For whatever its worth ... I would have turned them down too. My reasons would have been threefold and only related to Richt in the sense that he failed to directly address any of them. As such, the base problems would still have been unresolved.
1) lack of discipline exhibited by an excessive amount of penalties by all squads. This demonstrates poor coaching of fundamentals. Without fundamentals the team will never improve. With only the defensive coaching staff being retooled I would have assume that the base problem was not being addressed.
2) repeated use of gimmicks to motivate team for big games. Once, maybe twice just as a way to mix it up I could see. But when a coaching staff starts using too many "black saturday", "cell phone tuesday", "red watch", or other gimmicks I begin to wonder if he wants to coach or do late night infomercials.
3) lack of coordinated gameplanning between offensive and defensive squads. The general offensive framework is built to optimize player talents. Although there is some compensation for weakness, there is a lot more emphasis on attacking with strength. The defense however is a system of responsibilites and assignments designed to contain the region of attack and quickly deploy reinforcements. Every defense will have its weakness and it is the responsibility of the offense to tweak their attack to not only score points but to also assist the defense. In general, but not always, they should strive to hold the ball for extended periods of time so that the defense may operate in burst mode. In a game with very short and brief but high intensity bursts of energy and speed the defense is at greater advantage. Part of the offensive gameplan is to recognize the balance between speed and power and control it to the overall team advantage. I say this because Bobo has never exhibited the slightest clue and the job of the DC has been made significantly more difficult since he became OC. As an incoming DC I would recognize that my defense will have to excel in order to look average.
So I would have just said "No thank you" and waited for some other job at some other place.
