Hot seat heats up for Richt
Mark Richt’s 15th season as Georgia’s coach could wind up being his last.
The heat on Richt has intensified in the wake of Florida’s 27-3 victory over the Bulldogs that dropped them to 5-3 overall and 3-3 in the SEC, including a 38-10 home loss to Alabama when Georgia was ranked No. 5.
Georgia failed to score a touchdown against Florida for the first time since 1984, when the Gators won 27-0.
Atlanta JournalConstitution columnists Mark Bradley and Jeff Schultz have written this week that it’s time for Georgia to find a new coach, while at the same time praising Richt for how he has run the program and been a class act.
Other national columnists have written it may be best for Richt and Georgia to have a mutual parting.
Richt, 55, has a 141-51 record at Georgia, but that includes 8-5 in 2009, 6-7 in 2010 and 8-5 in 2013. He’s led the Bulldogs to two SEC championships, but those were in 2002 and 2005.
After so many seasons in the SEC, Richt understands the heat is on, but he showed at his weekly news conference Tuesday that he isn’t wilting.
“Here’s the deal everybody. You all can pay attention to this,” Richt said as he looked around the room at the assembled media. “We’re Georgia. We’re a team. We work together.
“We’re going to fight. We’re going to fight together. We’ll do the things we think we need to do to get better as we go, but the Georgia people can count on us fighting our tails off and doing it in a way that everybody would be proud of in our young men, to get better. So that’s where we’re at right now.”
Richt said he hasn’t discussed speculation about his job security with his players.
“We say ignore the noise,” he said. “When they’re bragging about you or when they’re saying not-so-nice things about you, just focus on what’s being said in this room by our coaches and by your teammates.
“I can’t control what people write, and I can’t control what people read. But I can control certain things, and that’s what I’m focusing on and what our staff is focusing on.”
With remaining games against Kentucky, Auburn, Georgia Southern and Georgia Tech, it’s reasonable the Bulldogs could win out and be 9-3 or even 10-3 with a bowl victory. A record like that might get a lot of coaches a raise and a contract extension, but it’s worth asking if it would be enough to save Richt’s job at this point.
Eat your greens
LSU Coach Les Miles was caught by a CBS camera chewing on some grass from the Tiger Stadium field during his team’s 24-
21 victory over Alabama in 2010, and the image has stuck with him.
So Miles showed no surprise Wednesday during the SEC coaches’ teleconference when he was asked how the grass at Tiger Stadium tastes compared to the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, where the Tigers play the Crimson Tide on Saturday night.
“Well, I have to be very honest,” Miles said. “I have enjoyed very much the grass at Baton Rouge much more. It’s kind of a home feel.
“But they take great care of their grass in Tuscaloosa, too. So I’ll certainly have to figure that one out once I get there.”
SEC poll talk
The College Football Playoff selection committee, chaired by Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long, has a higher opinion of Alabama than the media or coaches.
The Crimson Tide are ranked No. 7 in The Associated Press and USA
Today coaches polls but is No. 4 in the CFP poll released Tuesday night.
Alabama Coach Nick Saban said he isn’t paying attention to any of the polls.
“I really didn’t see them,” Saban said. “It doesn’t mean anything, though, right now because it only matters where you are at the end.
“I don’t even know why they do them.”
LSU Coach Les Miles said it’s nice his Tigers — ranked No. 4 in the AP and USA Today polls — are No. 2 in the CFP poll and reflects his team’s 7-0 record, but he realizes it’s early.
“I think there’s a great lesson to be learned by last year when Ohio State was ranked 14th at this time,” Miles said. “I think we recognize that this is very premature. We’ll focus on Alabama and not necessarily a ranking that is way before.”
Ohio State earned the fourth and final playoff spot last season, then beat Alabama and Oregon to win the national championship.
One from East title
If Florida beats Vanderbilt on Saturday in The Swamp, the Gators will win the East title and play in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta for the first time since 2009.
It seems simple enough considering the Gators are 36-10-2 all-time against the Commodores, but Vanderbilt won on its last visit Florida in 2013.
“We aren’t looking towards Atlanta, because if we do we won’t get there,” Florida Coach Jim McElwain said Monday at his weekly news conference. “What we’ve got to do is we’ve got to look forward to today. Whether we do it or not, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’re mature enough.
“I don’t know if we understand the position we put ourselves in, but I do know what it is to get there and what it takes to get there.”
McElwain was Alabama’s offensive coordinator when the Crimson Tide won the SEC championship in 2009 — with a 32-13 victory over Florida.
“I don’t downplay it because it’s there,” McElwain said of talking to his players about what’s at stake Saturday. “They should be excited about some of the noise that they’re making, but I think the most important thing is just realizing what created the noise.
“In our case, it’s been kind of how we’ve gone about our business.”
Auction time
The jersey LSU tailback Leonard Fournette wore in the Tigers’ 45-24 victory over South Carolina will be auctioned off Saturday will proceeds going to relief efforts for victims of flooding in South Carolina earlier this fall.
The floods moved the LSU-South Carolina from Columbia, S.C., to Baton Rouge.
The autographed Fournette jersey will be auctioned along with a Steve Spurrier-signed South Carolina helmet and a Les Miles-signed LSU helmet with the opening bid for the three-item package starting at $7,000.
Fournette, who experienced Hurricane Katrina growing up in Louisiana, said after the game he wanted to auction his jersey and the move was approved by the NCAA.
“The generosity of people helped my family make it through Hurricane Katrina,” Fournette said. “I’m hopeful that the money raised with this auction can make a difference for those flood victims in South Carolina.”
Two-minute drill
Georgia freshmen Natrez Patrick, a backup linebacker, and Chauncey Rivers, a backup defensive lineman, have been suspended for the Kentucky game after both were arrested on misdemeanor charges of marijuana possession.
Tennessee sophomore Evan Berry returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown at Kentucky last Saturday. It was his third touchdown on a kickoff this season along with returns against Western Carolina and Arkansas. Berry tied the SEC record set by Tennessee’s Willie Gault, who had three kickoff returns for touchdowns in 1980, and matched in 2009 by Georgia’s Brandon Boykin and Vanderbilt’s Warren Norman.
In beating Missouri 9-6 and losing to Florida 27-3, Georgia failed to score at least 10 points in back-toback games for the first time since 1969 when the Bulldogs lost to Auburn (163), Georgia Tech (6-0) and Nebraska (45-6).
Perry Orth’s 66-yard run at Texas A&M was the longest by a South Carolina quarterback since 1959 when Steve Satterfield had a 73-yarder against Virginia.