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Well since the Sport Report is full of bandwagonning faggot Gator and Cowboy fans, I'm making this thread similar to Sailor Jack's. The purpose of this thread is to entertain intellectual discussion on sports-related topics based on factually-defensible opinion.

I don't want to hear anything about those faggots in jean shorts in Gainesville.

I'll get this started: We had a discussion about this last night, and came to some mixed conclusions. We were discussing the tenure of Mark Richt at Georgia (coming on 10 years now without a national championship, though unilaterally considered the top program in the country NOT to win an NC in the '00s.) The question was posed: if you fired him today and could have any coach you wanted to replace him (for these purposes, any active coach), who would you take?

The most obvious choice is Nick Saban, because he's shown that he can turn teams from decent to national champions in just a few years (LSU 2003, Alabama 2009.) There remains the question of his loyalty and whether or not he can really sustain a program longer than 4 or 5 years.

Pete Carrol, Jim Tressel, Bob Stoops, and Mack Brown came up, as well, for their ability to consistently perform at the top. There's not a season where USC, Ohio State, Okalhoma, and Texas aren't in preseason running for a national championship. Most people agree that it takes a lot of luck to win the national championship because of the politics of the bowl system; some would take the consistent top performance (perhaps just a shade ahead of Richt's consistently top performances) and expect over the course of his tenure, one of those coaches would bring it home.

Mack Brown might be the odd ball in that group, because Texas has been a pretty inconsistent program under his watch; what has been frighteningly consistent is his ability to recruit players and, more importantly, keep the talent in Texas in Texas. Georgia is the #4 state in terms of D1 football talent (behind Florida, Texas, and California) and gets raided each year by Florida, Florida State, Tennessee, Auburn, and Alabama. Since 4 of those teams are in-conference, a Mack Brown-like wall around the state would deny a lot of the talent and weaken the competition.

Urban Meyer, under the assumption that his health problems do not become a major liability, was my pick. Not for what he's done at Florida (gimmick offense, Charlie Strong as your defensive coordinator, etc etc) but for what he did at Utah. He left that program in the top 5 of the non-AQ teams and it's in shape to remain performing at that level. One thing I dislike about Meyer is the caliber of person he recruits, though after 30 years without a national championship, I think we'll go to Miami/Florida/Florida State Thug U route to get one.

For laughs, someone mentioned Paul Johnson. Until his triple option can touch Nebraska's 1995 team and he can get a QB like Tommy Frazier, he's a gimmick coach with a gimmick offense and no defense.