Georgia football players speak on Mark Richt and Jeremy Pruitt

In a statement Sunday morning, Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said Richt and the school “mutually agreed that he would step down as head coach and would have the opportunity to accept other duties and responsibilities” at Georgia after its bowl. McGarity described the decision as a “mutual agreement”.

You can only change coordinators and assistant coaches so many times before the head coach has to take some blame. Kevin’s son, Sterling, who is an East Hall High graduate, is a senior starting defensive end for the Bulldogs.

Richt scheduled a meeting with his players Sunday night and did not hold his normal Sunday teleconference with reporters.

“I was surprised”, said former wide receiver Israel Troupe who played for Richt from 2007-2011. While most outside the Bulldog Nation fixated on the fate of LSU head coach Les Miles, another classy head coach is now out of a job.

“I hate to see people that have the character and quality and ability to affect young people in a positive way like Mark Richt not be a part of our profession”.

Richt went 9-3 in his final regular season as the head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. He also won two SEC Championships and won the SEC Eastern Division six times, most recently in 2012. The pressure only increased with Richt’s 5-10 record against archrival Florida, under a new coach.

However, Richt’s record was just 8-17 since 2010 against ranked opponents.

Beamer is retiring after 29 seasons and will now be followed by a 39-year-old coach who has spent the past four seasons at Memphis, turning a struggling program into a victor.

Georgia is 9-3 this year despite playing the last six-plus games without injured star running back Nick Chubb.

This season was also marked with quarterback chaos in Athens, fluctuating among Greyson Lambert, Faton Bauta and Brice Ramsey.

Richt had only a short statement in an announcement released by the university.

The Crimson Tide are preparing to play Florida this Saturday for the SEC title.

“That’s really unfortunate”, Walsh said.

“I feel like I just lost an uncle, and Mark Richt being gone is just something kind of hard to swallow”.

There’s no doubt Georgia is rolling the dice by dismissing Richt.

But Richt’s teams never won a national championship and, while he won a pair of SEC championships, it’s been 10 years since Georgia won the conference. Others, who were solidly in his corner, typically pointed to the fact Richt had a far-reaching impact on players for life after football. “He taught you more about being a man than anybody else”. But Georgia’s last conference title was in 2005, and its last national title, under Dooley, was in 1980.

The situation at Georgia was college football’s equivalent of a conscious uncoupling. He has coached 12 first-round National Football League draft picks. Richt used a motivational ploy again, this time letting his team wear black jerseys for the first time. Probably different largely because of Greg McGarity, a former protege of Jeremy Foley, who famously said, “What should be done eventually must be done immediately”.

“We’ve got to make sure we stay together and our minds are right”.