Wow, maybe Damon Evans, the AD at Georgia, read our missive on SEC schools wising up after Mark Gottfried was let go on Monday.  From today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“I was hoping that we’d build upon the success that we had in the SEC tournament,” said Evans, referring to the Bulldogs’ tornado-interrupted championship run last March in Atlanta. “That’s what all the Georgia fans wanted; that’s what we wanted; that’s what Dennis wanted. We thought it would be a momentum-builder for us. To be where we are today is disappointing.”

Better Times for Felton and Georgia

Obviously, the final straw was Georgia’s 83-57 rape at the hands of Florida in Gainesville last night, as it was the Dawgs’ seventh loss in a row.  A meeting was set up between Evans and Felton this morning, where the coach was given the news.  Pete Herrmann, an associate coach, will take over the reins on an interim basis through the rest of the season.  Georgia plays Alabama on Saturday, which sets up a once-in-a-lifetime scenario where two teams will play a midseason head-to-head game in the same week where both head coaches were canned.  Call it the Pink Slip Bowl. 

Is Gary Williams Next?

By way of a post-mortem for Felton, he showed a lot of promise at Western Kentucky, winning three consecutive Sun Belt titles from 2001-03, but at Georgia, he never could seem to get over the wanton destruction that previous coach Jim Harrick had left in his wake.  With Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee in the SEC East Division, Felton was usually guaranteed six losses per year, and there was a seemingly constant influx of players moving into and out of his program.  It just never appeared that things got settled there.  Felton’s record at Georgia – two NIT appearances, 1 incredibly unlikely NCAA appearance and SEC Tourney title (the “Tornado Tourney“), and five+ years of general malaise in Athens (84-91 overall, 26-59 SEC).

Soon VCU’s Anthony Grant will be able to name his price with all these SEC schools calling. 

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 1:38 pm by rtmsf and is filed under coaching carousel. Tagged: anthony grant, coach firing, damon evans, dennis felton, georgia, pete herrmann, sec, sec tournament, top stories, western kentucky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.