That he is on the hotseat out at Georgia says something about the irrationality of Bulldog fans. Personally, I hope the Hogs make his seat even hotter with an early season win in Athens. It has been about 18 years or so since the Hogs beat the Dogs, so one would think we are due. (I thought that last year too.) With that said, I think the SEC and Georgia would be losing a good coach in Richt if he were to be fired at the end of the year. His bowl, SEC Championship game, and on the road records are something that any Hog fan would envy. But I guess it is sorta like it was with us and Houston; others outside a program never quite see a coach in the same light as the program's fans. One other note, as evidence Georgia's ugly black helmets in Jacksonville last year, Richt doesn't have a spot on Project Runway if they indeed do run him out of Athens. Not that he is counting on one.
about 2 years ago
T Kyle King
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Could his seat warm up with a season of less than 10 wins...
probably. Will he get fired even if we lose 6 or 7, not a chance.
Yeah I think the assumption
that Coach Richt is really “on the hot seat” is a little too simple a view of it. 9 out of 12 coaches in the SEC are “on the hot seat” every year if you mean their fans wish they won more games last year than they actually did. If it means “he’s in danger of being fired at the end of 2010 if he doesn’t win X games”, then I think that with a new QB who’ll be back in 2011 and a new defensive staff X=approximately 6 games. And with our schedule in 2010, 6-6 would be a really bad year.
Short of that I see no way Mark Richt is not coaching in Athens in 2011.
Exactly
Had the previous defensive staff been retained, a third straight subpar year in 2010 could have put Mark Richt on the hot seat for 2011. Cleaning house on the defensive side of the ball turned down the temperature quite a bit. I now think he’d have to have a poor 2010 and 2011 to be legitimately in a “make or break” position for 2012.
The guys at Arkansas Expats are good fellows and good bloggers, but their read on Georgia fans is way, way wide of the mark. (Speaking of skewed views, though, their continued criticism of Houston Nutt, who clearly elevated the Razorback program and just as clearly has elevated the Ole Miss program, is humorous, as is this howler: “I think there is a level of ‘a-holeness’ in just about every football coach, Bobby Petrino included.” Really? Even the saintly Bobby Petrino? Why, what evidence could you cite for Coach Petrino being an a-hole . . . other than, you know, his whole career?)
Go 'Dawgs!
I think if this decade has shown us anything
It’s that any coach — yes, any coach — at any given time, is only one or two seasons away from “the hot seat.”
Richt and Les Miles are in similar boats of differing severity. Neither are in immediate danger of being fired, but both are being watched for expected improvement.
Disagree on Miles...
He walked into a National Championship a few years ago and has still continued to recruit very well, but he has done a poor job recently of managing his team. Richt could certainly get away with another 7 or 8 win season this year because he made wholesale defensive changes and he’s going to get the benefit of the doubt as we go forward. Willie two-thumbs, if anything, showed that Richt isn’t afraid of making the necessary changes. If anything, I think he’s earned more respect for making a tough decision.
If Miles goes 7-5, he’s gone. 8-4 might not be good enough, either. He hasn’t done a very good job of coaching in the clutch, especially given some of his time management gaffes of late. Don’t forget…LSU is under some NCAA scrutiny as well.
"If we score, we may win. If they never score, we'll never lose."
-Erk Russell
This is why I said "differing severity"
And “immediate danger.”
A sub-par record might sink Miles next winter. It won’t necessarily sink Richt, but you’re deluded if you don’t think it’ll put him on notice for ’11.
And the “scrutiny” will result in nothing.
by Billy Gomila on Apr 14, 2010 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions
Well, the sub-par record could certainly sink Miles
… but the thing that will really use up any political capital he has left is the fact that nobody really likes him… even when he won the MNC.
That is the biggest difference between Miles and Richt.
by vineyarddawg on Apr 14, 2010 3:45 PM EDT up reply actions
That doesn't change the fact
That with another 7-5 record, Richt’s seat will be a whole lot warmer than it may be at the moment. You’re lying to yourself if you think otherwise.
And you’ll find LSU fans liking Miles a whole lot more if he improves on the 2009 record. In the end, that’s all that really matters with any fan base.
by Billy Gomila on Apr 14, 2010 3:48 PM EDT up reply actions
I think the fact that Arkansas fans can get behind a prick like Bobby Petrino says a lot about the desperation of Hog fans.
by get swoll yunel on Apr 14, 2010 2:16 PM EDT reply actions
its irrational to discount the total package - and the fact our biggest opponent has been in the high noon of their glory years
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
I think the problem is the definition of "hot seat"
To me, “hot seat” means a coach is in danger of being fired if he has a subpar season. Ray Goff was on the hot seat in 1995, when Vince Dooley demanded “significant improvement”; he was not on the hot seat in 1993, when the Bulldogs went 5-6 but Coach Goff was in no danger of losing his job. Whether he was on the hot seat in 1994 is debatable.
By that definition, Rich Rodriguez is on the hot seat at Michigan this year, but he was not last year, even though there was a high degree of dissatisfaction with his team’s results. I do not know whether Les Miles truly is on the hot seat in the sense that he might be fired at the end of the 2010 season if the Bayou Bengals underperform.
Mark Richt has had to deal with a larger degree of dissatisfaction in the last couple of years than he has had to deal with previously, but Mark Richt has never been on the hot seat in the sense of being at risk of losing his job at the end of the season.
At no point was Mark Richt in danger of being fired at the end of the 2009 season. Had he kept Willie Martinez and had another subpar season in 2010, he likely would have been on the hot seat in 2011; i.e., absent a turnaround, he might have been replaced with a new coach for 2012. The change of coordinators unquestionably bought him another year; it would take subpar seasons in 2010 and 2011 to put Coach Richt on the hot seat in 2012.
Even at my most dour, when I reached the point at which I was wiling to concede what I wanted (Mark Richt’s continued employment in Athens) in order to get what I needed (Willie Martinez’s ouster), I had no illusions that Coach Richt was at risk. Frankly, it doesn’t matter what rank-and-file fans think; our ability to affect the bottom line is negligible unless we all fail to renew our season tickets en masse (which is what finally put Ray Goff well and truly on the hot seat in 1995).
Damon Evans has never been close to firing Mark Richt. The last couple of years have made it possible to envision a day when Evans might come close to doing so, but that is far, far away indeed from a head coach being on the hot seat. Arkansas fans may have difficulty distinguishing legitimate power brokers and opinionmakers from message board yahoos and call-in show drunkards because the last days of the Frank Broyles regime, with irate fans filing FOIA requests and the like, made it difficult to draw such distinctions in the Natural State, where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Go 'Dawgs!
Not to mention
No commodious building. Just sayin’.
by NCT on Apr 14, 2010 9:19 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
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