The Junkyard

kirby ticked off a few money people but time heals hurt feelings. the bridges arent burned but they need some repair. GO DAWGS!

I get so tired of the whole Kirby Smart crap. If he didn't go to Georgia, nobody here would put him in the top 10 of candidates if they were looking for a coach.

I have no desire to make the mistake of taking an assistant who is an assistant coordinator at Alabama and giving him the head coaching job at UGA!! No matter what or where he came from. If I was forced to look at an UNPROVEN assistant, Bobo would be well ahead of Smart. Georgia is a better job than making the hire and hope that encompasses an assistant coach.

No matter my personal thoughts on Smart (and admittedly, I think he's an ass), hiring an assistant is a crap-shoot; especially one that has never been in charge of anything anywhere!!

Also, the whole schtick about him turning down jobs is BS. He wasn't hired because they didn't want him.

While the "burned bridges" aspect among the intelligentsia may be overblown, it should be noted that Kirby Smart, should he be hired, would have a VERY short leash among the common fan. The moment things weren't moving quickly forward, run of the mill UGA fans would be ALL over him and want him gone. I realize that many would laugh at how little that might actually mean, but Richt is still at UGA because overall he has always had far more support in the fanbase, even though the vocal minority is, as ever, vocal.

While what Smart does in the name of recruiting is understood by those who also have to recruit in this environment, it isn't easily swallowed by people who simply hear the hearsay, and I will say that I hear just as much vitriol as praise directed towards him, and I am in Valdosta where he coached.

Also, like I said, a SEC HC is far more than just a coach. It takes serious CEO skills. You are juggling plenty of egos. You have to be able to take a metric crap ton of public, stupid criticism from people who know a tenth of what you do with at least feinted equanimity. In a place like Bama where winning will always right every wrong, then yeah, a head coach can get away with being as surly as Saban is with the media. I just don't think that would fly at UGA. Look at all the hullabaloo that has occurred whenever Richt has even hinted at being fed up with stupid media and fans.

And frankly, I don't think ANY head coach should EVER be in full control or have Godlike status. IF nothing else, then that should be the lesson learned from Penn State and Paterno. I love UGA football, and I want it to be successful, but I don't want it to come at the cost of covering up bad personal behavior, serious crimes, or an environment of treating academics and/or certain groups of the population as worthless.