Following Georgia’s upset loss to Vanderbilt at home, fans and some media members are pondering first-year coach Kirby Smart’s long-term future in Athens.

USA Today sportswriter Dan Wolken examined the Georgia situation Sunday in his weekly “Misery Index” column. Wolken says it’s too early to deem Smart a failure or bad hire by the Bulldogs, but drops an interesting tidbit related to the hottest name in college coaching at the moment, Houston coach Tom Herman:

Georgia didn’t even so much as bother to pick up the phone and call Houston’s Tom Herman, for instance, even though his representatives had made it abundantly clear that there was interest.

Not many people are going to fault UGA for hiring an alumnus and right-hand man of college football’s most dominant coach of the last 10 years. If Herman ends up landing a job in the SEC, however, it might be hard for some Bulldogs to watch him succeed with his new school.