There have been 22 programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision that have experienced a change in head coaches in this cycle of the college coaching carousel.

That includes Florida State, where Bobby Bowden’s 34-year run ended because he wasn't winning enough games anymore.

That includes South Florida and Texas Tech, which fired coaches because of their treatment of players. USF’s Jim Leavitt was fired after 13 years and Texas Tech’s Mike Leach was ousted after 10 years.

All of which makes Georgia’s Mark Richt, already the SEC’s dean of coaches, now tied for 10th among longest tenured at an FBS school.

Richt will be entering his 10th season in 2010.

Here’s the list of the coaches ahead of him in years of longevity at one school:
Joe Paterno, Penn State, 45th season
Chris Ault, Nevada, 26th
Frank Beamer, Va. Tech, 24th
Larry Blakeney, Troy, 20th
Pat Hill, Fresno State, 14th
Mack Brown, Texas, 13th
Bob Stoops, Oklahoma, 12th
Randy Edsall, Connecticut, 12th
Kirk Ferentz, Iowa, 12th

Here are the coaches that are also entering their 10th year at their current school:
Jim Tressel, Ohio State
Jim Grobe, Wake Forest
Ralph Friedgen, Maryland
Gary Pinkel, Missouri
Greg Schiano, Rutgers
Gary Patterson, TCU

Richt’s longevity at Georgia and his 90-27 record in nine seasons is something that Georgia can sell to recruits.

It’s something that new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said was attractive to him in deciding to come to Georgia.

“When you look at this program over the last nine years, they have won 90 games,” Grantham said. “They have won 10 or more games six of the last eight years. I felt like it wasn’t going to a program that was losing. If you take over a program that’s losing, you have to change the whole culture. I’ve done that before. That’s hard. You’ve got to change an identity; you’ve got to change a work ethic. I looked at this as, hey, this is a chance to come to a program that has won, that is hungry and it has been successful and you can help bridge that back to the way it was. That’s what excited me most about this job.”