Kirk Olivadotti Hired As Georgia Bulldogs LB Coach, According To Report

Kirk Olivadotti, Washington Redskins assistant coach, has been hired by the Georgia Bulldogs to replace Warren Belin as the team’s linebackers coach, according to the Washington Post’s Rick Maese. Belin was hired away by the Carolina Panthers two weeks ago.

Olivadotti was the longest-tenured member of Washington’s coaching staff, working with the team since the 2000 season. He’s also coached at Indiana State and the Maine Maritime Academy, which will come in handy in those seaside battles in Jacksonville. He coached Washington’s linebackers before taking on defensive assistant as his job title.

He’s also coached special teams, defensive line, and defensive backs, in addition to working on quality control.

Dawgs defensive coordinator Todd Grantham surely knows what he’s getting in Olivadotti, if this report is accurate, having coached across the field from him in the NFC East. I haven’t been able to find any previous connection to the Southeast or Mark Richt, as he was born in Delaware and went to school at Purdue.

Will Friend Hired As Georgia Offensive Line Coach, Replacing Stacy Searels

Will Friend has been hired as the Georgia Bulldogs offensive line coach. Friend, who may never be referenced with pronouns because of that wonderful name, held the same position at UAB for four seasons. The Dragons excelled at pass protection during Friend’s tenure, twice ranking in the top 20 nationwide in sacks allowed.

Friend is a former All-SEC offensive lineman, and a position coach with experience coaching at a number of Southeastern schools. That’s got to be encouraging for recruiting, right? Before Friend’s time in Birmingham, Friend was a graduate assistant under Mark Richt for two years. Richt on Friend:

Will has played and coached under some outstanding, nationally-recognized offensive coaches. He comes with a formidable resume of offensive football knowledge and experience. I got to see first hand his work ethic when he was a graduate assistant on our staff and since that time he’s developed into a seasoned, top notch offensive line coach.

Everyone welcome our old friend Friend back aboard.

Will Friend To Be Named Georgia Bulldogs Offensive Line Coach, According To Reports

Will Friend, UAB Dragons offensive line coach, is expected to take over the same position for the Georgia Bulldogs, according to a report by Dawgs 247’s Gentry Estes. Friend, whose delightful last name will always be used instead of any possible pronoun replacements, has been UAB’s offensive line coach for four seasons.

In Friend’s previous ventures, Friend was an all-SEC offensive lineman and four-year starter at Alabama. In fact, Friend was named to Alabama’s All-1990s team. After his playing days, Friend worked his way into jobs as the O-line coach at Gardner-Webb and West Alabama. Friend has also worked as graduate assistant for the Dawgs for two years, so this would be something of a homecoming for Friend.

Friend hasn’t officially been announced as Georgia’s new offensive line coach, but multiple publications are reporting Friend will take the job.

As Doug Gillett said last night, Friend’s name sounds like a Facebook option for delaying a friend request. Friend now? Right this minute? No. Will friend, though.

Ralph Friedgen Rumored To Be Georgia Offensive Line Coach Candidate, According To Rumory Rumor

Recently deposed Maryland Terrapins head coach Ralph Friedgen has the short track among the finalists for the Georgia Bulldogs vacant offensive line coach job, according to Football Rumor Mill. Ordinarily Football Rumor Mill wouldn’t be near enough of a source to merit an update, but it’s starting to pop up elsewhere little by little, and Kyle King of Dawg Sports uncovered some interesting Dawgly Twitter behavior on the part of Fridge.

Still, absolutely none of that is anywhere near an indication Friedgen is in line for the job. [Insert 100 other rumor disclaimers here.]

To recap, Georgia OL coach Stacy Searels left almost two weeks ago to take the same job on the Texas Longhorns coaching staff. OK, that’s the recap.

Few doubt Friedgen’s skills as an offensive coach. He’s a good teacher and leader, and his only knocks at Maryland were the Terps lagging recruiting classes (which, as a position coach, he’d be much less responsible for), a couple lully years, and that one awful, horrible 2009 season. Other than that he’s been good-to-great throughout his career, including during his two stops as Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets offensive coordinator. Wait a second …

Yep, Friedgen coached on the Bobby Ross staff that won Tech a national title in 1990, and on the George O’Leary staff that nearly saw Joe Hamilton win a Heisman Trophy. So the man as responsible as almost anybody for two of the three best Georgia Tech football seasons since Bobby Dodd could join Mark Richt’s assemblage in Athens.

Stacy Searels Leaves Georgia For Burnt-Oranger Pastures. What Does It Mean?

There are two ways to look at the apparent departure of Georgia offensive line coach Stacy Searels for the Texas Longhorns. And for once it seems that the more fiery elements of Georgia’s fan base, the ones who want major shakeups across the board on Georgia’s coaching staff after last year’s embarrassing 6-7 finish, are taking the glass-half-full view. They see the Dawgs’ declining run production over the last couple seasons — which in 2010 had a lot to do with the line’s inability to control the trenches — and don’t find anything in Searels’ body of work to get particularly worked up about. Have a nice life, they’re saying, and we’ll go out and get someone better.

The other side, though, looks at a coach bolting to take a lateral move — at a team that had an even worse 2010 season than Georgia did, no less — and smells trouble. Is Searels leaving because he was frustrated with Georgia’s subpar strength and conditioning program and wasn’t enthused about the choice of Joe Tereshinski Jr. to take things over? Or does he simply see Mark Richt as being a potential dead man walking and wants to move to a more stable program while there’s still time? Neither casts the security of the Richt regime in a particularly positive light.

The truth probably has more to do with money than anything else — Texas is one of the few programs in the country with the cash on hand to pay their OL coach substantially more than Georgia — but there are also personalities at play here. It’s not exactly a closely guarded secret that Searels’ relationships with a number of his fellow assistants were prickly at best, with offensive coordinator Mike Bobo being just one of the people he didn’t see eye-to-eye with. Take the opportunity for a salary increase, add the personality conflicts, and throw in the fact that, yes, Mark Richt’s job situation isn’t exactly cushy right now, and you have a career jump that, while unexpected, seems perfectly reasonable.

So what now for the Dawgs? Well, they need a new OL coach, and it just so happens there’s a pretty good one who was serving as Vanderbilt’s head coach up until a few weeks ago. Robbie Caldwell seems a likely candidate for the Georgia shortlist, and oh, what a wonderful world it would be if his awesome sound bites and incomparable turkey-breeding skills managed to find a home in Athens. However, Mark Richt would do well to take a look at Caldwell’s own OL coach, Herb Hand, who has worked with the high-flying offenses of both Rich Rodriguez and Gus Malzahn and has some interesting sound bites of his own to boot. Either way, while the Georgia line coach search probably won’t make quite as many banner headlines as last year’s defensive coordinator search did, it may not be all that far off, either. Stay tuned.

Stacy Searels To Texas As Offensive Line Coach, According To Report

Georgia Bulldogs offensive line coach and running game coordinator Stacy Searels is expected to become the Texas Longhorns offensive line coach, according to Orangebloods.com. OB’s Geoff Ketchum reports Searels is “on his way to Austin” after having been “been floated in connection with Texas for almost a year.”

The Athens Banner-Herald's Marc Weiszer confirms Searels is "getting ready to board [a] flight to Austin," though the coach has no comment.

Searels came aboard Mark Richt’s staff in 2007 after working his way up as an offensive line coach from Appalachian State to the Cincinnati Bearcats to the LSU Tigers. He also took over as the Dawgs running game coordinator in 2009. He was an All-American blocker for the Auburn Tigers in the ’80s and worked on the Plains as a graduate assistant.

The 45-year-old came highly acclaimed to Athens, having worked on a national title team at LSU. He’s come under fire recently for turning out “underperforming” units. The running game ranked 73rd in the nation in 2010 and 47th in 2009, though how much of that can be attributed to Searels is up for debate.

Mark Richt Not Firing Mike Bobo Or Taking Over Playcalling Duties

Wednesday morning Georgia Bulldogs coach Mark Richt gave his final press conference for the 2010 season, which also served as a look ahead to 2011. He expressed disappointment with the team's 6-7 record and his eagerness at starting 2011's schedule off with the Boise St. Broncos.

Richt also declared he wouldn't be making any major staff changes. Plenty of Bulldogs fans have grown tired of offensive coordinator MIke Bobo, but it sounds like the former QB will remain on staff and retain the same role moving forward:

We're not looking to blow anything up," Richt said. "In my opinion, we are very close. How many teams have what would be considered a down season one year and then the next year they're right there?"

There will be additional strength and conditioning hires, like former player Thomas Brown and perhaps former player Verron Haynes. And UGA does plan to add staff members to focus on nutrition, Richt said.

He emphasized "Mike Bobo is the coordinator. Mike Bobo is the quarterbacks coach," meaning the head coach has no plans to retake control of offensive playcalling.