Here’s one way to measure Mark Richt’s head coaching career.
Consider this: Georgia’s Mark Richt is the dean of SEC coaches at the same school. He’s entering his 13th season in Athens. Dating back to when Richt was hired at Georgia in 2001, there have been 43 different head coaches at the other 13 SEC schools, which includes Missouri and Texas A&M.
The remarkable thing isn’t that Richt eventually found himself on a hot seat. It’s that he’s survived it.
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Senator, you’re absolutely right. After that Boise St. game, I thought it was all over, and CMR was going down with his ship. After the USCe game, I thought maybe we had a chance because we played well enough for 55 of the 60 minutes to win without some fluky stuff going against us. Since then, he turned the ship to avoid the iceberg and now seems to have the ship sailing on smooth seas. Here’s to a cruise all the way to Pasadena!
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Not proud of it, but after the 0-2 start I thought we were going to need to make a change at the end of 2011. Going 22-4 since then makes me happy I was wrong.
Weird to think that other than South Carolina, Georgia hasn’t lost a regular season game since Boise St.
Another useless tidbit: other than South Carolina, Georgia hasn’t lost an on-campus game since Auburn 2010
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I thought the Ole Miss game in ’11 was the one where we would know if the players had quit on the staff. I didn’t think they had based on the effort against USCe, but no one “outside the arena” really knew.
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I think you mean our last home loss other than South Cackalacka was 2010 Arkansas?
We played Auburn in their place in 2010.
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I think he means home or away (the horrible 2010 Bowl was a neutral site, as were the 2011 and 2012 SECCGs, and so were Boise and the Bowl vs. Meatchicken St. in 2011.)
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I think the actual degree of heat varied greatly from the lunatic fringe to the decision makers. At one end there were those who would have paid for the firing and the moving truck (if they had any money) during the season to some level of concern (not urgent, imo) by those in power to make such decisions. In the middle there was grumbling by the vast majority, no doubt. The worst were the vocal, continual calls hourly done on message boards and call in shows by Dawg “fans” which hurt UGA’s ability to compete, especially in regards to recruiting as it gave ammunition to those recruiting against us. It was a bad atmosphere and I am thankful it is, temporarily, behind us. Always ugly when groups eat their own.
I have no issue with those who felt differently than I about CMR’s value to the program but I think the loud, continual calls were out of line. The panic was way over the top for a man who has represented us so well. The time will come again when people will call for a CMR lynching, just hope this time we weather the storm is a classier way. Few of the major groups yelling the loudest had any influence, they just did harm. There is a way to express concern to the decision makers without publicly trashing what we love so much.
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Well said ML. I could not agree more.
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Amen. How many seniors around the SEC are playing for the coach that recruited them?
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“Always ugly when groups eat their own.”
Well, not always
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And its those same lunatic fringe that emboldens dipsh#ts like Chuck Oliver to ask CMR about AM’s ability to ‘win the big game’ after the Bama loss last year. The fringe spits out a dimwitted narrative around a program and the media eats it up and spits out all over the place. I wish it would stop, but there is really no place for moderation in an sports entertainment industry that subsists on sensationalism and extreme fringe elements. See PAUUUL…for example.
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Complacency sat in after Hawaii Sugar Bowl from Richt down to the janitor and Willie as DC compounded it not to mention too much attrition. Most places would have changed after the Liberty Bowl disaster. Let’s hope the lessons learned will prevent the hotseat from showing up again.
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Most places do not win the SEC East with any regularity.
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You may have put your finger on the reason “most places” don’t win the SEC East with regularity, i.e. the coaching carousel. See UT as the most recent example.
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UT is, to me, the most recent and worst example of short sighted leadership.
A head coach who has won a national championship, a DC who, arguably, is the best in the SEC, an OC who goes on to another SEC school with marginal resources and scares hell out of everybody, and you run them off after two bad years.
It breaks me out in a cold sweat to think what might have happened to us if the UT example of stupid was not so glaring.
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As a fan I obviously want my team to do well and win championships. This year I want our team to win the SEC and BCS for our coach who is a good and decent man, to show that you can win the right way without operating in the gray (shirt) areas of the rule book. I also want it for Aaron Murray who may turn out to be the best QB in the history of the program. It will be too bad if we are talking about Murray’s years here down the road and the conversation starts with “He was good but he never won the SEC.”
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I’ve never felt more confident about the direction of the program after a loss than I was following the 2011 SC game. We played a tough game. Clowney and a fake punt were the difference. People who knock Murray in big games should look to that one as Game 1A of why he’s a gamer. A loss, yes, but the prime example of his toughness, moxy, and pure desire to win.
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^This^. I have always thought CMR was more than the sum of his wins and losses….. Bobo too. Because I got to know HS school coaches the remarks against Bobo bothered me the most. Texas Tech-in the rain-4th qt-Left the kids at home cause of ugly fans- Bobo marches us down the field with barely any time on the clock and snatches a victory with a Hines Ward acrobatic reception in the end zone. It was raining. Boo-Birds had already left. Sweet. Mac has always been a good citizen here at GTP. Bluto has always been reluctant to censor discussion. I haven’t always been at my best behavior. Kudos to them both for holding us all together. Now let’s go win this thing……….
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Excuse me Homer, but I remember last season after the USCe loss and the narrow win over Kentucky the following week when I was the ONLY one this blog standing against the wailing hordes of mindless trolls calling for CMR’s head after just 1 loss. And I don’t remember our fearless leader giving me much backup and Mac was nowhere to be found. Look it up. Just sayin.’
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