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Friday, November 26, 2010

Leftovers: McGarity speaks on Richt, the offseason and more

So who else has a big turkey in their fridge and will be eating turkey sandwiches for the next week? The good news is I only started two grease fires while cooking it.

In case you missed it, here was my story in Thursday’s papers on Mark Richt, and how he’s weathered his worst season as Georgia’s head coach. I wasn’t able to include all the quotes and nuggets from athletics director Greg McGarity, so here are all the pertinent details:

- In case there was still any doubt, McGarity reiterated that Richt will return in 2011, barring anything unforeseen. (“Yes,” was McGarity’s one-word answer to that question.)

- That said, McGarity said he hasn’t yet thought about extending Richt’s contract, which currently runs through the 2013 season. Often, coaches want at least four years for recruiting purposes, but McGarity wasn’t buying into that premise.

“I think sometimes that gets overblown,” he said. “You see some coaches that have contracts through 2020. I mean c’mon. As long as the relationship is on firm ground with the athletic director and the head coach, I think contracts are sometimes overblown.”

- Since McGarity was hired in August, Richt has several times mentioned that his new boss had some “good ideas” about the program. McGarity, who meets with Richt every Friday, understandably didn’t want to get too specific.

“We just talked about different ideas, different ways of doing things,” he said. “It’s just sort of things, nothing in writing, but just conversations and thoughts that we’d address after the regular season’s over with, and we have time to breathe a bit.”

- So could that be staff changes? I asked McGarity if, considering how this season has gone, it would be necessary to do something to show the public anything?

“We live in a society that people want to know how you’re gonna fix things,” McGarity said. “There’s certain things you can talk about, there’s certain things you don’t need to air out in the public. I think that reaches just a level of trust, that people probably don’t have in me right now, because I’ve just been on the job a short amount of time. I have no track record. I’ve not had to make a hire.”

Then McGarity pointed out that he does have a volleyball coaching search on. For all of you anxiously awaiting news on that, he said he anticipate something in the next 60-90 days.

- McGarity is trying to build the kind of relationship with Richt and Mark Fox that his former boss, Jeremy Foley at Florida, had with Urban Meyer and Billy Donovan. The hope is to show Richt that he can trust and confide in McGarity.

“That’s something you really have to earn, and we’re not anywhere close to where we need to be,” McGarity said. “But I think after the first two and a half months, I sure sense that we trust each other, we’re not afraid of telling each other what we need to hear. And we’re not afraid of hurting each other’s feelings.”

- If anybody out there thinks Richt’s large buyout – about $5 million with an additional longevity bonus – would be a factor, that doesn’t seem the case. McGarity wasn’t speaking specifically about that, but when I asked about the state of his department’s finances, he was upbeat.

“I think every team in the Southeastern Conference is in good shape financially with the tremendous package that’s been put together by the SEC, with all our television partners, for the next 14 years,” McGarity.

He also credited by name his predecessors, Damon Evans and Vince Dooley, and associate A.D. Frank Crumley, for helping put Georgia in good financial standing.

Meanwhile, a couple other things for your Friday:

- Down in Orlando, the Georgia men’s basketball team suffered its first loss of the season, in double overtime to Notre Dame. This despite the return of Trey Thompkins, albeit in a limited form. But poor free throw (10-for-20) and 3-point shooting (9-for-34) felled them against the Irish.

Thompkins wasn’t healthy enough to start, but he ended up playing 33 minutes, including both overtimes, and had a double-double (13 points and 10 rebounds.)

No. 20 Temple is the next opponent, after it was upset by California. The Owls will probably end up looking good on Georgia’s postseason resume’, win or lose. Then on Sunday Georgia will face either Texas A&M or Manhattan.

- Back to football. Assuming for the sake of this note that Georgia wins on Saturday, the Iron Bowl and Saturday’s LSU-Arkansas game will be key in figuring out the Bulldogs’ bowl destination.

It will likely come down to whether the SEC gets one or two teams in the BCS. If it’s one, then Georgia could slide down to the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham on Jan. 8. If it’s two, then it’s probably the Liberty or Music City Bowls.

So if you’re rooting for the latter, pull for wins by Auburn and LSU. But especially LSU, which will be done after Saturday and thus wouldn’t have a chance to fall in the standings.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It will be a cold day in hell before I root for this Auburn team to win anything.

Willb said...

I thing we got a great one in McGarity! He has done so much more in his small amount of time on the job then I thought he would. Boise St being the one change he made that I am the most excited about!

I am still stuck on if I should root for Auburn myself. I want to see them get demolished but I also think them winning is the best thing for Ga. They seem to be the only SEC team that is left in contention for the BCS championship game and we need an SEC school to win that every year.

I want to see an SEC just blow out whoever they play in the BCS championship game! Auburn is not your typical SEC team so the title game might be more of a shootout than a blowout. I would of loved to of seen this Oregon or Boise St team go up against the past years defenses of Fla or Alabama. Auburns def sucks! I think we have a better defense than Auburn.

Taylor said...

If Bama wins, they could jump into the top 10. If LSU wins, they stay in the top 5. If Auburn loses, they still stay in the top 4-8. So, two teams from the SEC should/could get into the BCS. If Auburn loses to SC (hopefully) in the Dome, then they fall out of BCS contention, which means SC and LSU are BCS bowl bound. Here are my guesses
Bowl breakdown:
Championship: Oregon v Boise
Rose: Wisconsin v Stanford
Fiesta: okst v lsu
Sugar: SC v tcu
Orange: va tech v Pitt
Cap1: Bama v Ohio st
Outback: auburn v mich st
Cotton: Arkansas v a&m
Gator: Miss st v iowa
Chickfila: Florida v ncst or fsu
Liberty: Kentucky v ucf
Music city: Georgia v NC

Anonymous said...

Sure, contracts are overrated, until someone wants to end the relationship. Then contracts become pretty important. If CMR wanted to walk away today, you bet McGarity would be pulling out the contract to see what it says.

CMR take note: This is the first public weasel-talk from the boss. If he's going to talk this way you shouldn't trust him.

BulldogBen said...

Note to Todd Grantham:

Please watch Alabama's defense. It's a clinic on how to play a team with a Tebow-type offense.

I'm enjoying this beating immensely.

Anonymous said...

Auburn has now blitzkrieged Bama 28-3.The look on Kirby Smart's face?Priceless.

Anonymous said...

Alabama looked gassed in the second half,need to improve their strength and conditioning.

Anonymous said...

Fire the Bama DC and S&C coach.

Fire all the coaches at Tx.

Fire the coach at FL.

Fire one up!

Anonymous said...

Don't forget to fire Saban , a team full of 4 and 5 star recruits playing like 2 stars. Mental mistakes, penalties, bad special teams. Alabama is more talented than every team they play but has lost 3 times.Not coaching them up.

Anonymous said...

1- Fire Garner let Grantham coach the line, that is what he did at Dallas
2- Demote Bobo to QB coach
3- Hire an OC with creativity, maybe Al Borgess
4- Fire Van Hallager and get a progressive S&C coach
5- Move McClendon to wide reciever coach, that is what he knows.
6- Do not replace Garner but let Belin handle all Linebackers
7- Hire someone to do nothing but but evaluate high school and JUCO talent. Chart their results, behavior, grades, strength and speed and formulate a plan for the coaches. This way the coaches can concentrate more on coaching and building relationships with players and prospective players.
8- Beat the ever loving HELL out of GT