Snooze you lose.

Thats me. I waited to long in finishing my Mark Richt post that the whole chess board has been flipped over and all the players landed in different places. 

University of Georgia has a new coach !

Kirby Smart.

Coach Smart who turns 40 this year is a native of Bainbridge, Ga., where his dad was the football coach. He is a four year letterman at the University of Georgia where he was also an SAE. Graduating in 1999 with a degree in finance.He did not get drafted in '99 but went on to sign with the Indianapolis Colts as a free agent, but did not make the team. His wife was a basketball letterman at UGA . It runs deep with him

Smart began his coaching career with the University of Georgia in 1999, serving as an administrative assistant. He then moved to Valdosta State where he spent one season as defensive backs coach before being promoted to defensive coordinator for the 2001 season. From 2002–2003 , Smart worked as a graduate assistant under Bobby Bowden at Florida State while pursuing a master's degree. He received his master's degree from FSU in 2003. Smart then spent one season as defensive backs coach at LSU under head coach Nick Saban in 2004. Smart rejoined the Georgia Bulldogs football program to serve as running backs coach for the 2005 season. His only season in the NFL came in 2006, during which time he coached under Nick Saban again, this time as the Miami Dolphins safeties coach.

He followed Saban to the university of Alabama - where he is currently the defensive coordinator of the multi time national champ Crimson Tide.

and now he is coming home

AND!

Mark Rich is going back to where he played college football 

from the AJC

RICHT ACCEPTS MIAMI JOB

I just sort of laid low since Sunday not commenting on the firing of Coach Richt. Number one because I totally think it was time for both him and UGA to make a change. I soberly wanted 4 college football games last Saturday and the other seven coaches were animated and involved. Right looked miserable on the sidelines - seemingly to me just did not want to be there. I truly think he had lost his joie de vie for being there.

Second reason was - damn a lot of folks were upset by this ! Who did not see this coming people - do you just not read anything about UGA football or the Atlanta newspaper? It is very obvious that this was in the works for a long time.

" WINNING IS NOT EVERYTHING "

Over and over and over I read this on Facebook and in comments in the papers. His deep and devout Christianity seemed to trump the fact that UGA had not won the SEC since 2005 AND just two weeks ago Ga Southern took us into overtime. 

I get how other deeply Christian fans ( and many non fans ) felt when something happened to one of their own. I can imagine how I would feel if there were a gay coach and he was fired. But they all just look it too far in their rational. All coaches " love " their players and all coaches are surrogate fathers to these boys. It is the nature of the beast. There is no doubt that he is a wonderful guy - just not the greatest football coach - and he had a good 15 year run. With out that painting of Jesus in his office he would have been out long ago.

I absolute wish him and his family the best of luck in his new school.

The ACC is really queer about putting their next year schedules out early, but Miami plays an away game at Ga Tech in 2016. I bet there will be a whole lot of brand new "Cane shirts in the stands for that game....