What should UGA fans make of the Stacy Searels situation?
Stacy Searels has drawn a lot of flak for his underperforming lines at UGA. (Brant Sanderlin / AJC)
l’m not seeing too many tears shed among Bulldog fans over the apparent impending departure of offensive line coach Stacy Searels for the same job at Texas.
Oh, sure, the timing could be better, coming just a couple of weeks before national signing day. And there’s the concern expressed by a few that Searels jumping ship is just one more sign that Mark Richt’s program is sinking fast.
But that latter view ignores the obvious fact that even if the Richt program wasn’t facing a likely do-or-die turning point next season, the Texas job would be somewhat better than a lateral move for Searels. Despite the Longhorns having suffered a losing season in 2010, that program mints money and is a choice spot for any coach. Of course, the chance of Searels being out of a job in Athens next year if Richt is fired adds to the attractiveness of a move to Austin at this point in his career.
It’s a little tougher to figure out why Mack Brown wants Searels. While his four years coaching the OL at LSU produced stellar results, his work at UGA has left most Dogs fans decidedly unimpressed. With injuries a major problem, Searels did get credit his first two seasons in Athens for cobbling together lines with three freshman starters as the Dogs finished with 11-2 and 10-3 records and Top 10 final rankings.
But the reportedly prickly Searels never seemed all that comfortable in Athens amid rumors he didn’t get along with offensive coordinator Mike Bobo and others, and Georgia folks never really warmed up to him, at least in part because of his refusal most of the time to talk to the media.
And as the Dogs’ fortunes began to sink over the 2009 and 2010 seasons, with OL play an obvious deficiency, the suspicion grew in the Bulldog Nation that having offensive stars like Matt Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and Mohamed Massaquoi made Searels’ 2007 and 2008 lines look better than they really were. The past two years Searels’ lines badly underperformed most of the time, despite having veteran players, and the running game that Searels had been named coordinator of in 2009 foundered.
Perhaps Texas has concluded the problem with the Dogs’ linemen getting pushed around by opponents really was Georgia’s infamous strength and conditioning program and that the LSU years more accurately reflect what Searels can do. Time will tell.
In the meantime, it will be interesting to see where Richt turns for a new OL coach. While an up-and-coming coach might jump at the chance to take over the OL job at Georgia, the tenuous nature of Richt’s own status in Athens might work against drawing an established heavy hitter. Let’s face it, anyone who takes the job is gambling.
Mac McWhorter recently announced his retirement at Texas. (University of Texas)
The natural speculation has centered on a couple of former Georgia players with established credentials as offensive line coaches: Mac McWhorter and Hugh Nall.
McWhorter, ironically, is responsible for the opening at Texas, having just retired as the Longhorns’ OL coach amid a general staff house-cleaning that Brown has undertaken following a disappointing season just a year after playing in the national championship game. But since McWhorter’s “retirement” is only a little over a month old, he might be inclined to basically swap places with Searels.
If that’s the case, you could argue UGA would be getting the better end of the deal. While McWhorter was at UT, the offense ranked among the top 10 in total offense three times and in the top 30 seven times. It was also in the top six in scoring offense on five occasions and in the top 16 eight times. McWhorter also was named the 2008 Assistant Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association.
If he were to take the job at Georgia, it would be his second go-round as the Dogs’ OL coach. He held that position, along with special teams coordinator and director of football operations, under Ray Goff. Interestingly, he also put in time at Georgia Tech under George O’Leary and ended up as the Jackets’ acting head coach for their bowl game after O’Leary left for his short-lived stint at Notre Dame.
As for Nall, he had a good run coaching the OL at Auburn under Tommy Tuberville but left coaching for an executive position in the trucking business after Tuberville was fired and reportedly is quite happy out of football. Giving up that gig for a potentially one-season stint in Athens might not seem like such a smart move.
Other names not associated with UGA are starting to surface, including former Vanderbilt head coach Robbie Caldwell, a veteran of offensive line work.
What do you think? Would you be happy with a Searels-for-McWhorter swap? Who else would you like to see Richt consider for the OL job?
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245 comments Add your comment
Optomistic Dawg
January 20th, 2011
4:53 pm
If I was an Auburn fan, I’d be laying low. Just won a tarnished NC that’s about a year from being forfeited, and next year is looking like Chizik returning to his level… say, 5-7.
AltamahaDawg
January 20th, 2011
4:54 pm
Thanks for dropping by to “just talk a little football” once again.
gt4ever
January 20th, 2011
4:54 pm
Why would you pay your DC 750K a year? If offered, why wouldn’t you leave UGA? I mean, come on people, Texas, UGA. I mean even the most challenged UGA fan realizes that Texas is the place to be in college football…. Your program is a JOKE!
Optomistic Dawg
January 20th, 2011
4:56 pm
Said the clown from the engineering school.
WDE
January 20th, 2011
4:57 pm
Haha, well AltamahaDawg, it was all football until people start making the hilarious assumption that UGA was too hard for me to get into. Especially when you can very clearly see I’m running laps around these buffoons and their barely-literate comments.
Hairy Perry
January 20th, 2011
4:58 pm
WDE,
Congradulations on the season your team had. I just find it very interesting how people hang out on a bulldog blog all day trying to convince us of how worthless our program is. The truth is yeah mabe Georgia hasn’t had a NC in 30 years. Another truth is that UGA has handed alot of teams,including yours thier butts through the years, so you guys get your “lil” licks in while you can. It won’t last as long as you think.
Hairy Perry
January 20th, 2011
5:02 pm
WDE,
I am now convinced that you are a angry shunned little man in society, that hides behind a computer screen. Keep riding the coat-tails of Auburn football.
1. How many touch downs did you score for Auburn.
2. Field Goals?
3. Interceptions?
WDE
January 20th, 2011
5:04 pm
Congratulations are in order, Hairy Perry. But you see, I don’t remember any Georgia fans giving their bretheren the same advice when you strang 4 together against us during the end of the Tuberville era.
It goes around and comes around, fellas. The fact that I put up with your d-baggery the past 4 years, which was relentless, is what make seeing your program slowly but surely die so great.
Auburn faced a similar situation 3 years ago, and while I was uncertain of the future, our leadership wasn’t. UGA has gone from an excessively proud program to a bunch of quitters, sissies, and arrestees.
P. Bull Terrier
January 20th, 2011
5:05 pm
On the one hand, you have major college program like Texas that thinks Searles is the answer to their needs when it comes to coaching the offensive line. Mack Brown has a multi million dollar a year job on the line, access to tremendous amounts of game film and other data, and plenty of inside contacts throughout college football to help him evaluate Searles’ performance. Given his obvious motivation to make the right choice and the resources at his disposal, Brown’s opinion is that Searles is a good offensive line coach.
On the other hand, you have a bunch of fans on an internet blog and a couple of local sports columnists who watch games on TV or from hundreds of feet away in Sanford Stadium, often under the influence of their favorite alcoholic beverage, who think Searles is the cause of all their problems. The internet crowd has nothing at stake other than bragging rights with their friends from other schools, watches a few game highlights on Sports Center, and plenty of inside contacts using screen names like “UGA Insider4832″ to help them evaluate Searles’ performance. Given their obvious motivation to make a choice – even if it’s the wrong choice, and the resources that they think they have, the internet crowd’s opinion is that Searles is a bad offensive line coach.
Is Searles a good coach or a bad coach?
Should I believe Texas and Mack Brown or the AJC writers and DawgDude32?
Maybe a few beers will help me make sense of it all.
Optomistic Dawg
January 20th, 2011
5:05 pm
Georgia has five national championships; last in 1980. Auburn had one in 1957, and it remains to be seen if they had one last year.
T-DOG
January 20th, 2011
5:05 pm
I think UGA will be fine next year.
WDE
January 20th, 2011
5:06 pm
BTW, just because my altruism as a college football fan is kicking in…
Auburn isn’t eligible for the Death Penalty. So, go ahead and forget that.
Not to mention, all the evidence in the world that MSU could have possibly turned over has not implicated Auburn in ANYTHING.
Its in your best interest to not look back at why you got your a&& kicked in November, and how evil Nick Saban and Les Miles oversign, and man up. You guys complain about things only to discredit what other people have accomplished, while having accomplished nothing yourselves anyways.
Optomistic Dawg
January 20th, 2011
5:09 pm
No complaining here: Take Georgia’s W-L record for the past 10 years and compare it to Auburn’s, or Chizik’s, or the better of Auburn’s and Chizik’s in any given year. No matter how you slice it, Georgia is the superior program.
Last year was a fluke for Auburn, and it remains to be seen whether the season gets forfeited.
WIN WITH RICHT
January 20th, 2011
5:14 pm
WDE
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.
UGA FRIEND
January 20th, 2011
5:17 pm
To all UGA fans who have been critical of SS job performance as offensive line coach: How many of you know anything at all about how an OL should be coached. Do you know if the fundamentals were taught incorrectly? Do you really know anything about coaching football at all or do you just jump on the bandwagon when the first ill advised blogger writes a comment?
Optomistic Dawg
January 20th, 2011
5:18 pm
MSU is irrelevant in the NCAA Auburn investigation. When Auburn goes down, it will be because an insider has flipped on Bobby Lowder in the FBI investigation of fraud in the Colonial Bank implosion. No one will ever trace illicit cash payments; Auburn’s way too good at it. But someone looking at hard time for bank fraud will flip on Lowder.
WDE
January 20th, 2011
5:18 pm
A fluke? It was our 2nd undefeated season in the last 6 years, 3rd in the last 20. It was like the previous two years permanantly changed everyone’s perception about who’s who in the SEC, and Auburn happened to be down at the time.
Here’s what is pretty constant. Georgia winning an average of 9 games and never having anything to show for it.
jack bull
January 20th, 2011
5:46 pm
dang Bill, we all know that Coach Searels just plain forgot how to coach….maybe Mack Brown thinks he can jar his memory some….
bgdawgfan
January 20th, 2011
5:54 pm
WDE,
You have nothing better to do after winning a NC than to get on UGA blog and talk s#*t. You’re pathetic just like every AU fan.
2011> 2010 DAWG
January 20th, 2011
5:57 pm
Has anyone even looked at our schedule next year? Boise St. might be the hardest game and they only have kellen moore essentially back. We escape playing the best two teams in the conference next year in Bama and LSU. We get South Carolina,Miss St. and Auburn at home and who knows about florida. I’m not saying we go undefeated even undefeated at home but I def like our chances winning the SEC East and believe we will got 8-4 and 9-3 which most fans I believe would take for now after last season.
Second McWhorter has to be the guy. Besides last season him and his line have been one of the best ever since he left Tech and was told by a Texas friend he had the top ranked OLine recruiting class this year at Texas and because of his retirement and Searles going to UGA the longhorns have already lost their Top OL prospect Chris Westerman. No offense to Coach Nall who is a good coach but being out of the recruiting game two years is a big negative.
Snake Plissken
January 20th, 2011
6:08 pm
Although mu opinion does not matter, I will always believe that this team has quit on CMR after he went with, and stayed, with Joe Cox the whole season. Maybe the O-line believed what they read in the paper(s) that they were going to restrict Murray and just marked this past season as yet another rebuilding year and figured what the hey…when a team loses respect for any coach, things will not go well…if you think the team didn’t lose respect for CMR, then think back to all the suspensions that resulted from just being boneheaded kids…I know it’s a different word now days, but the one thing that an athlete wouldn’t want to do is to let down a coach that is loved and respected…perhaps they just recruited talent alone and just said the h3ll with character…his name slips me and I’m too lazy to look it up, but if the team was made up of players like that #5 kid, then you would have a pretty good group…when was the last time there were leaders on a CMR team??? David Green, David Pollack, the Bailey’s…regardless of all this something(s) are seriously missing form these teams of late…out
Snake Plissken
January 20th, 2011
6:09 pm
Please excuse all the mis-spellings
jdawg3:16
January 20th, 2011
6:09 pm
I live in Nashville, Tennessee and I hope Georgia does consider Coach Caldwell. He is a great guy to be around and I think he could be a great asset to our Program.
pearce.eric
January 20th, 2011
6:20 pm
Coach Mac all the way. I played for him a long time ago. A Good coach and a Good man.
dawgfan4ever
January 20th, 2011
6:23 pm
What if we hired Phil Fulmer as O Line coach. He played and coached the Offensive line at UT before he was named head coach in 1992.
NVDawg
January 20th, 2011
6:40 pm
I agree with everyone that said it would be hard for WDE to be a bigger d-bag. I haven’t seen this level of d-baggery in quite a while, even on this board which is usually chock full of non-UGA fans that like to waste their time on lame attempts to make fun of UGA fans. Shouldn’t really expect any different from an Auburn fan though I guess.
Congrats WDE on your horribly tainted championship…now please, go spend some time with your own kind, surely you have better things to do. Do you talk this same kind of trash to random people you see around Atlanta wearing UGA gear? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess no. Pretty tough behind that keyboard and monitor though, aren’t you?
By the way, the investigation is still ongoing and the FBI is involved. Generally when the FBI is involved and not just the NCAA…it’s probably pretty serious and some sh** is probably gonna hit the fan. Heck, my wife is a SMU grad so we watched that “Pony Excess” 30 for 30 movie on ESPN and the FBI didn’t even get involved in the SMU investigation but they are all over this one.
THEMOB
January 20th, 2011
6:49 pm
Mac McWhorter is the right choice, great coach ,great recruiter and even better person, has excellent character and will bring student atheletes to UGA
NVDawg
January 20th, 2011
6:52 pm
Oh, and on topic, lol – can’t say I’m all that upset to see coach Searels go. Offensive line and running game definitely haven’t come even close to their potential since he’s been here. Good luck to him at Texas though, as a UGA fan with my team in a similar situation I definitely feel Texas’ fans pain from this past season’s debacle.
dawg1
January 20th, 2011
7:19 pm
WDE…you smell…Dream Team is on…Rome is a DAWG! and AU is lucky to win 5 games this year!!! hahahhaa
just a fan
January 20th, 2011
7:38 pm
I would love to have Robbie Caldwell come here and be our O-Line coach
Macclenny_dawg
January 20th, 2011
7:39 pm
Go get Matt Stichcomb get him off espnu!!! Hire Hershel Walker strength and conditioning!!! Richt start calling plays!!! Go Dawgs!!!
Mr. SEC
January 20th, 2011
8:18 pm
Mac McWhorter is the man. Go get him, tried and proven! He was not the problem at Texas, but they (Texas) are making changes everywhere in their coaching staff. New school, new start, new players (and some old); we are getting the Dream Team, now lets get the Dream Coaching Staff!
Go Dawgs!
BirdDog
January 20th, 2011
8:28 pm
Best of luck to CSS. I’m just interested to see who they hire. Also, great to hear about Rome and Mitchell! Best news I’ve heard in a while!
Nahila
January 20th, 2011
8:39 pm
Searels came and Searels went. Let’s get McWhorter or Nall back to Georgia and back to their roots or move Garner to offensive line coach and let Grantham coach the defensive line then bring in an old pro like MacWhorter or Nall to be ast. head coach to free richt up for hands on involvement.
AltamahaDawg
January 20th, 2011
8:46 pm
WDE, barely-literate comments could be compared to the proverbial tree falling in the forest……
Gary
January 20th, 2011
8:54 pm
get a better O Line Coach: Trickett, Greatwood, Munchak, Markuson, Nall, McWorther
Optomistic Dawg
January 20th, 2011
8:58 pm
Auburn is a criminal enterprise.
beach dawg
January 20th, 2011
9:03 pm
Hugh Nall would be a great hire for Georgia he is a former Dawg and did a great job at Auburn. His line will be a physical line like Georgia had back in the day of wining SEC Championships. CMR will be wise to make this hire it could pro long his Time at Georgia if you know what I mean.
KeepDreaming
January 20th, 2011
9:07 pm
I believe the expression, “dont let the door hit you in the arse” would be appropriate here.
Joe
January 20th, 2011
9:11 pm
“Feel bad for you guys, this came at a horrible time and quite frankly, don’t expect OL play to suddenly turn around.”
Spoken like someone who hasn’t watched UGA play the last two years. The offensive line can’t get worse.
doug
January 20th, 2011
9:53 pm
Not a good OL coach. The OL played together for 4 years and never got it together.
The biggest thing to take away from this that he did not want to get dumped when Richt gets fired next year. Smart move. The same reason we will not be able to find a good OL coach now.
Leroy
January 20th, 2011
9:55 pm
Can’t you scribes at the AJC write one single column without bringing up your wishes that Coach Richt will be fired. HE AIN’T GOING ANYWHERE MORONS SO GET OVER IT. Mack Brown had a worse year than Coach Richt and do you think he is going to be fired. Hell no and neither is Coach Richt. Write about the subject at hand. RECRUITING RECRUTING RECRUITING
aarh
January 20th, 2011
10:00 pm
Gary- I kind of wished they would extend his contract. Everything hasn’t been hurting our recruting though. Or else we wouldn’t keep getting commitments…like the 2 highly ranked players we received verbals from today.
hind tit
January 20th, 2011
10:29 pm
He left before he got fired. Texas could have had any line coach in the country and they choose this guy. He talked more in this press release to the public than he did four years at uga.
Delbert D.
January 20th, 2011
10:31 pm
The new coach should have terms in his contract that allows him to coach his charges the way that he sees fit, with no interference from the head coach on his methods. If the head coach is not pleased with the results, the new coach can be terminated at the end of the year review.
Delbert D.
January 20th, 2011
10:36 pm
Revising Bill’s last sentence on the blog, What prospective OL coach would like consider playing for Richt?
1962 Dawg
January 20th, 2011
10:48 pm
WDE
UGA being so poor in 2009, i do remember beating AWBARN, Now go on back and put some more money in Cecil’s offering plate.
Gary
January 20th, 2011
10:58 pm
I think there are several recruits that had Georgia in their final 2 or 3, and went with another team because of the uncertainty McGarity has created by not extending Richt’s contract.
I also think, 1 or more of these big time recruits could easily reverse, just like last year, and head somewhere else, if McGarity doesn’t do something to signal stability at the top.
And obviously, McGarity’s choice to not extend Richt’s contract already cost Georgia one of it’s top asst coaches in Searels, you only wonder how many will follow if McGarity continues to show a lack of confidence in Richt’s future.
Management is about finding talent, developing it, and retaining it. McGarity lost out today on a great Asst coach in Searels.
Gary
January 20th, 2011
11:03 pm
If Richt has another bad year, McGarity will likely be fired too.
He really needs ot think about that and do EVERYTHING within his power, right now, to help Richt win including:
1- making asst coaches salaries competitive or countering with a better offer in an attempt to steal one is made–don’t be too cheap–nothing is more costly than losing top talent–$100k too cheap cost McGarity Searels
2- Extend Richt at least 1 more season and let the world know–this will help retain the recruits and coaches Richt brings on board and help Richt attract better players and coaching talent
Gen Neyland
January 20th, 2011
11:11 pm
The UGA RB’s may have had a hand in this slide. Things were pretty good with Moreno getting reps. There’s always three sides to a story and in this case, His, Yours and the truth. Searels jumping laterally to Texas isn’t nothing more than things growing stale for him at UGA. Remember, change can be good. 30 years and a gold watch are so yesterday, right..?