Okay, Greg’s gotten a towel, cleaned up the mess he made, refilled his coffee cup, turned back to read some more news, only to spit take again.
College football’s newest arms race has gotten plenty of attention this summer as coaches across the country race to fill out their support staffs with more coaches than ever before.
Under Gus Malzahn, Auburn appears to be keeping pace.
For the first time, Auburn’s full football staff is now available on the school’s web site, and the Tigers have 21 members in off-the-field roles, seven more than the 14 carried by Gene Chizik last season.
In addition to an influx of high school coaches, Malzahn brought over the bulk of his coaching staff at Arkansas State, even though only offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee and offensive line coach J.B. Grimes joined his staff as assistants. Four other Arkansas State assistants — David Gunn, Casey Woods, Kenny Ingram and Brandon Hall — have joined Malzahn’s staff at Auburn, as well as several members of his off-the-field staff in Jonesboro.
As McGarity mops up the second mess he’s made in a matter of minutes, he ponders the future of the program and the reserve fund. Clearly matters are getting out of hand. The new TV money will only exacerbate things. As he thoroughly reviews the situation, there only appear to be two viable options from which to choose: give Mark Richt the authority to keep up with the Joneses, or push hard with the SEC and NCAA to create caps on the size of college football support staffs.
McGarity makes up his mind about which course to take, picks up his phone, punches a speed dial number and puts in a call to…
Get The Picture 
He’s definitely calling the SEC offices to try and cap the number.
I know Richt/CTG gets a lot of heat from fans, but McGarity is far worse than both.
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Agreed. And guess who is even worse than McGarity?
The clowns on the Athletic Board who like the way the Athletic Department is run.
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Mike Slive. Sigh.
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^x2. smh
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Don’t shoot me, but would we now be a better fit in the ACC? Before you go off on me, my son is the 4th generation to have attended UGA, I love the school for much more than football. But it sure seems like we have to change our priorities down to the level of our lower class neighbors and fight back or else we need to go “where the weather suits our clothes”. No it won’t happen, but the SEC arms race is getting crazy and this is discouraging that we have to keep up with 3rd rate schools with 1st class pro football programs . Fire away.
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Georgia would be giving up money to move to the ACC. Not gonna happen.
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You are right and that is what it is all about. We seem to want to spend like the ACC and get revenue like the SEC. My love of college football dims a bit each year.
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We’ll almost certainly take option 3; don’t try to keep up with them and cash in on the increased revenue of the conference as a whole. As long as we as fans show up in droves and tune in regularly, there’s no incentive to change. The market at issue in BM is not the one for coaching salaries, it’s the one for ticket prices, merchandise and digital content. If those are healthy, what’s the problem?
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That’s great incentive for raking in the dough “right now”. However as you fall behind and a few consecutive 8-5, 7-6 seasons, a new coaching staff and are more in line competitively with the Ole Miss’ and Vandy’s of the league then that revenue stream starts to decline.
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If the public sees a poor performance of BM product, eventually nobody will buy them eventually following the law of diminishing return.
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You’d hope so, but football fandom is like brand loyalty on steroids. UGA fans aren’t suddenly going to go buy Auburn gear or Auburn season tickets just because they had a better product this year. Maybe fans slowly tune out, but if one or two bad seasons was all it took to lose interest in college football, most of us would be on to other hobbies now.
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Boo this man!
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Bangalore, India….by out-sourcing all these non-coaching football staff personnel to India, the Athletic Department will be saving mad money!
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How’s your Hinglish? I’m sure your name really is Jason.
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How many off the field coaches do we have?
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Georgiadogs.com shows 16 total support staff for the team.
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Largely the difference is we aren’t paying top-dollar for many of them, and none are quite as “could fill in at DC if Grantham quit/was fired during the season” like GERG at Texas or Kevin Steele at Bama.
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I nominate McGarity for POTUS. He would probably be the guy to solve the debt problem. $22 trillion USA reserve fund sounds good to me.
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There’s a third option. UGA self imposes a hard cap & puts another moral high ground trophy in Butts-Mehre.
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Ding, ding, ding. You nailed it.
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I think Greg calls the Athens Country Club to book a tee time.
Despite all the on-field problems with this year’s football team…injuries, youth, wobbly offensive line, long snappah troubles, suspended and injured kickers, we are a miracle and a missed field goal from winning 10 games.
10 wins a year is a far better average than any football operation has put together in Athens on a consistent basis…ever.
The way the SEC is set up now, making it to Atlanta at the end of the year is the reasonable goal, despite a subset of the fan base who apparently works with or drinks with or lives next to Bama fans.
And once in a great while if you get to Atlanta at the end of the year, you get a shot at playing for the national championship.
Sooner or later the Kharmic dysentery from the turtle pie will go away.
I admit to some frustration with the idea I may not be around to see it.
But maybe I will.
Do we, as The University of Georgia, really give a fat rat’s ass what Auburn…Auburn, mind you, does to win football games…I doubt it.
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As long as you’re forced to swim in the same market waters, you should.
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I think we look at what Auburn did to get to the national championship…all those coaches, all that, and think…and maybe even say…Damn Mark, if they had just knocked the ball down…just think about how much easier the swimming would be.
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You act like it’s just one lucky moment. It’s not.
But I’m sure that’s the kind of thinking they’ll wrap themselves in this winter.
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UGA fans need to realize as it stands now they’re no better than the 4th best program in the SEC. Bama, LSU and Auburn are all ahead of them. SoCar could argue they’re at least on equal footing. Sobering thought, really.
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[“UGA fans need to realize as it stands now they’re no better than the 4th best program in the SEC. Bama, LSU and Auburn are all ahead of them. SoCar could argue they’re at least on equal footing. Sobering thought, really.”]
I think that’s right. Not only that, but my sense is our ship is beginning to show cracks, and water is drizzling in. The goodwill, and the money it generates, derived from a very loyal fan base, is being used up fast, and is not being replenished. That’s because of the product we see on the field.
Georgia fans take a back seat to nobody when it comes to patience. But I sense that it’s running thin. The lack of a NC and SEC Title is not the problem .. it’s having a football team whose performances we can be consistently proud of.
I hope, at some point, the alarm will go off in Butts-Mehre. Because we have everything else where we want it to be, in terms of what kind of program we want, and what we believe in. All we need to make everything work is a football team that plays to its talent level. Nothing more than that.
Do that, and everything else will fall into place. Money, facilities, SEC Titles, NC’s, and all the rest. And what does it take to do that? Coaching.
Somehow, Richt must figure a way to raise the bar. He must figure out a way to coach his teams in such a way that they don’t beat themselves.
Plain and simple, he must quit underachieving. He doesn’t have to win every game. He doesn’t have to be anybody else, or copy some process. He can do it his way.
But do it he must, IMO, and quickly. Or the whole thing is going to fall apart.
~~~
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Soooooooo…. just so I understand this. The UGa fans have the 4th best program in the SEC in 2013? Behind Auburn who beat our Dawgs on a freak tipped pass. I guess we will ignore Auburn of 2012. On the par with uSC that we beat… behind LSU -that we beat and behind Alabama that we lost to in the final seconds of the SEC championship game on a ….. freaked tipped pass. Georgia goes 8-4 and you are ho hum. aTm goes 8-4 and they are writing him a check. Lot of savvy decisions going down.
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You, sir, miss the point. It doesn’t matter if the ball was tipped or not..they beat us. USCe and LSU recovered to post outstanding records and go on to more prestigious bowls…tAMu seems more vital and have a promising future..rightfully or wrong so they garner more donations that they are willing to spend to extend the product. His point was: UGA has to get off their asses and make more effort to achieve instead of living in 1980 with Herschel…get ahead of the curve instead of riding just ever so slightly behind it.
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[“UGA has to get off their asses and make more effort to achieve .. get ahead of the curve instead of riding just ever so slightly behind it.”]
Agree. That’s certainly the idea.
~~~
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I strongly suspect all those extra coaches goes a long way to explain why the Barn looks so damned good on special teams this year (particularly compared to some *cough* other teams). Maybe none of them are an official special teams coordinator, but they could put in the film study and practice that says “hey, we’re not going to stop Mizzou that often, let’s try an onside kick in the second quarter.”
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Can we expect any leadership…positive leadership…from our new president of the UGA??? That would motivate McGarrity…and is CMR content with this situation or is he keeping up with the trend?
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Man, if we knock the ball down we win the game…with all the acknowledged problems on this team, with all Auburn’s extra coaches, WE win the game…
If you are saying Auburn is getting a jump on us for the future, you would be missing the point of all things Auburn….what Auburn is doing is trying to catch up with Alabama…we are not really on their radar.
If you are saying we should have been looking at Alabama since the Process began, you would be right, and I am sure we have been because Bama, not Auburn sets the swimming standards.
And our winter coats are the same as they have been.
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What I’m saying is that you’re not seeing what’s going on here. These staffs are growing for recruiting. These high school coaches AU is bringing on have tons of contacts that will be made use of by RG – in Georgia (McGee). The sledding is going to get tougher going forward.
If you don’t have to pay the kids and you’ve got a money tide rolling in, there are only a couple of things you can do with it. And you are seeing examples of both right now.
As for who’s catching up with whom, I don’t really care. But what I do care about is that in this market, you’ve got several coaches on Georgia’s staff who are severely underpaid. Will Georgia do something if necessary? No doubt. But being reactive instead of proactive isn’t the best way to run a shop over the long haul. Even if the coats are nice.
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Oh I am seeing it, I have been seeing it for five years, just like everybody at BM has been seeing it, and I certainly do understand what it means for our ability to compete.
But seeing it and doing anything about improving our competitive situation are apples and blintzes.
It is the same argument that has been raging here and there and everywhere for years…
We, and by we, I mean the institutional we, not me and thee, are not going to lower our institutional standards to compete on the dirty old football field with the stinky folks to our immediate west.
We, the institutional we, have the moral high ground and the correct moral mission…football is something only the hoi polloi care about.
We are much more concerned with important matters of education and institutional morality.
That Bama has been doing it, and Auburn is starting to do it makes the Georgia Institutional Mind less likely to do it. Not more.
We got what we got.
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It ain’t just ‘Bama and Auburn. That Sumlin contract should be an enormous eye opener as should the raise Freeze received earlier this week.
I’m going to assume there’s a heaping dose of sarcasm in your comment, because this ain’t about institutional standards. It’s about making bank. And given the terms that Morehead agreed to accept when taking the job, making more bank would be even better.
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I wish there was more sarcasm in the comment. Trust me, I do. After many years of second hand exposure to the “Institutional” thinking about football I am completely comfortable with the portrayal.
Yes, more money is good. But most assuredly NOT at the expense of the educational moral high ground we are extremely proud to hold.
Simply put, We are not a football factory because We don’t want to be.
Ever.
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I don’t know what that means. Georgia doesn’t play in the Ivy League. It has lower admission standards for football players than it does for the general student population. It provides special resources for those players that no other students get.
If you’re saying that there are certain things B-M won’t stoop to that other schools may, eh, maybe. But you’re just arguing over matters of degree. Every big time program is a football factory.
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Go to Tuscaloosa….look at the football facilities…the stadium, then walk around campus….the academic physical infrastructure is crumbling…weeds in the sidewalks…Auburn is worse.
What I am saying is that education at Georgia matters more than football, this does not put us in the Ivy League, but it does, and will continue to put us at a competitive disadvantage with schools that have a different mindset, that football helps the educational experience and educational product…
Becoming the Harvard of the south became a catch-phrase under Chuck Knapp and was in the mind of Michael Adams and will be in the mind of Jere Moorehead…this is real, it exists.
Great teachers come to Georgia FROM Alabama.
There is nothing wrong and very much right with this, but if you think, or anyone thinks Georgia will ever be truly competitive with Bama, or Texas A&M or Auburn on a year in-year out basis, they are fooling themselves.
The folks who set the base agenda for the University as an institution, as an educational institution have the same mindset that Michael Adams demonstrated from the day he walked onto old campus.
And you can say what you will about Adams and money and all that, but ultimately he did what he was hired to do…make damn sure the tail did not wag the dawg at the Harvard of the south. That Adams could demonstrate he had asshole tendencies is hardly the point.
Don’t you understand that Georgia could very easily have been Bama if that was what its leadership wanted?
It wants to be Harvard, not Bama.
Football is something that pays for itself and the whole athletic magillah…but football is not the core mission, and when winning championships regularly in football comes at the expense of the core mission values and self-image….football, every time, loses.
The institution that is the University of Georgia relishes the idea we have the educational moral high ground more than winning football games.
Really folks, you need to get this.
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If it wants to be Harvard, then it better figure out a way to spend the money to do so.
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[“The institution that is the University of Georgia relishes the idea we have the educational moral high ground more than winning football games.
Really folks, you need to get this.”]
I get the point about the mindset of leadership, and I’m fine with it. Morals, ethics, and winning football are not contrary one to the other. Or at least they shouldn’t be.
So I really don’t think that’s it. Whatever investment, or spending, Georgia puts in the football program will more than pay for itself, provided it produces the desired outcome .. winning and success. That has been proven over and over again. And we know the University isn’t going to suffer because of football spending. Success in the football program generates more money for the University.
It sounds like a broken record, but Georgia has everything it needs but success on the field, which I define as playing to its talent level. If the football program needs an IPF, more staffers, etc., to help achieve that, then that is a good investment.
I don’t know if those things are preventing Richt from achieving success or not. I doubt it. It seems obvious to me that the underachievement issue is a coaching thing. Solve the underachievement issue, and everybody is flush with money and everybody is happy.
I think Richt, or whoever Georgia’s coach is, should be given every tool to compete on a level playing field. Within reason. More staffers, if needed or wanted, and the IPF certainly fall under that category.
I suspect we need both of those. I heard Richt say one time, in answer to the staffing question, that they were concerned about additional staffers having anything to do. That bothered me then, and still does.
Staffers, who are coaches or former coaches, can do a lot of legwork and background work for assistant coaches, adding a thoroughness and an elite organizational perfection to the position, that has the effect of polishing and perfecting the final product. I suspect Saban and Malzahn get a lot out of the additional football staffers, whether it’s S&C, supporting assistant coaches, or whatever.
If it’s true that University leadership has the football program in a spending vice, then they are not very intelligent people. Because that is plain stupid.
Regardless, the plain solution to all the issues remains the same .. better coaching. Because that will solve everything.
~~~
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The underachieving problem has developed, IMHO, from one thing primarily: gameday coaching f*ck-ups, particularly at the end of the game, which has now gone on for YEARS. This includes time management, which continues to be a problem, and the related issue of wasting timeouts. Everybody (myself included) focused on the “spike or no-spike” issue at the end of the 2012 SECCG. But if CMR had 1 timeout left UGA likely wins that game, even not spiking, because we could have stopped the clock when the receiver slipped and fell. Next play, fade to the back left of the endzone-TD. I don’t know if it’s CMR or CMB, although I think it probably is CMR based on what some of my friends from FSU are telling me. Frankly, I don’t care. I just want it to STOP! I think CMR and Bobo need to bring in somebody who is an acknowledged expert at end of game management and just turn all decisions in the last 2 minutes (or whatever) over to that guy. Hopefully such an expert could also instill enough desire to win in the troops so they will stop doing things that are counterproductive to the team just so they get personal stats.
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Here is something we should all think about….you think we got to the point we are with Tech in football by accident?
Following Bobby Ross’s 1990 Mexican National Championship (UPI was owned by a Mexican conglomerate..thus…) the administration at Tech got cold feet and changed the way Tech does football as an institution…no more Dekalb College for athletes…etc., etc, etc.
That we can still come within a lucky bounce of Auburn, or five yards from beating Bama (If you insist that is the case.) is a miracle of biblical proportions, and a tribute to the ability of our football program to do less with more, cause that’s what we got, and will have.
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RE: the R&B story…Bluto, maybe I have not been clear….I viewed the “Harvard of the south” bullshit as just that when I first heard it 20 years ago, we can’t be Harvard, either, but that does not mean the fiction of being Harvard is not real, tangible and important in the collective institutional mind that actually runs the athletic department.
Jan Kemp gave folks with this mindset the moral weight they needed to take control of all facets of the institution, to put in place restrictions that would “unilaterally disarm” the athletic department.
Jan Kemp was to a significant portion of the academic establishment all over the country as the higher education equivalent of the Holocaust.
“See” they said, ” you let these football people get their noses under the tent, and look what happens. We are gonna put people in the president’s job who understand that football is not what we are all about.”
From Sanford, to Knapp, to Adams to Moorehead, the presidents of the University of Georgia since Fred Davison, have been tasked with keeping football in its place…as an adjunct to the educational mission of the university…in retail, the car dealer has a service department cause the market demands one, but the dealer would prefer to be without a service department.
These men were not hired for their great minds, although some were greater than others, they were hired by the Board of Regents because they would execute BOR policy.
I am not saying it is as bad as the car dealer example, but closer than I am happy with, frankly.
Each new president and each new football coach and AD have managed to negotiate concessions…yes we can now, even, take a couple of non qualifiers, but the big stuff, the staffing and money allocation are, and will, I am pretty sure, continue to be tightly controlled.
All things considered, we are lucky we got what we got, Post Kemp, the atmosphere was so poisoned there was serious talk about doing away with football completely…this is a fact. Luckily cooler heads prevailed.
But it was way closer than anyone realizes I believe.
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I think you give to much credit to Kemp. She had some help along the way my man.
“In 1981 Kemp was one of the teachers who complained claiming that Georgia officials had intervened allowing nine college football players to pass a remedial English course, allowing them to play against Pittsburgh in the Sugar Bowl.”
Did I miss something?
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When I say Jan Kemp, at least in this context, I am using her name to indicate the whole problem. Homey, what I understood at the time and still understand is that all Jan Kemp wanted was her job back after Fred Davison fired her. So yeah, she damn sure did have some help and when the damn thing was over every stinky thing Georgia was doing just to be competitive was laid bare.
And we are still paying the price. I am absolutely, 100 percent, certain of this.
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I think linger Kemp-perception fears are a factor, but what Morehead and the AD should realize is a successful football program doesn’t have to sacrifice academics.
Is hiring key HS coaches from GA and possibly FL to aid recruiting a bit shady? Sure, but if the kids come in and make their grades how does that hurt our academic reputation? We’ll still graduate more players than Bama or Auburn. Does Stanford winning the Sears Trophy nearly every year hurt their academic rep one iota? Spending some of that reserve fund shouldn’t hurt our academic reputation. And if people are worried about the HS coaches angle, try some other routes — go Moneyball and look for other ways to gain an advantage: hire cutting-edge nutritionists, get the players doing more yoga or something to improve balance, and get them all hooked up with those body/heartrate monitors the Falcons have used for years, and then hire some stats/data wonks for support staff instead.
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Gosh…you are BRILLIANT! On another subject… Gus Malzahn was in Columbus yesterday and he gave the secret to bringing a team together. It was Lou Holtz who did it first at SC as I recall, (me jRD). You put the whole team in lockdown for 48 hours. NO OUTSIDE ANYTHING. They each tell their life story …all of it, especially the bad stuff. It is powerful…they cry …they laugh…they become family and more importantly…they will take a bat to anyone’s head that messes with any one of the brothers. That is what we need, at least before each season at GEORGIA.
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One way to look at it is that we had one unlucky play that cost us the game. Another way to look at it is that the best QB in the history of the SEC put the team on his back, threw for 415 yards, 2 TDs, ran for another 2 TDs, and we lost. Is it realistic to expect that Hutson Mason can account for more offense next year than the best QB in the history of the SEC? I doubt it.
So, if you think that Alabama, Auburn, and Texas A&M are unnecessarily spending money just because they don’t have the same affinity for reserve funds that McGarity has, I beg to disagree.
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dam man. it is people like you that believe this thread is about one play or one game. shit wake up dude. the senator finally has.
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“Finally”? LOL.
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Many moons ago (sometime between Let My People Go and Alabama finishing its five-year sentence for ‘nine major rules violations stemming largely from two recruiting scandals within the football program’), the Senator knew that a rising tide lifts all boats
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Sadly, that just seems like petty cash a mere six years later.
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There’s only so much of a message that you can push on a kid. They aren’t stupid, they know that an offer from UGA/Richt is as solid as oak. Whereas everyone else’s word is up for debate/grayshirting. This fact isn’t lost on parents and high school coaches and pastors. As the race for ‘more’ in every avenue of college football grows, I believe UGA’s approach will draw far more favorably than most across the country. And you’re seeing that with the recruiting classes the staff has pulled in the last 4 years. Drawing kids nationally and in-state and usually landing top 10 class after top 10 class.
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Athens Country Club, please. Greg plays at The Georgia Club.
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True… which is kinda telling since he lives Athens.
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uh Georgia Club in Athens…not Georgian Club.
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Uhhh.It’s is still not in Clarke County.
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Oh
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I’m afraid our AD thinks he’s the smartest man in the room -with a high degree of smugness to top it – this act coming from someone who was the asst AD when Urban,s boys ran roughshod over all rules – he needs to go.
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McGarity is responsible for making the AD run. He doesn’t set the overall policy by himself.
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Either our school moves to the norm or Dictator Slive moves the renegade
Bunch towards us- we know who’s going to win that one – we’re not good enough to stay the norm – so compromise must be done.
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This is the heart of the matter, for fans who expect UGA to compete with the wolves who play everything all out and “close to the edge”, McGarity isn’t the guy to get us there. We don’t bend rules the way other schools do with over signing, fudging on drug tests/arrests on minor issues, playing dirty in recruiting, or short-cutting educational issues, and that isn’t going to change. We are a program that has had, comparatively, underpaid top flight HC and then made him beg for an indoor practice facility when we have plenty of money in reserve to grant him that. We are closer to other conferences in all these areas but held to the expectations of the highest winning SEC programs. It is a formula for disappointment for those who only measure success by the W/L record and titles.
I want an SEC title as much as anyone but realize we have so much more to overcome than the others. I support a strong lobby to level the playing field on rules regarding player conduct but I don’t think McGarity is strong/smart enough to get this done, and there is simply no excuse for us getting shot to death in a spending war without firing no more than rubber bullets when we have the largest arsenal in the conference available to us. I am not advocating reckless, wasteful spending but McFrugal, Vince, and Adams have been jokes in not keeping us competitive. Adding over a dozen bodies to the staff to keep pace is a lot smarter than just freeing up some of the HC’s time.
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Again, let me make this clear. GM doesn’t work in a vacuum. He doesn’t set the overall policy for the athletic department. He is given guidelines within which to work and he does so, better than some may give him credit for. Replacing him isn’t going to make much of a difference if the folks he answers to continue the same policies.
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Spot on…McGarity implements policy he is given.
Saying the AD is responsible for what a small subset sees as low performance is ignoring the obvious.
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Senator, I am appreciative of your past few posts. SJIII, I am also appreciative your insight into the running of Butts-Mehre. These are issues that I have zero first-hand knowledge of. You make it sound as if Georgia is UNC Chapel Hill. While UGA is a very solid university, it does not compare the upper echelon states schools such as UNC, UVA, UCLA or Michigan. If that is the direction the BOR, University and AD would like to head in, then fine. Just make it clear as to what direction they are going. I will alway wear Red and Black, but I would like to know that the Univeristy of Georgia is one or the other. I do not see both as a possibility in this modern day of college football. The reality is that no one in charge will make such a declaration in fear of losing money. So, we as fans sit and twist in the wind as our football team falls further and further into decay due to a poorly run Athletic Department. Also, not being a wise acher here, where does your info come from? Do you personally know people working in the AD or on the BOR? Thanks again to all for shedding light on to the fascinating topic.
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Skep…I have no illusions about where UGA stands in the Educational Universe…no, we are NOT UNC, what I am saying is that the BOR and they people THEY listen to see UNC, and UVA, UCLA or Michigan as worthy role models.
I have absolutely heard previous leadership talk about “improving” UGA’s status vis a vis the schools you mention…and, in fact, is not UGA much better, educational status-wise, than in the not so distant past?
I believe if you check the stats that drive these ratings…merit scholars, nationally recognized researchers and teachers….we are.
As to my sources…well, they would not be sources long if I talked about them, would they….lets just say I was able to be a quiet bystander during conversations about the direction of the university for many years.
We don’t have to twist in the wind, unless we have expectations of being a school like Bama, with Bama’s priorities about football.
I can be a Georgia fan and recognize how much good football we get with the institutional mind set we have.
FWIW, if you think I don’t tear up every time I see the end of the fucking Auburn game, you are very wrong.
Instead of bitching and moaning about why we are not competing for the National Championship every year, all I can do is hope the Kharmic Bitches will smile at us again, someday.
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Very nobly stated, but I’m still having a hard time getting past “Becoming the Harvard of the south… was in the mind of Michael Adams”. Refresh my memory… wasn’t Adams the guy who hired Harrick and then refused to accept any responsibility for the biggest academic scandal at Georgia since Kemp? I guess you mean it was in his mind and never went anywhere further.
Morehead got the job by promising that he understood the consequences of never getting more money from the Legislature than the school is getting now. Georgia’s endowment is woefully underfunded and is a joke in comparison to schools like Virginia. I don’t see how that adds up to a formula to become a Southern Ivy. Those nationally recognized researchers and teachers you mention expect to get paid top dollar just like every one of Jimmy Sexton’s clients does. My fear is that in the coming years, Sexton’s clients are going to do a lot better dealing with Georgia than the researchers and teachers will.
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Bluto, I am never, ever going to get into the position of defending Adams, but the idea of a “Hahvahd of the South” mission statement being at least delivered to Adams is true.
Here’s a situation that, to me anyway, indicates the mindset of the folks who hired Michael Adams (and I am sure as hell not saying they should have hired him or continued his employment as long as they did.)
Adams takes on the only person in Athens who has respect in the athletic community beyond Athens…Vince Dooley…and wins.. despite a huge hue and cry from the ….ah…fanbase? after Vince goes public.
Adams did some (many?) things that were foolish…Harrick, Donnan, etc certainly turned out to be foolish…but do you think he would have taken on Vince, and be allowed to win if he was not fulfilling the mission the BOR gave him?
Do you think, for instance, Sanford Stadium would not be Sanford/Dooley if the BOR was for it?
“Morehead got the job by promising that he understood the consequences of never getting more money from the Legislature than the school is getting now.”
I don’t know about this, but one would have to assume there were other stipulations.
“Those nationally recognized researchers and teachers you mention expect to get paid top dollar just like every one of Jimmy Sexton’s clients does. My fear is that in the coming years, Sexton’s clients are going to do a lot better dealing with Georgia than the researchers and teachers will.”
One of the criticisms of Adams was that he was always trying to get his hands on the Athletic Association ‘s money (Hartman Fund, etc), and, in fact, one of the driving forces behind the “endowed athletic scholarship” was to protect this money from Adams and future presidents.
I don’t know how these endowed scholarships count in Athletic Department accounting, but pretty much all the football scholarships are now endowed.
Like the football program, the University gets what it can with the endowment it has, and, apparently, do pretty well hiring teachers.
If you are concerned about having money for teachers, give the money you spend on football tickets to the general fund, I am sure Jere would be mighty proud to have your check. 🙂
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Hiring Harrick was foolish. Tolerating what he did was administrative malpractice. Failing to hold anyone on the academic side accountable – including the man at the top – was an embarrassment that devalued every diploma UGA has issued.
We obviously have a difference of opinion about Adams, which is to say that if you think his battle with Dooley was about academic integrity, I can only chuckle.
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I am saying that Adams tossing out Dooley was enabled to some extent by the conversation about academic integrity…a useful excuse…and I doubt we have any meaningful differences of opinion about Adams, really.
But hey, my diploma is pre-Chuck….I proly ain’t that smart. 🙂
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SJIII, I understand not naming names. Yes, UGA has most certainly raised the academic bar over the last 10-15 years and continues to do so. And I support that mission 100%. What I would like to hear from the president, BOR, or Athletic Director is what direction the Dawg’s athletic department is heading. If the University’s goal is to reach near Patriot or Ivy status that is great. I, along with every other fan, will adjust our expectations. I watch Patriot and Ivy League football and admire those young men for playing a sport the love with little to no fanfare. These kids will one day become leaders of industry, states and beyond. The kids roaming Sanford stadium are not in the same league, and that is both bad and good. I would just like to know where the UGA AD stands.
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Skep, I would be shocked to my frail ole bones if you ever get any kind of a definitive statement about anything even remotely related to athletics from the BOR, proly not from the Pres…maybe some vague, feely good thing from the AD.
Somebody a whole lot smarter than me once told me the main function of the athletics director at Georgia was to provide a buffer between athletics and the university president, and, by extension, the BOR…sounded right to me at the time, still does.
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Senator, I cannot argue with you about that because it may be pounded into him and may be rigid about what latitude he is given. But neither of us know how effective McGarity is “behind institutional walls” in meetings, or in winning over the trust of superiors to expand his authority. We certainly know he seems very ineffective in getting any changes accomplished that would standardize discipline, has not gotten any bowl influence (can you imagine Bama getting stuck a rematch their fans/players/coaches didn’t want?), has not gotten the lights to come on regarding officiating issues, etc. I am not saying all of these are doable in a short time frame but have we seen any signs of success with him being held in high respect? People who are respected by their peers and superiors are usually influential enough to win some battles, I haven’t seen him scratch on any major concerns….none. If he cannot grow to that level we simply have an implementer, not an effective leader. We can get robots to handle that level of achievement.
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Mac…think about the last AD we had who had real influence outside Athens….note what happened to him at the end of his career.
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But as I recall Scorp, he reneged on a commitment to leave on “X” date. Danged hard to have good succession planning when people treat a specific date to leave as being up to their daily outlook. Taking it to the court of public opinion was bad form also and resulted in a divisiveness that exists still today. And speaking of succession planning, VD’s method of departure as a HC led directly to over a dozen frustrating years for Dawg fans. I respect his integrity, and what he did as a HC at a time we needed a lift, but he has some serious flaws on his resume as well, imo.
I remember the disjointed way we ran around looking for a quick replacement HC to be one of the more embarrassing times of UGA football. The resulting period of time was just the result of how inconsiderate VD was to the program as a whole when he knee-jerked into “retirement”. Only a pressing health issue would justify that lack of warning/notice.
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Mac all you say is true, except it may have been worse than you say, especially at the time we were scrambling for a new coach… Vince took a trip to Europe, just assuming he would be AD when he got back. Now the story is that Ray was his choice, which is hardly the way I remember it.
But the commitment to leave on X date was forced on Dooley…Adams wanted him gone for more than one reason….
Dooley’s public comments on staying at the time involved Evans not being ready quite yet…something that proved to be spot on…whether Vince just wanted to show Adams who the real boss was, I have no idea.
Neither Adams or Dooley looked exactly smashing in the end, but the result was the AD with real influence beyond Athens was gone, which is exactly what Adams, and the BOR wanted.
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For all of the examples in sports of teams that can’t buy a championship no matter how much money they are willing to spend….
It’s not a money issue to me per se. All of those staff positions at Auburn and Alabama have one basic underlying theme: they free the coaches to teach positions, devise game plans, and close recruits. It may sound like an exaggeration to say that an Assistant Director of High School Relations greatly increases the offs of bringing a Tunseil to Athens or making sure a desperation heave gets knocked to the ground – but it’s not.
It’s one thing to have coaches working for less than the market seems willing to bear. It’s one more thing to burden those coaches with additional responsibilities that higher paid coaches can delegate. One or the other? Sure. Both? I’m amazed McGarity and Co. get away with it.
If Richt ever achieves real leverage, I hope he uses it to hold their feet to the fire.
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McGarity makes up his mind about which course to take, picks up his phone, punches a speed dial number and puts in a call to…his secretary to tell her he will be late.
1. He is not spending extra money on support staff (10 -2 or 8-4 works for him as long as the money comes in) or asking anyone to approve the expense.
2. He is not going to stand up to the NCAA or the SEC for anything. (Wagers will still ref UGA games, No across the board drug policy, etc.)
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McGarity picks up his phone, punches a speed dial number and puts in a call to…
His secretary. Draft a letter to our Hartman Fund participants outlining the virtue in maintaining continuity. And a reminder to get your donation in by February 15, 2014.
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The sky is falling…
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Senator, your 2 debate articles certainly bring up a point that I’ve long thought about: “At what point does CFB as we know it self destruct?” When is enough, enough?
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I think it should be noted that while all the attention is being given to salaries and non-coaching staff sizes, A&M, Auburn, and yes BAMA are each taking a gamble. And that gamble is that a.)their current staffs won’t leave within 2 years and b.) they won’t misstep the way Tennessee has with throw money at courting new coaches. The financial debacle at Tennessee has them much further behind the eight ball then most conference schools. And as the ‘market waters’ rise, the steady ship-UGA-keeps sailing.
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Our bank account’s number one! Yay!
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I may be naive here but I don’t think that’s a bad position to be in right now. Is the timing right for all that “necessary” spending? I’m sure agents and coaches think so. Timing is everything. We are all over the place with conference expansion and tv deals and unresolved litigation. Personally there was a point where we went from developing property to developing and building, to option contracts on property and rezoning it and flipping it. I was told I didn’t have ” the stones anymore.” Yikes! However, poor my conservative analogy is… I wouldn’t spend money on Sumlin and BUTCH. It wasn’t spent to make more revenue. It was spent cause they wanted to hold what they had. Hopefully.
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“The financial debacle at Tennessee has them much further behind the eight ball then most conference schools.”
Yep….and the Bitch Jones Loophole is a partial cheap solution to a problem that may not be solved quickly. Tennessee could wind up being the Georgia Tech of the SEC…very easily.
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And we very easily kicked their asses in OT and 2OT
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Georgia is still getting top notch players so that keeps the playing field pretty even. We put as many players in the pros as Any school nationally and if the T.V. ratings from this season are any indication I’d argue that Georgia’s National Brand is as strong as it’s been since the 80’s. Not to mention We R Running Back/Quarterback U right now in college football. This will lead us to our own dynastic run. And maybe a dynastic run that lasts a lot longer than our SEC counterparts. The East is still ours for the taking!
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I agree but to a point but to take it one step further if not for the talent in Georgia and the ability to recruit, UGA could very well be Miss State and the powers to be would be Okay with that. As long as there was a profit to be made.
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Throwing more bodies at running a football program does not mean the program is run better. The same could be said of recruiting as well. No one really knows exactly what these guys are doing on any of these staff. The general idea is they are some combination of quality control, evaluating prospects film, and handling some of the administrative duties related to recruiting. By virtue of their resumes and backgrounds, I don’t think any of them are doing anything really innovative compared to the type of analysis that has gone on in baseball for the last 10-20 years and the analytical revolution that is sweeping through the NBA (as well as really smart guys college, now pro, coaches like Brad Stevens).
throwing more money at coaches does not make them better. who are we bidding against to keep our head coach and our asst coaches? the smartest thing we can do is figure out what we think all of our personnel are worth and pay them accordingly.
The free agent market in Baseball has deemed the value of a win over replacement player (WAR) worth roughly $6-7 million per win. A replacement player is one that if you had a roster of 25 of them would net you 55 wins (to be clear an average player is better than a replacement player). By that standard, Richt is probably underpaid, as we know he has won a higher rate than any UGA coach in history. that said, it is hard to say what the market is in college football for a “WAR” and quite frankly, our hiring of Richt was much more akin to a draft than a free agent signing, and we were quick to buy out his “arbitration elgible years” if I continue the analogy. Thus, unless he wants to “test” the free agent waters, we should not feel compelled to pay up.
We signed Grantham to a free agent contract worth a lot of money and have gotten little value out of it.
while I totally agree with the premise that it seems like we have been hesitant to expand our staff, I am less bothered by other’s use of these staffs as I am disappointed that we are forgoing the opportunity to leap frog everyone of them with a more intelligent approach.
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Agreed. Great Point. And were UGA to claim a National Title within the next few years all these arguments stated throughout this thread would be silenced. Georgia is doing things the right way, and will benefit from their labors soon enough.
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Not if the coaching doesn’t improve. Unless that happens, Georgia will win nothing, of any consequence.
You can’t win anything in the SEC if you can’t figure how how to keep from beating yourself. Unless Richt can figure that out, Georgia wins nothing.
~~~
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That last statement is true for every team in the history of football at some time or another, which I am sure you know. You cannot find a coach, including Satan himself just recently, that doesn’t have their regrets but what is missing here is that the reverse is also true. Without the fake punts, onside kicks, and excellent play calls that we have successfully implemented we would have not only lost additional games, we wouldn’t have even been in the position to lose a game because we “beat ourselves”. This argument could be played until infinity with no winner.
I feel good coaches can contribute to success by better talent evaluation/recruiting, attention to detail in training the players, and excellent game planning, but most of the differences in games between, somewhat equal, athletes comes down to execution and good breaks….mostly execution. A QB can be well schooled about the dangers of throwing high to receivers over the middle but that doesn’t mean Peyton cannot have a ball sail on him, or slip from his hand. Same with a snapper on XPTs. Or a receiver slip on a route making for an easy Pick 6 from the defense. Or a lineman flinch before the snap ruining a TD opportunity. Or a defender grab a piece of the facemask giving the opponents an extended drive. Etc., etc., etc. There are thousands of examples that fans sit around and play the blame game with and give the players a pass. They also do that while ignoring much has gone right to put the team in a position to win or lose at the end of the game.
I don’t know the exact percentage attributable to players or coaches, but I am convinced it is a shared endeavor and, personally, I put more on the players side because ultimately, they either do, or they don’t, get it done on the field where the coach can only give them a good chance to succeed. That doesn’t sit well in our society because we tend to want a specific individual to place blame on and not share the result, good or bad.
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[” what is missing here is that the reverse is also true. Without the fake punts, onside kicks, and excellent play calls that we have successfully implemented we would have not only lost additional games, we wouldn’t have even been in the position to lose a game because we “beat ourselves”. This argument could be played until infinity with no winner.”]
I appreciate your POV and it is well taken.
In the mid-60’s I heard Vince Dooley say “the first step in winning is learning how not to beat yourself.” And over the years, I’ve marveled at how true that simple axiom is.
There’s a lot of good things that happen every year in Athens that have to do with coaching and playing. But until Richt figures out how to get that done, nothing will change. Georgia will continue to underachieve and lose games they shouldn’t lose.
That’s just the way it is.
~~~
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Our Coaching always has room for improvement, but overall we have a consistant winning record. Agree with you, Wally….all in good time.
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Skep, I would be shocked to my frail ole bones if you ever get any kind of a definitive statement about anything even remotely related to athletics from the BOR, proly not from the Pres…maybe some vague, feely good thing from the AD.
Somebody a whole lot smarter than me once told me the main function of the athletics director at Georgia was to provide a buffer between athletics and the university president, and, by extension, the BOR…sounded right to me at the time, still does.
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Damn…how the hell did I do that….that should be…aah hell….
Joy…please, can good time get here before I need somebody to put molasses on my grits in the nursing home….please.
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Patience…. A virtue…. It will come to us.
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