Mark Richt will be under contract for three more years through 2016 when his reworked five-year deal is finalized with Georgia. Now seems like a good time to revisit where he stands among the longest tenured head coaches in college football.

I touched on this subject a couple of years ago, but since then there’s been changes among coaches who have been at the same head coaching job uninterrupted.

Joe Paterno coached at Penn State for 46 seasons before he was fired in November and then died of cancer in January.

Randy Edsall left Connecticut  after the 2010 season following 12 seasons to become Maryland’s coach.

Fresno State fired Pat Hill in December after 15 seasons. He’s now offensive line coach for the Falcons.

Richt is now tied for sixth in longevity at the same school, although that list of coaches that came in with him in 2001 has been reduced. Jim Tressel lost his job at OhioState, Ralph Friedgen was fired at Maryland and Greg Schiano left Rutgers to become the Tampa Bay Bucaneers head coach.

Richt continues to make it sound like he’s at Georgia for the long haul.

“I’ve never really changed my stance on how I feel about Georgiafrom the first day I got the opportunity to be here,” Richt said. “My goal and my wife Katharyn’s goal was to build our life in Athens, Ga., and raise our children here and finish my coaching career here. That thought has never changed for me.”

Here’s the list of longest tenured coaches with the school and season entering:

Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech, 26^th

Larry Blakeney, Troy, 22^nd

Mack Brown, Texas, 15th

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma, 14th

Kirk Ferentz,Iowa, 14th

Mark Richt, Georgia, 12^th

Jim Grobe, WakeForest, 12^th

Gary Pinkel, Missouri, 12^th

Garry Patterson, TCU, 12^th