ATHENS — Georgia at least knew what it had in Mark Richt. Now the program heads into the wilderness, where the right coaching hire could finish the job that Richt couldn’t, but the wrong one will make fans yearn for the Richt era.

Since Vince Dooley stepped down, Georgia’s past three hires have been its own running backs coach (Ray Goff), a head coach at a Division I-AA school (Jim Donnan), and the offensive coordinator at Florida State (Richt)

This time around, the thinking is Georgia can shoot higher, which is probably thanks to what Richt did for the program the past 15 years. But athletics director Greg McGarity also enters a very competitive market this offseason, where LSU, Southern California, Virginia Tech and South Carolina are also open, as well as nearly a dozen more programs.

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