Mark Richt dispels silly Miami rumors

Mark Richt quickly dispelled any rumors about leaving Athens to take over the same position at his alma mater at the University of Miami in Coral Gables.

Mark Richt isn’t going anywhere, folks. The Main Dawg in Athens won’t pursue the vacant Miami Hurricanes head coaching gig, even if his alma mater’s program is in utter disarray.

Richt has spent the last 15 years re-establishing a University of Georgia program that contends in the SEC, with top 10 recruiting classes annually. His main coaching influences are Tom Osborne, Bobby Bowden, and Vince Dooley, all national championship winning coaches who spent decades building national powerhouses. Why would Richt want to leave a contending Power 5 he built for a shot at maybe getting his alma mater back on track?

Though Bowden did coach at West Virginia University before building Florida State’s program, Richt’s two other idols Osborne and Dooley never coached anywhere besides Nebraska and Georgia, respectively. For a man who has spent the last decade and a half building a family culture in Athens, I don’t think he could make that happen at The U, even if it’s his alma mater.

Keep in mind, when Richt played at the University of Miami, he backed up future Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly on a Hurricanes program that was on the verge of being shut down. After Richt and Kelly left, in came head coach Howard Schnellenberger who laid the foundation for Jimmy Johnson to build the Miami Hurricanes into The U.

The program Richt played for and the program college football fans associate with The U are two separate entities. Richt would leave the biggest program in the Peach State for the third most relevant in the Sunshine State – behind Florida and Florida State. His Hurricanes teams would play in a half-empty stadium that they would have to share with the Miami Dolphins, miles away from the Coral Gables campus.

Leaving UGA would also mean that highly touted quarterback prospect Jacob Eason would certainly de-commit from Georgia and would be back on the market. Richt was able to pull the pocket passer with a rocket arm from the Pacific Northwest because of the family friendly atmosphere he built in Athens.

With his best recruit since Matthew Stafford enrolling at the University of Georgia in January, Richt would be beyond crazy to leave UGA and rebuild his alma mater’s program, knowing that the next Luther Campbell or Nevin Shapiro might already be a major booster of The U’s football program. For Mark Richt, it’s all about the Dawgs and not about The U.

H/T Saturday Blitz