Whipped Cream Difficulties

Bad day for college football coaches.

Mark Richt out at the University of Georgia. He’d been there for 15 seasons…

With a 145-51 record, Richt ranks second on Georgia’s all-time wins list and has guided the Bulldogs to a bowl game in each of his 15 seasons at the helm. He won SEC championships in 2002 and 2005, and his teams played for league titles three other times.

Rutgers fired both head coach Kyle Flood and AD Julie Hermann. Flood was 27-24 overall, and the team went 4-8 this year. But it looks like the main reason for this firing was off-field issues:

Flood was suspended three games earlier this season for emailing a professor and later scheduling an in-person meeting to discuss the academic standing of former Scarlet Knights defensive back Nadir Barnwell.
In addition, seven Rutgers players were arrested this season for offenses varying from home invasion to assault.

Mike London is out as head coach at the University of Virginia. This is being called a “resignation”, but it sounds like “you can’t fire me, I quit”.

Virginia was 27-45 under London’s command. He was 0-6 against Virginia Tech, the foe Cavaliers players and fans most want to defeat.

…

Only once under London’s guidance – in 2011, his lone bowl season – did Virginia win more than five games. It lost seven or more in five of his six seasons.

And we have our first firing of the NBA season (I think):

Kevin McHale is gone as head coach of the Houston Rockets.

McHale was fired just 11 games into his new four-year, $16 million contract extension. He leaves with the best winning percentage of any coach in franchise history, having taken the Rockets farther last season, to the Western Conference Finals, than any coach in 17 years.

McHale was 193-130 overall.

(By the way, Philadelphia is 0-11.)

Steve Spurrier is “retiring” “immediately” as head coach of South Carolina. This may not technically be a “firing”, but his team was 2-4 so far this year, 0-4 in the SEC, and “have lost eight of their past nine SEC games dating to the past season.”

Steve Sarkisian’s indefinite suspension has turned into a firing. Again, this is one of those I’m not getting a lot of pleasure out of: I hope he gets the help he needs.

(Hattip on both of these to Lawrence.)

Bud Black out as San Diego Padres manager.

Since he was hired following the 2006 season, Black had never taken the Padres to the playoffs. In 2010, they went from an apparent stranglehold on the NL West title, to losing 10 consecutive games, to official elimination on the final day of the regular season.

Black was 649-713 over roughly eight seasons.

Mike Redmond out as manager of the Miami Marlins.

155-207 in “just over” two seasons, 16-22 so far this season.

He received an extension through 2017 after a 77-85 record last year. The move means Marlins ownership and management changed their minds about Redmond just 23.5 percent of a season later. It also means they’re now paying two fired managers — Redmond and his predecessor, Ozzie Guillen.

Monty Williams out as head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans.

When Monty Williams came to the New Orleans Pelicans’ facility Tuesday morning for a meeting with executive vice president Mickey Loomis, he thought the discussion would be about a possible contract extension, league sources said.

So they lied to him like he was Montel Williams?

Not official yet, but various sources are reporting that Rick Barnes is going to be shown the door.

If there’s an official announcement today, I’ll update; otherwise, I’ll do a new post tomorrow.

Edited to add: Official. Statesman. Statesman II. ESPN.

Some interesting things about this:

• The university is spinning this as an agreed upon parting of the ways.
• Barnes says he wanted to stay, was told last week his job was safe, and he was let go for refusing to fire some of his assistant coaches.
• Barnes is owed $1.75 million in severance pay. But if UT had waited until Wednesday to fire him, they would only have owed him $1.5 million. I wonder what the hurry was.

Brian Shaw out as head coach of the Denver Nuggets.

56-85 over a season and a half.

News of his firing comes days after general manager Tim Connelly said Shaw is “absolutely” safe as the team’s coach for the remainder of the season.