The Todd Grantham Mystery

So you thought just because "Lost" was over, you were done reading between the lines, speculating on clues and trying to solve a potentially unsolvable mystery? Not so fast, says Mark Richt.

In the past couple of weeks, Richt has hinted on several occasions that there were some complications during the hiring process before he landed Todd Grantham, noting that he wanted Grantham more than a month before a deal actually got done. Mysterious circumstances prevented that from happening though.

“It’s a long story and I’m not going to tell it, but a lot earlier than the day he came, I thought he would be the guy," Richt said. "I was convinced he could be the guy probably a month earlier. It’s just that circumstances kind of moved me around in a different direction for a bit, but ultimately came around to a guy that (at least) a month earlier I thought probably should be the guy.”

Um… OK?

I get it. It's a long story. But I just invested six years of my life into "Lost," so I'm certainly open to hearing a long story -- assuming we don't all end up in purgatory at the end.

So what could possibly have been the hold-up that Richt doesn't mind hinting at but won't really discuss?

My obvious first suspicion was that money might have been the big issues, but Richt said it never came close to getting to that point.

“No, I just never made an offer or anything like that,” he said.

And while Damon Evans did express some concerns about escalating coaching salaries a while back, he reiterated at this week's SEC meetings that he was more than comfortable with the money Grantham is making now.

So, was it simply that the powers that be wanted Richt to look elsewhere, and it was only after Bud Foster and Kirby Smart, etc. said no that he was allowed to go back to his first choice?

“This entire process was strictly on my ability to do whatever I wanted to do," Richt assured me. "Damon was 100 percent behind what I wanted to do. There was never an issue with that.”

For his part, Evans gave a similar response, too.

“Mark always had a good pool of candidates, and Grantham was one of them," Evans said. "Grantham was someone that, from my understanding, Mark had known about and obviously had a great reputation as a coach, so as you went through the process, a lot of people thought it was long and took some time, but we did a good job and ended up getting a job that (Richt) knew about and was already on his radar. That’s good for us all.”

But if everybody's happy now… what was the hold-up?

I'm guessing something involving a smoke monster. But you're free to speculate for yourselves.