Report: Tom Herman had interest in the Georgia job
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.
Welp, that’s pretty bad. Not to even call Herman, who was without a doubt the hot commodity last year. You had your chance and you didn’t even try to take it? Terrible. Hiring Smart isn’t necessarily the wrong choice. He had gotten a ton of HC consideration and talk for years. He was the best DC in the country. But to not even gauge the interest of an established and successful OC and up and coming HC is professional malpractice on UGA’s AD’s part.
No kidding. The word at the time was that Herman just wasn’t interested enough, which apparently is a crock of sh1t. This makes me angry, no offense to CKS, but the Herman hire seemed like a no brainer. This good ol bit system at Georgia is ridiculous. I couldn’t care less if our coach is an alumni.
Good ol boy*
I am not a fan of hiring coordinators without HC experience. UGA thought they had something in Smart. Time will tell, but they aren’t off to a very good start.
Well Herman had only been a HC for 1 year, and it’s kind of crazy to hire a coach with that little experience at somewhere like UGA. Oh wait…nevermind. And by the way, Auburn did the same thing. Both might eventually be great…but it’s going to take a lot of patience.
If I remember correctly, Gus had at least a year as a HC, I believe at Ark State, or something like that.
Yeah, I meant like Herman. Honestly, you can’t tell anything about a coach based on one year. Herman may still be a bust as well.
Good grief, everybody calm down. This was never going to be Georgia’s year even Richt was still here. Georgia could very well be 5-1 or 1-5, bottom line is that we are not a good football team. The old cliche is Rome wasn’t built in a day. Give Kirby some time. The issue is you have a true freshman qb and basically a “true freshman” head coach. That is not a recipe for success. Dawg fans, relax and let Kirby recruit, the future is bright.
I read an interesting article on another website that outlined how the Bulldogs are feeling the effects of a couple poor recruiting classes in ’13 and ’14. It outlined how a large number of the recruits were either kicked off the team or left. Most of those who stayed don’t contribute much and very few are actual starters. Those kids should have been our junior and senior starters but the team is pretty young and don’t have a lot of experience. It was expected to be a down year. I think Richt knew the team better and would have had a bit more success, but I’m not ready to count Smart a bad hire yet.
The class of ’13 is still the biggest detriment to the CMR era. So few of them worked out or even stayed that you can pretty much count it as a wash. How this happens is so troubling, and probably why we have a new staff working on the sideline.
you both nailed it.
True that. A bad loss halfway into year one and people are talking about his long-term future? That’s ridiculous. CKS could be a monumental success, or her could be an unmitigated failure, or he could be something in between (the most likely scenario), but only time will tell how this first-year head coach will develop. Talk to me in 2-3 years; if we’re on an upward trajectory at that point, you let him keep building his team and brand to see if he gets them where you want to be; if we’re not seeing the improvements you’d expect, then you consider the best path forward, but likely keep him on at least to year 4-5 to provide him ample opportunity to prove he can either succeed or can’t; only if the team is simply bad, not winning, and showing no signs of improvement to you cut him lose as early as year 3. But at this point, any discussion about him not being the right guy or being a failure is laughably premature and not to be seriously considered.
Kirby has already lost 1 more game as a head coach than Herman. SMH. At least make the freakin call.
Uhh, remind me again which team it is that Houston lost to this year… I don’t care if Vince Lombardi was brought back to life by Lady Malisandre, the results with this UGA team would be no different… There isn’t much experienced talent on this UGA team, especially on the lines of scrimmage. Its basically true freshmen, trying to find their way in the SEC under a 1st year coaching staff. What did everyone think was going to happen? Ok, so maybe a lost to Vandy wasn’t on the itinerary, but 3-4 losses should have been a realistic expectation.
You lost to Vandy. Most coaches can beat Vandy.
No SEC coach but Smart has lost to Vandy since Mason has been there. UGA’s O-line is awful. Doesn’t help the WR’s do too. I’ve never seen a great UGA defense either.
I guess you didn’t watch Georgia in the early parts of Mark Richt’s career?
Vandy beat Mizzou and KY last year under Coach Mason.
Last year, Houston wasn’t supposed to be a “great” team and you saw what OSU was without him. He is a game changer as a coach or at least he has been so far. He has lost 2 games in the same time frame that we have lost 6. Not to mention that he already has more wins over top 10 opponents AT HOUSTON than UGA has had in 5 years. Not at least talking to him to go for Kirby wasn’t a good AD decision. I would have rather had a coach that has already proven he can win at a small school against big competition. Saban and Meyer both came up that way and that’s worked out pretty good for them.
Pulease…Nobody is “pondering Smart’s long term future in Athens”. This was going to be a down couple of years for Georgia no matter who is coach. I’ll take Kirby over Hermann everyday. Hermann looks great at a school that plays, well, nobody.