Big news for Georgia folks Sunday, and I don't mean any updates regarding Kerryon Johnson's health. According to ESPN's Chris Low, Florida is finalizing a deal to hire Dan Mullen, lately of Mississippi State. According to USA Today's Dan Wolken, Tennessee is set to hire Greg Schiano, formerly of Rutgers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and more recently Ohio State's defensive coordinator.
Thus have the two SEC East programs that, throughout history, offered the biggest challenge to the Bulldogs filled their coaching vacancies. And now we ask: If you’re Georgia, do you feel better or worse about your team’s future chances?
I’m not Georgia (though I do live in the state). My reaction, not that you asked: Mullen-to-Florida is a good hire but not a great one, meaning no Spurrier and no Meyer; Schiano-to-Tennessee seems a bit more solid than the Volunteers’ recent fliers (Lane Kiffin/Derek Dooley/Champion of Life Butch Jones), but only a bit.
Florida had to make haste. It couldn’t land Chip Kelly, who opted for UCLA, and there’s now a place for Scott Frost at Nebraska, his alma mater. Had the Gators not hooked Mullen, this might have been another coach search that ended up with them hiring the equivalent of a Jim McElwain, who was nobody’s first choice and who didn’t last three full seasons.
As for Tennessee: There was no natural fit for the Vols, who haven’t won the East since 2007. The long-rumored attempts to lure Jon Gruden seemed a figment of some booster’s fevered imagination. Tennessee tried to get Mullen, but he played for time until Florida came around. Indeed, Florida might well have moved on Mullen – thereby defying the wishes of Jeremy Foley, athletic director emeritus – to keep from having to play against him every year. That’s what Georgia did when South Carolina sought Kirby Smart, you’ll recall.
(Also of note: Jimmy Sexton, agent to almost every coach worth naming, now has five clients as SEC East head coaches: Smart, Mullen, Schiano, Will Muschamp and Mark Stoops. He also has the guy at Alabama and the guy at Auburn. Baseball folks sometimes suggest that Scott Boras runs their sport; Jimmy Sexton really does run college football.)
Georgia is about to play for the SEC title in a game that’s basically a national championship quarterfinal. Georgia has a good coach. Georgia could well dominate the East for the next several years. I don’t know that anything Florida or Tennessee did Sunday changes that.
