Well, that was fun, wasn't it?
Kirby Smart will be staying at Alabama, according to reliable source Nick Saban, despite the best efforts of Georgia to bring him back to Athens.
"I'm pleased to announce Kirby is staying here at Alabama," Saban told reporters at a news conference to announce Rolando McClain's departure to the NFL.
According to Bama players, the decision came down just minutes before McClain's news conference -- or at least that's when they were told. So this thing clearly was still up in the air this morning.
A release will be coming from 'Bama shortly, and I'll post that info when I get it.
There are two ways to look at this now:
1.) Georgia made a good run at a very good assistant coach. The money being talked about should have been enough to lure virtually any coach away, and prying one of the top assistants off a team that just won a national title for a lateral move is a tough sell.
2.) They didn't get him -- or Chavis or Koenning or Foster or, through more than six weeks, anyone else.
My guess is, right now, most fans are shaking their heads and wondering what Georgia has to do to get a coach to take their money. And from that end, it does look bad. That's the dangers of Richt's "no comment" strategy.
But while the waiting game was OK for a while, the hope now should be that Richt had a solid backup plan (Grantham?) that he's already moved on to. If not, this starts becoming dangerous ground for recruiting purposes.
ADDENDUM: Just to clarify -- I'm not knocking Richt's refusal to comment on the search. It's the high road, to be sure. But here's the main question I've gotten in the brief time since the Kirby news broke: "Why won't anyone take the job?"
Much like with Tiger Woods' situation, when people start asking open-ended questions, other people start offering all kinds of speculative answers. At that point, the message becomes tough to control.
So I'm fine with Richt's approach, but again, it's not helping to soothe any fears fans may currently have.
Monday, January 11, 2010
And Another One Bites the Dust
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10 comments:
Vaya con Dios Kirby Smart.
As much as it hurts to lose a alum when Mama calls, I can stand to lose the presser. It's the games in the fall I care more about. CMR has addressed that with the firings. He'll find the right coaches to more than fill their shoes.
Bottomline: I don't want any player OR coach that doesn't want to be a DAWG.
This is the same Nick Saban that said he was definitely not going to be the next coach at Alabama, right?
until they have rough contract outlines up, Smart talks or UGA says something, color me a skeptic
I think what's so frustrating now is that we see how important of a cog KS was to Saban's "process." Beforehand we thought KS had this vast amt of unknown and how much he might just be a puppet of the puppetmaster. Turns out he must've been a pretty big deal to Saban, and that makes losing him as a potential DC that much worse in my mind.
Ben
Why go after an established DC at a solid program? Why go after a Chavis, Foster, or Smart who are ACC and SEC. When the job became vacant they would have applied if they were interested. They did not. Saban is right ... lateral moves do not work out for coaches ... money or no money. Stop the crying and go after a young talented go getter DC at some other program. Foster, Chavis, and Smart are old and out dated. Smart may have wanted to come to "Mama", but in the end felt insecure leaving "Daddy". Move on...it is not the end of the world. But this time Evans and Richt...start having a little prescience and ... stay aggressive in your programs. Evans has hurt the AD programs for a long time.
If this means we get Travis Jones, I'll be thrilled.
Right now, I'm thankful that Richt isn't the sort of guy who'll panic and decide to hire a 'big splash' guy now just to win the media cycle.
I think you just hit the nail on the head there, David. At this point I'm thinking about telling my employer that UGA has offered me the DC job to see if I can get a pay raise out of it because that's what appears to keep happening everywhere else.
Is Georgia perceived as this much of a rebuilding effort within the college coaching ranks or are we going after guys that are legitimately happy where they're at and don't want to leave? Either way, it seems like it shouldn't be this hard to bring a DC to Athens.
Manny Diaz, ladies and gentlemen!
"Why won't anyone take the job?"
Because we're not offering it to just anyone.
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