know if Smart is the answer, he might end up being the biggest bust in coach in 30 years or he might be our best coach ever. But he has spent the last 11 years at Saban's side, 7 as his DC learning from one of the top 2-3 coaches in the country. Saban doesn't hang on to dead weight, so he had some value to Saban. Maybe it was only a recruiter, when bama wanted a player on either side of the ball, Kirby was the lead man, has been for years, best in the SEC, maybe the country. Our class will most likely be down this year with all the coaching changes, but it won't be down long, with a few wins next year it will be back up.
For the coaching part, Saban may have helped or even built the gameplan, but Smart was making the calls, Smart was the one they came to during timeouts, maybe because Saban was looking over Kiffin's shoulder to keep him from doing something really dumb. But like I said, he is a risk, Richt had the chance to blow the Eastern division open and didn't. I like him, still do, hated to see him go, but if we were going to get back to the SEC championship we had to risk a change.
Chris Kirschner @ChrisK_AJC 36m36 minutes ago
I asked Kirby Smart if he was the next #UGA coach. He looked at me and gave me a death stare
I asked Kirby Smart if he was the next #UGA coach. He looked at me and gave me a death stare