Russ Mitchell, you may recall, is the CFN writer who predicted that Mark Richt would get canned in the middle of the 2011 season, then repeated his call for Richt’s departure after last season’s debacle in Columbia. Last I checked, Richt is still manning an office in Butts-Mehre after winning the SEC East in both of those seasons. So Mitchell’s got his work cut out for him as a fortune-teller.
It looks like he’s elected to go subtle this go ’round with his Georgia preview.
The season will be a success if … Georgia wins the national championship. Winning the SEC title is a must to take that next step, but going 12-1 with an SEC Champion t-shirt won’t cut it. If you’re an elite SEC team, you win the national title or you don’t.
Well, gawsh. I guess there’s only one elite SEC team a year.
Just curious how many of you out there agree with that and would consider winning an SEC title “not cutting it”. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see another national title in my lifetime as much as the next person, but I can’t say I wouldn’t take a great deal of pleasure in walking out of the Dome after a win there. (It sure felt good the last two times I experienced that. Still does, for that matter.)
Anyway, I do wonder if Mitchell would actually go there again if Georgia lost a national title game. I sort of doubt it, but, then again, it’s not as if he’s been reluctant to call for Richt’s head in the midst of double-digit win seasons.
Get The Picture 
What’s he gonna do next year if . . .?
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How many SEC teams have won national title games with a loss. Many. The only difference between all of those teams and RIcht’s 1 loss season is they got voted into the NCG and the Bulldawgs didn’t. If we go 12-1 and win the SEC and don’t get into the title game it won’t be like the last two years Bama’s teams were any more deserving of making the title game than we would be this year. Drives me crazy when hearing people say yeah well they did what they had to to get to the title game when Richt came up short. The only difference at all is timing. During the current run of titles for the SEC only 1 of the AL teams and the AU team that won titles did it as undefeated. Every single other SEC team dropped a big game and had to count on help to get into the title game. I want a title as bad as anyone for UGA but to say that a 12-1 season with an SEC title would not be good enough is a stupid. Losing a game this year while winning the SEC but not winning a national title would not make us less of a team or Mark Richt less of a coach than any of the 1 loss teams from the SEC in the last 15 years.
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Mitchell is so, so terrible. I’ve had my debates with him via Twitter in the past, but I’ve given up trying to understand why he still writes, even if it is for free (surely no one is paying him for his garbage). Saying 12-1 and winning the SEC is a failure is absurd. It’s something a hack would say who’s called for a coach to be fired two yeas running, when that coach went 22-6 in those years.
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Yeah, it’s sorta like some Dawg fans never being able to bring themselves to recognizing Bobo as a great O coordinator who has built us a once-in-a-lifetime O Machine.
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What a jerk! If I found myself in his presence, it would be real hard for me not to pull out my duce..duce..
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I predict UGA winning the SEC Champ, but missing the NC game due to UGA having 1-2 losses and there being 2 undefeated teams. This would be hilarious as the last SEC champ winner to not go to the NC game was none other than the 2005 UGA squad.
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Yeah that would be really funny.
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Hilarious in the aspect of all of the negativity Richt gets is for never getting to the NC game, yet he has had teams with records as good as those NC teams during the same time span.
Either way, unless we go undefeated we prob do not go to the NC game. OSU and Louisville both have cake schedules with solid teams. Florida losing to Louisville last year solidified them a spot if they are undefeated. And people think OSU got dicked last season b/c of sanctions against players that no longer play on the team (which is true, but you have the sleep in the bed you make).
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Either way you wake up with yourself.
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This is also hilarious:
“Or is it the team that needed six Florida turnovers to win its first signature SEC game since 2008, and embarrassed itself while being undressed earlier in the year by the South Carolina Gamecocks?”
Please please please tell me this guy does not get paid to write this crap.
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Ugh….. can you imagine the backlash against Richt and the team if we were to get to the MNCG and lose??
That might get more deafening than after the 2010 season.
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I’ll take my chances. 😉
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Yes, love taking chances. Confidence is essential.
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Not giving him any credit, but one interesting comment (shared by many others, so hardly original) is that while Georgia may have an excellent team in any given year, there always seems to be one other that does better. My hunch is that ultimately, Saban, Corch, Spurrier and even Miles probably demand the final leap to excellence of their players through fear and intimidation, while Richt is more of a “enjoy this moment” kind of motivator. But I would put Carroll and Mack Brown in that category too, so who is to say one method works better than the other?
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I would want to crawl under a rock if we won the SEC and lost the MNC. I would feel so bad for Coach.
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Not gonna happen. Not this year! We own it!
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Rumph is our 7th best player and best WR? Lolwhut?
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Yeah. Also, Gurley is the best offensive player, but the second best player on the team – after Murray.
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Ha! I didn’t read far enough to catch that. What a hack troll.
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Um, yeah. Winning the 2005 SECCG as underdog to LSU was no fun. Had a terrible time and was so disappointed in the season. Woke up the next morning and put on my brand new Fire Richt t-shirt.
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This “all-or-nothing” perspective/mentality is what is destroying college football (as well as our society). The fact of the matter is there can be only one conference champion and only one national champion each year; are 13 and 120+ other teams really “failures.” But the media has convinced the fans all that matters is the MNC is all that matters, so the fans dial up the pressure on coaches, players, administrators, etc.
Could you imagine if someone asked one of these “journalists” if they were a failure because they didn’t win a Pulitzer this year? But yet they can gin up crap like this…
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…Mark Richt will be [is] the greatest UGA coach in our lifetime andyour kids will always compare future coaches to him.
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