Last night at the Augusta Bulldog Club, Mark Richt was asked about (naturally) discipline and suspensions. A lot of his response wasn’t new, but this sure was:
“When I first game to Georgia, there had been some issues. You don’t get a job unless there had been some issues. And the thing that I said to our staff and to my administration is if something happens, we’re gonna clean it up, we’re not gonna cover it up…”
I’ve never heard him speak so bluntly about the events leading up to his hire. It sure makes you wonder what Richt heard about the program before he met with Vince Dooley. Or what Dooley had to say to Richt about Jim Donnan and Quincy Carter. And what Richt had to say to Quincy shortly after taking over as head coach.
Needless to say, it doesn’t sound like losing to Georgia Tech three times in a row was all there was to why Georgia changed coaches then.
Get The Picture 
Dooley wanted to give Donnan another year before the Georgia Tech debacle in 2000 (and man, that game was nothing short of a debacle). I’ve always thought that the game was so bad it forced Dooley to take a long, hard look at the state of the program and in the end, I think he felt like firing Donnan was needed (even though Adams was driving the firing train at that point). I think that there were a lot of problems under Donnan, and not just with drugs but also with entitlement issues like we’re seeing at Tennessee and in the Urban Meyer article last week. I think that a lot of players just quit in that Tech game out of frustration about it. I don’t think Jim Donnan was a bad guy and not necessarily a horrible coach. I just think we’re lucky that we fired him and brought in Mark Richt.
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+1 Reading the articles about Urban and his entitlement program sounded just like what UGA had with Donnan and his Chosen. All the mysterious injuries to Carter and Jasper. After richt got here both of those guys were gone as soon as possible. I agree that the team was divided but they played well for Donnan in the bowl game out of relief I guess.
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“both of those guys were gone as soon as possible”
Not fast enough if you remember the final play of the 2001 Auburn game…
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A play calling error as much as anything.
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that and a clock reading error.
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Actually an end of game strategy error the like of which we have seen replicated all too often in subsequent years although in different forms (spoken while pulling hair out!).
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Senator, regarding your last sentence: maybe not, but 3 losses in a row to Tech is reason enough in my book. Some things just can’t be tolerated.
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Hang that together with not being able to beat FU, Aub and Tenn and I thought it was the best “fire” ever. Donnan just had contacts and ESPN was flexing it’s new-found muscle so they trashed the fan base with him on the same stage. Good riddance to them all. Marshall people all told me he was a great guy, but Donnan wasn’t that or much of an SEC coach as well.
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Donnan was 8-4 (7-4 regular season) the year he got fired. Of course ESPN is going to trash a school for firing somebody with that kind of record. I remember when Nebraska fired their head coach when he was 9-3 and then won the bowl for a 10-3 season. ESPN trashed them, too. It worked out fine for Georgia but if you recall Nebraska went into the wilderness for several years before coming out of it. Some say they still are not all the way back. We got lucky. Things really could have blown up in all our faces if we had hired a bad replacement.
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Did Quincy Carter have a year of eligibility when Richt was hired?
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Yep.
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I always heard that Richt told him that it was in his best intrest to go Pro. That Adams and Dooley were not happy with his his attitude on the sideline and the fits that he threw with Donnan on play calls.
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Not to mention snorting up the sidelines.
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+1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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What do Quincy Carter and Billy Graham have in common? The can both get 100,000 people in a stadium to all jump up at the same time and scream “JESUS!”
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…Or being on the take
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“Under Richt’s direction the last seven seasons, the Seminoles have had one of the nation’s most dangerous offenses. Florida State led the nation in total offense (549 yards per game) and passing offense (384 yards per game) this year. The Seminoles haven’t finished lower than eighth in the nation in total offense with Richt calling the plays.” what the hell happened?
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The SEC is a little tougher than the mid-90s version of the ACC was.
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We can only dream of a top 5 defense and offense in the same season.
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THAT, is an obscure quote that I have never heard before. Thanks Bluto.
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We’ve seen the caliber person Donnan was in his current legal troubles. And yes, that locker room had major issues, from drug problems to a significant lack of work ethic in S&C.
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Count the # of all-pros from the 2000 team. I’m sure someone, somewhere has a list ready.
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I know for a fact that Quincy’s thumb wasn’t in a cast at the end of the season because it needed to be…unless by “needed” you mean needed to cover up the real issue. Of course, I can’t out my source, but I do know the white stuff had more than a lot to do with it.
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All this Quincy Carter talk got me to wondering what he’s been up to since his last arrest. This is all I could find: http://www.youtube.com/user/QuincysQBDrills
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