Fleeting thoughts: Richt and Miami, and the NFL lockout

I hope everyone’s okay with not doing a breakdown and grades for each position for last night’s game. You all saw it, so it’s pretty clear what happened:

Aaron Murray and the receivers: good. The running backs: some good moments, some bad ones. As for the defense: big plays from Justin Houston and a few others, but on the whole, a lot of work to be done in the offseason.

There’s still a bowl to be played, but clearly most of the talk ahead is going to be about the program moving forward. Therein, a few thoughts:

- It took, oh, about five minutes after Miami fired head coach Randy Shannon for a certain former Hurricane QB to be mentioned for the job. Mark Richt played at Miami and grew up in Boca Raton, Fla., and was mentioned quickly as a “potential candidate” by the Miami Herald, as well as SI.com and Rivals.com.

While Richt clearly has ties to Miami, he apparently wasn’t interested a few years ago before Shannon was hired. Richt is also earning a lot more money than Miami might be willing to pay, and he has moved much of his family to Athens. As he said a few weeks ago when his name was tied to the Colorado job, “Georgia’s my home.”

Then again, if Richt feels like his job is a little less secure than the last time the Miami job was open, that could be a factor. So until Miami makes a hire, you never know.

Richt is 96-33 in his 10 seasons at Georgia.

- Player-wise, all eyes are on Georgia's top juniors and whether they'll turn pro. I’m not sure the potential NFL lockout will loom as large in A.J. Green or Justin Houston’s decision, as some are hoping. Here’s why:

While a lockout could postpone the draft (and there’s no certainty of that), everyone knows there will be a season eventually. That’s why agents will sign players to deals, and give them cash, cars or down payments on houses, whatever it takes to sign them. And once a player decides he no longer wants to be eligible for college, he’s free to take whatever he wants from agents.

That’s not to say that a player might be scared enough of an abbreviated season that he would rather stay in college another year. But if finances are an issue for a player, I don’t think the lockout will matter.

At a minimum, expect Green and Houston to send their name to the NFL draft advisory committee to get an evaluation on where they could be drafted. And don't be surprised if a few other juniors, such as Brandon Boykin and Cordy Glenn, do the same thing.