Muschamp to South Carolina is a win-win for UGA

Put it this way: Jim McElwain just took Muschamp’s leftovers and won 10 games and the SEC East. Muschamp never won the SEC East. And he’s going to do it at South Carolina, which has won the SEC East once ever?

At times like this, it’s fashionable to say, “Guy must have a good agent.” Muschamp has Jimmy Sexton, who is to college football as Scott Boras is to baseball. (Sexton also represents Kirby Smart. And Nick Saban. For brevity’s sake, it would be easier to name the coaches Sexton doesn’t represent.) But still: South Carolina had 54 days to search for a coach after Steve Spurrier up and quit, and the best it could do was a guy who’d been fired by Florida and who’d underperformed to the extent that he wouldn’t have been welcomed back as Auburn’s defensive coordinator?

South Carolina wanted Smart but was outmaneuvered by Georgia’s Greg McGarity. It wanted Tom Herman but managed only to get him a big fat raise at Houston. It was apparently turned down by Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez, whose tweeted demurral made the Gamecocks look even worse. Oh, and that Rich Rod stuff happened as Clemson was winning the ACC championship to move to 13-0. It hasn’t been a good 54 days in Chickentown. Even worse days figure to follow.

If you’re Georgia, you have to be ecstatic about South Carolina’s move. For one thing, you get to play against Muschamp every year, and Muschamp was the one Florida coach against whom Mark Richt had a winning record. (He was 0-1 against Spurrier, 1-2 against the Zooker, 1-5 against Urban Meyer and 0-1 against McElwain. He was 3-1 against Coach Boom.) This also means that Muschamp will not be joining the Bulldogs as defensive coordinator. I’d call that a win-win of the highest magnitude.