He was among the last to run on the field, safely off to the side, jogging like a 55-year-old man too smart to join his players' careening excitement that made roadkill of a trampled Sebastian the Ibis mascot.
Because this was Mark Richt's first entrance for Miami, and because this was his first Saturday, the temptation was to enlarge any first glimpse into something larger than a much-needed, new-car-smell for this program.
Saturday's 70-3 win against outmanned Florida A&M gave the kind of scoreboard start rejuvenated fans wanted. But it only dropped bread crumbs to see toward what Richt hopes to build here.