I saw Miami head football coach Mark Richt on television a few days ago. The former head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs looked relaxed, rested and tan, which is a very good thing. It was just a few months ago that Richt was forced out of his job in Athens, Georgia; the same job he had held for past fifteen years. Fortunately for him, he was hired by his alma mater just a few days after being fired. Right after he left Georgia, I wrote that he was "Fulmered" by the Bulldogs, in reference to the way that Tennessee fired Phillip Fulmer in 2008.
There are a lot of similarities in the careers of Fulmer and Richt.
Fulmer was 150-50 at Tennessee in sixteen seasons, while Richt was 145-52. Both coaches won two SEC Championships and six SEC East Titles....and despite tremendous success they were both fired. Fulmer actually won a national title in 1998, as his Volunteers went 13-0 and won the first ever BCS Championship Game. Being the new head coach at Miami gives Mark Richt a fresh start as he tries to return the Hurricanes to their glory days from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. During those three decades, the "U" won five NCAA titles.
Miami, now a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, has fallen upon hard times in recent years. The 'Canes are nothing more than the third best team in Florida, trailing Florida State and Florida in every aspect of the game. Coach Richt is working to change that.
Miami has to be a great job. It's one of the most beautiful cities in America, with fabulous beaches great night-life and wonderful scenery. Former coaches at Miami used those selling points to recruit not only in-state but nationally as well. Miami can be great again, but it will take some time. Richt turned around the Georgia Bulldogs following sub-par coaching stints by Ray Goff and Jim Donnan. He made Georgia not only a prominent program in the SEC, but he also made them a national power. Richt can recruit as well as any coach out there, but it remains to be seen if he can take great talent and make them a legitimate national contender.
There is one problem facing Richt that just won't go away. Miami has always had a reputation of being almost ":thug-like" when it comes to some of their athletes. In today's court of popular opinion, that is now a factor on how your program is judged; not just at Miami but all across the nation. Tennessee coach Butch Jones has been forced to learn that lesson the hard way, but it appears that Jones is turning the corner on dealing with problem athletes in Knoxville.
Being an alum at Miami may give Richt more time to turn things around. The school is poised to be patient with him , at least as patient as any school in the country can be. But the bottom line is winning and I mean winning big. If you don't compete for a national title or at least a conference title every few seasons, you'll be on the beach working on your suntan while someone else coaches your team, and that's actually a pretty good thing. Right now as we get ready to begin the 2016 college football season, Mark Richt has the best of both worlds.
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.
His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.
He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.
In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.
He can be reached at rsmithsports@epbfi.com