Miami reaches agreement with Richt to coach Canes

Former Georgia coach Mark Richt is expected to be the new football coach at Miami. Richt, who played quarterback at Boca Raton High and at UM from 1978-82, was a backup to Hall of Famer Jim Kelly. Richt went 145-51 in 15 seasons as head coach at Georgia, winning two SEC championships. Matt Shoddell of Canesport.com reported there’s a good possibility Eason will take an official visit to Miami to check out Richt’s new team. Greg Schiano, Butch Davis and Dan Mullen all had interviews as well.

Richt first rose through the college football ranks as a head coach as the offensive coordinator for Bobby Bowden’s Florida State Seminoles, coaching two Heisman Trophy winners in Charlie Ward (1993) and Chris Weinke (2000).

Richt was mentioned as a potential fit for Miami nearly as soon as the Hurricanes fired Golden in October, with five games left on this year’s regular-season schedule and one day after the Hurricanes endured the worst loss in school history – a 58-0 defeat to Clemson.

Between 2001 and 2008, Richt had six top-10 finishes. In recent years, he has talked of his post-coaching days to be spent ministering to others in some way. Richt is the first power conference head coach the school has hired since pulling Dennis Erickson away from Washington State to replace Jimmy Johnson for the 1989 season.

You might remember me saying I no longer believed Mark Richt could win a championship. “Then I heard after the game with Georgia Tech the athletic director didn’t show up in the locker room”.

Richt was a great recruiter in the South Florida area during his time at Georgia. The Terrapins finished the season 3-9. He was chosen to coach the 2007 Hula Bowl game in Hawaii. Richt himself was a consensus choice as SEC Coach of the Year and was a finalist for the Bear Bryant National Coach of the Year Award. From Sunday morning on, he had to be thinking, “I’ll find me a job and win a bunch of games and show y’all what you’re missing”.

Durkin also worked at Stanford on Harbaugh’s staff and started his career as a graduate assistant at Bowling Green when Urban Meyer was the coach there.