I know we’ve heard it all before, to the extent that we roll our eyes when we hear it again. But here’s a New Year’s Day exercise for you – what if instead of taking this Damian Swann quote as routine happy talk…
“This program is different from where it was a year ago, and it’s going to continue to change to where it needs to be,” senior cornerback Damian Swann said. “It may take two years, it may take five. But eventually this program is going to get to where it needs to be to compete for national championships, to compete every year for an SEC championship. This program is on the rise and it’s only going to continue to get better.”
… we take it as a benchmark and require everyone associated with the program, coaches and Butts-Mehre administrators alike, to accept this as an accountable goal? In other words, Championship or Bust, literally.
There’s a lot of talent on the field and coming in with the next class to mold. The next step up comes from what surrounds that.
Georgia will begin offseason work this month under new director of strength and conditioning Mark Hocke, hired from Alabama. It has brought on a new director of football operations, Josh Lee, who held a similar position at UAB. He’s a former Georgia graduate assistant.
All part of competing in the high-pressure, rugged SEC.
“It’s not just on the field, it’s in recruiting, it’s in facilities, it’s in coaching staffs,” Richt said.
Richt’s got a defensive coordinator who looks like he’s improved the program. Strength and conditioning will be revamped. We’ve seen Richt reinvent himself and the team successfully after the debacle of the 2009 season, so we know he’s got that ability. B-M should call his bet, with the understanding that everyone’s head will be on the chopping block if Richt can’t get it done in the allotted time. Or make the hard call, if not convinced he’s capable of getting the program there.
Either way, it’s time for everyone to read from the same page. Well past time, actually.
Get The Picture 
I wonder if Richt would accept a deal where McGarity basically said “the money is yours, do what you want with it, but if we don’t get in the national championship playoff within four years you’re gone”?
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I’d bet CMR would take that. I’d think any coach worth his salt would.
The Senator’s post here is dead-on. Support the program fully and expect results that reflect the full support you are providing. I think we will be very happy with the program if CMR gets full financial support.
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Based on his track record over 14 years, he will be in the mix about that often….
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I don’t mean “in the mix”, we were in the mix this season until he crapped the bed against Florida, the tech loss was just icing on the shit cake. I mean Georgia is one of the four playoff teams or Richt is gone and Richt knows it will happen.
Personally, I don’t think the program is underfunded now. Our losses are not because we don’t have adequate facilities or we can’t attract good coaches. All three of this season’s losses can be put on the coaching and that is a fairly common trend at Georgia. The only reason I’d like to see this scenario play out would be to hear what the coach lovers would blame when Richt didn’t get it done with total monetary support.
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We know you think Richt stinks.
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I don’t think he stinks, I think he’s a little lazy and isn’t the sharpest guy on the sideline and gets flustered when things are happening fast. He has quite a few good qualities, but I don’t think he’s worth what he’s paid and I don’t think Georgia will ever win a national championship with him and may never win another SEC championship with him unless the West goes through a down period.
I don’t think he stinks, I think he’s above average.
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“All three of this season’s losses can be put on the coaching and that is a fairly common trend at Georgia.”
JC,
I would like to verify if all of the 15 combined losses this year by Malzahn, Miles, and Sumlin are also the coach’s fault?
Please keep in mind that Miles has won the crystal football, Malzahn was the OC of team that won the crystal football, and Sumlin is somebody that you would have traded Richt for in a heartbeat.
Again, that was FIFTEEN LOSSES.
Question #2 – please name a team and/or coach that you would like to make your own and hold up as an alternative to Mark Richt and UGA for 2015. ANY TEAM YOU WANT.
Note: you will be held to this team and/or coach’s performance to the same standards. Their playcalling, their game management, their clock management, they will all be watched as closely as you watch UGA.
Thanks.
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you’re a goob man… all three of the losses can be put on the fact that the defense and its coordinator are in their first year on the job. Did they shit the bed in those games? YES! But if Pruitt had been there three years and had a relatively decent mix of vets and young talent I honestly believe we would have been undefeated this year. It’s always seemed to be our calling card, “wait till next year” but I really believe we’re closer to that being a reality than ever before simply because of the addition of Pruitt. Now, BM needs to step up and support as the Senator says or he’ll leave sooner than he should. But based on what I’ve seen, I’d be happy if he stayed long enough to be the transitional plan. After the Grantham love fest started then ended I was slower to jump on Pruitt’s bandwagon but after the season is over and I see what he did with what he had I can’t wait to see what he can do with better more experienced players.
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If that is not already the situation, then you have confirmed the problem …so let’s do the opposite. Clean house now, down to the last towel boy. Then tell GM to not spend 1 penny more and replace the whole staff while simply maintaining facilities. Check in 4 years to see if the program progressed or regressed. You are so confident that the ONLY problem is coaching then your brilliant logic 101 course will tell you that this solution will work.
Which it won’t, which is why 15%ers can’t grasp why most fans support Mark Richt given ALL present circumstances.
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It’s WAY more than 15 %!!!We can’t figure out why you Richtophiles can’t see we’re on a rudderless ship.
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Or way less than 15%.
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you sir… are a moron
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I’ll be interested in seeing whether Nebraska, a program not too dissimilar from ours, helped itself by firing a very, very good, but not great, coach.
The Cornhuskers do not, of course, have the in-state, rich high school talent mines that Georgia does, which, I think, permanently limits Nebraska’s up-side.
Having said that, though, we’ll see whether Mike Riley is an improvement over Pelini. I’m very doubtful.
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I’m not sure that’s an apples-to-apples comparison with Nebraska. The issue there was that Pelini was not a good fit culturally (we can wonder where might be a good fit for someone so outlandishly boorish). This was their Jim Donnan firing. The clarity of this is in who they hired–they worried much more about who the guy is than his W-L record.
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Pelini is no Mark Richt when it comes to character matters, assuredly.
But ultimatums and heads-on-chopping-blocks hinge on assurances in hiring a better successor.
Georgia has no such assurances.
That was my (intended, though incompletely expressed) point.
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If Pelini had possessed a less grating personality, he would still be in Lincoln. It wasn’t his record, (although getting nuked by Wisconsin every year didn’t help) but he couldn’t get along with the powers that be and came across as a hot headed asshole to the public.
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Pellini is Donnan without the personality.
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🙂 Funny!
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No way you take that bet due to negative recruiting impacts in year / and beyond. Kirby, Nick, Gus, and Jimbo would make 2009-10 look minor compared to this. GM either needs to give the man the support he needs or be a man, make the hard decisions and live with the consequences.
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Year 2 and beyond
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No one needs good logic at this time, ee. This is for knee-jerks.
Future consequences are not considered here.
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Please give an example of GM’s lack of support costing a game. I’m not saying it’s not there, I’m saying I don’t know what it is. What, exactly, is Richt not getting that is keeping him from winning the games that appear to be losses due to coaching failures.
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I guess you didn’t understand my comment: GM either needs to commit to Richt (don’t say he’s our coach right now like in the MB interview) or make the decision he isn’t the right guy. I’m tired of the fence sitting. It’s not good for the program regardless of which side of the fence you sit on.
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There is never one single thing that loses a game, for fuck’s sakes. The squib kick isn’t the one thing that cost us Tech. First and goal isn’t the one thing that cost us S Carolina. It’s a buildup of many things. 2009 was a result of slides in defense, strength program, and team chemistry. And a culture of half assedness regarding AD support will eventually cost a football program.
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Yes, sometimes it is ONE thing that costs a game. We had the lead with 18 seconds to go, tech did not have a return over 11 yards all game, tech is not a wide open, big play offense that gobbles up yards in huge chunks. If we kicked it deep, there was a 90+% chance they would not get in field goal range. The squib kick gave them the ball 20 or so yards from field goal range, THAT decision cost the game.
You are right, SEASON’S results are determined by much more than one or two calls. For instance, keeping your best friend as DC for two years after everyone in the country knows he is doing a bad job is a decision that affected entire seasons.
If you think Richt is a great coach, good for you. I don’t.
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I actually agree with you on the stupidity of the pooch kick, but if you keep insisting that it was the only thing that lost the game, I’ll point out that we were still in position to win until Mason threw the pick in overtime.
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Pooch kick decision created the overtime, Mason should have been giving interviews about the win when he threw the pick. The pooch decision was the failure that allowed tech to be in a position to tie and win.
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You conveniently forget the fumbles on the one yard line or the points that the defense gave up throughout the game. It wasn’t the pooch kick anymore than the goalline series at Carolina that was a problem. Those are just the most obvious to people who want to point to a single thing that caused a loss. And has been done numerous times here, you also need to look at the decisions that he’s made that have helped win games, and I can think of 10 times that happened this year.
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FWIW I agree completely on the pooch kick. Utterly stupid. That is CMR’s weakness–end of game decison-making. But he does an awful lot of things well, too. Like Xs and Os. Like recruiting. Like overall management of the program (if only he would oversign–even a little). Like being the face of the program. I would be completely happy with CMR if he just didn’t do those end-of-game screw-ups. Here’s an idea: CMR continues to run the program like he always has but on gameday he turns all decisions about game management over to someone else–say, Pruitt. Or hire someone expressly for that purpose. I don’t care which. But he needs to stop doing it himself. History shows that he screws up and he’s too old to change. That said, firing a guy after a 10 win season who has won the East 6 times and won the SECCG 2 times in 14 seasons, not to mention has won 10 games 9 times out of 14 seasons would be asinine.
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All of you have selective short memories. The ball was advanced after it was downed and a kid set his own record with a 52 yarder that just cleared- all in18 secs. No way is that all set as faulting a squib kick.
Don’t some of you tire being assholes in your selective outlook?
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Good Lord Ballsack! Is that what you got out of my post? Sheesh! And it WAS a fuck-up of classic proportions to pooch the kick-off with a 3 point lead, which opened the door to all that you described above. Without the pooch none of that happens. Do you think winning and losing is just luck? Sometimes I think you killed too many brain cells.
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By that logic why aren’t the TWO fumbles inside the Tech 5 yardline responsible for creating the situation where Mason throws the touchdown with 18 seconds left which was responsible for the Pooch kick which was responsible for Overtime which was responsible for the interception? It’s pretty easy to skip over those facts that aren’t convenient to your argument isn’t it?
I blame Nick Chubb and Sony Michel ENTIRELY FOR LOSING TO TECH. It’s their fault! Pull their scholarships and kick them off the team! If only they wanted to win more maybe they wouldn’t have screwed up!
Or, maybe you should stop trying to freaking pin the entire game on ONE damn decision that fits your narrative and try looking at things with a broader vision.
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You are dead on it Irish, no one player, coach, or play is THE reason for why you lose a one score game….or win one. Those who cannot only grasp one factor and extrapolate it to the all encompassing answer are either unable to grasp the complexities of football, or they have an agenda they insist on promoting to the exclusion of all other known facts. Can’t argue with folks like that, just let them run around in their own little world. Even that one simplistic reason they cite doesn’t preclude the other reasons we lost that particular game.
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Pruitt already told us. If you want the biggest, fastest, toughest, smartest players on the field you better have the facilities, programs, staff and recruiting efforts to match. The way UGAAD is structured, that’s on Greg not Mark. Do you really think Saban does his X’s & O’s better than Richt to the same degree his success surpasses Richt? You probably do, but I simply offer that issue is debateble.
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So, it takes a coach who has been at 2 national championship programs to come in and enlighten Richt as to what it takes to win big? To me, that says a lot about Richt and his lack of vision or knowledge about what it takes to win big.
Yes, I do think Saban is that much better at doing what a head coach is supposed to do in order to win championships and the results on the field would bear my opinion out. There is much more to winning big than Xs & Os from a head coach point of view.
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Funny how you pick the coach who gets the greatest institutional support from his school in the country.
But I’m sure that’s a complete coincidence.
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Come on, surely you see my point. For 13 years, the institutional support was not something Richt thought to bring up and suddenly, it’s a problem after Pruitt makes comments about an IPF? I agree that Richt and Georgia’s football program don’t get the same support that Bama and FSU do, but I don’t think that is the reason for the inexplicable losses.
I think our silly discipline policies are a much bigger issue than the spending by the AA. If I were in Richt’s position, I would have been making a bigger issue about that than he has. The multiple suspensions every season over issues that would not result in one game being missed by our opponents is a much bigger issue than the lack of an IPF.
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Richt begged for an indoor practice facility for years before Pruitt showed up. He never got any support from the AA to get one.
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You seem to be confused by the point I’m making here. Spending per se isn’t the issue I’m complaining about.
Right now, we have a very dysfunctional football program. We’ve got the coaching staff and the athletic director taking shots, veiled and otherwise, at each other in public. I don’t care whether you think Richt should stay or go, that’s a very bad thing for Georgia football. I’ve been following the program for more than 30 years and don’t recall things ever being like this.
Nobody should be airing his dirty laundry in public here. But McGarity deserves the bulk of the blame for letting things deteriorate. Not only is he the boss, but he’s the guy who keeps going to the media. And his PR skills are pathetic.
You fixating on spending and pooch kick calls is a textbook example of somebody missing the forest for the trees.
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I give up…you are dense. You twist every short-coming of the program onto Richt (who you credit with being above average). The response was about McGarity. And you agree with the second point that Saban enjoys control over more of his program that contributes to winning than Richt is granted and yet try to frame it as Richt’s fault.
Whatever dude…just keep hammering away to your heart’s desire.
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UGA may have missed out on some great players because of uncertainty about the staff’s status. It’s used recruiting against us. That hurts at game time.
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Well, it is Noon so sure, hand me over a snort of that KoolAid.
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I dunno. BM didn’t cause any of the losses this year. Not sure how giving richt more $$ to throw around or more autonomy wins any of those 3 games we lost.
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B-M caused all the losses this year–indirectly. I don’t care that kids do not ay it publicly but the deterioration of our facilities costs Georgia 5 star recruits. If you don’t think so you have forgotten what it was like to be 18 years old.
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I’m not sure who would ever put the B-M hierarchy’s heads on a chopping block for not winning a NC in football. Please tell me who that would be. The president, the athletic board, the Board of Regents, the chancellor, the governor, the General Assembly? Please tell me if you know. Don’t say the fans and alumni because we don’t have that authority.
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I think it has to at least start with the President of the university. He then has to get the AB on board. It wouldn’t hurt if the Governor called Jere himself and lit a fire under him but I don’t see that happening with this Mercer alum governor. Remember when FU always had a bye week before the WLOCP but Georgia didn’t? I always thought that was the real advantage that FU had over the Dawgs that led to the FU winning streak. Notice how that doesn’t exist any more? Wanna know why? Maybe I’ll tell in another post, but it was because someone made a call to someone and insisted that the bye week situation get changed. That’s why.
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I know many people think McGarity is cheap. What they don’t understand is that this is a very critical time for UGA academically. They established a medical school and an engineering school. Now UGA want to increase it’s endowment. If McGarity increases Mike Bobo’s salary, built an indoor practice facility, and renovate the locker room, then that is money that is NOT being transferred to academics. UGA transfers $4M to academics yearly. UGA is not as profitable as you think. The revenue sports being football is netted against the non revenue sports resulting in very little profit to the overall athletics department. UGA should not be involved in this never ending CFB arms race. Coaches salary have increased 70% since 2006. It doesn’t end. CFB coaches are starting to be paid similar to NFL coaches.
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I call BS. The TV money coming in is crazy now. And 4 mil is chump change. Florida and most other programs are paying that out to ex coaches every year.
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+1
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When I was in school in the Goff era, they gave $2M per year to academics. I’m willing to bet that their income over that time, especially with SECN, has more than doubled.
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“If McGarity increases Mike Bobo’s salary, built an indoor practice facility, and renovate the locker room, then that is money that is NOT being transferred to academics. UGA transfers $4M to academics yearly. ”
I am not sure I follow the correlation between improving facilities and not being able to transfer $4M to academics.
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The football team is not a direct funding mechanism for academics, and if you try to make it that you will destroy it.
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I think the AA has had incredible patience and forbearance with Richt. would have.
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BM didn’t lose games to scu, fu and gatech. CMR has nobody to blame but himself for not getting more out of this program. Until Pruitt came along to do the heavy lifting, CMR was content to let problems fester.
Want better s&c? Go to Pruitt, not CMR. Want better STs? Go to Pruitt, not CMR. Want better facilities? Go to Pruitt, not CMR. Pruitt is our defacto head coach. Losing Bobo was a wake up call. Losing Pruitt would leave this program in terrible shape.
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While I have zero firsthand knowledge of the situation, I believe you are not far off.
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It’s always easy for me. The current players and recruits still believe in coach Richt and staff, so I do, too. I think they’re the easiest and most accurate gauge for the direction of the program. Instant gratification, emotion and most fans aren’t. I actually feel like the TEAM is on as good a trajectory as its been. Now if we can just get the check writers on board. Obviously need the right hires as well.
Never too early for koolaid.
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Contrast the current players’ attitude with Justin Houston saying on Twitter his rookie NFL year (when Richt was actually on the hot seat) that it was time for a change.
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Any new news on the OC search? The absence of rumors has me considering that CMR will promote Lilly.
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Ok, when did McGarity say that Richt is our coach “right now”. I somehow missed this.
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In the Atlanta Journal Constitution interview with Bradley.
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10 4. Haven’t seen it. If it’s Bradley I doubt I’ll bother to dig it up. Thank you for the response. I was definitely not trolling. Just wanted to know.
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Also, what shots have Richt and McGarity taken at each other? I’m not saying y’all are wrong, I just want to know what you are talking about.
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While we are beating our brains out against a few sincere people and a few trolls, has anyone noticed that the great West Div created by ESPN spinners has a 1-4 record as compared to a “weak” 3-0 East Div? Fu, playing on Sun. can make it a perfect East bowl record.
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To be completely honest about it, wouldn’t you agree that the opponents the SEC West teams faced were a tad tougher than the opponents the SEC East teams faced?
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We just went #1 recruiting ranking at Scout.
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yawza!
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Richt has no one to blame for that but himself!
Er…wait. Wrong narrative, wrong time? I got confused…
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If I was on a jury and we were tasked to determine if Richt should be fired I would come out in the end more in favor of Richt than when I went in if the deliberations were like what I usually read here. It wouldn’t be the sunshine pumpers or Richt lovers that swayed my opinion either. It’s all the emotional, conjecture. The cherry picking of stats, all the I think this, I believe that, Mark Richt won’t this or can’t that there is little to NO EVIDENCE of. Along the same lines I don’t think McGarity is as guilty of his sins as much as he’s doing what he’s told or at least operating within the guidelines he’s been given. I agree his PR skills are bad and he could and should show more support for Richt. Maybe it’s just his personality.
IMHO one influence in all this is Jan Kemp’s ghost. I don’t care how much tv money we get we are never going to be in a position we’re we are leading the arms race. We aren’t going to change the drug testing and penalties or oversign. We aren’t going to do anything that can give the perception we are a football factory along the likes of Alabama, Auburn and FSU. I just wish the idea that we were willing to be closer to that was stronger than the vibe McGarity gives.
One final note mayfield eggnog and makers mark is the shit.
Happy New Year
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I agree about the Jan Kemp ghost, I don’t understand it, but I agree. We are still punishing ourselves over something that happened 30 years ago while the Auburn’s and FSU’s of the world take their medicine, learn to tell the NCAA to go to hell, and move on and win championships. That is not a McGarity thing, it’s a Dooley, Evans, Knapp, Adams, Morehead, McGarity thing. There is no nobility in being the most pure and holy football program, only stupidity and self destruction.
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The Kemp case, and more importantly, UGA’s institutional reaction to the Kemp case is a lot more complicated than you seem to understand. The Kemp case changed, probably forever, the relationship between academics and athletics at UGA. Institutionally, UGA moved on, became much more solid academically. While the football fan base wonders why we can’t compete with Alabama on Saturday, the institutional leadership of UGA says we are far superior to Alabama in every way that matters.
While, for instance, the recruiting restrictions Ray Goff had to deal with have been relaxed to some extent, Mark Richt has to have every recruit passed on for suitability for admission by an administration panel.
Do you think Nick Saban has this situation?
Really, its all there, Google is your friend.
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It’s all about controlling power for McGarity. He needs it for his self esteem.
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Poor management by McG. You don’t show anything but support with positive comments outside of closed doors. No matter what your subordinates say about you the only people that need to hear negative are the employee and the HR manager.
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And Richt’s demeanor in the departures of both Martinez and Grantham show that he understands this better than McGarity. That is all the explanation I will ever need for why Richt said what he said regarding Grantham staying with the program this time last year.
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Sounds better than Swann’s quote exactly a year ago:
“Before we knew what we can do, it had started to become too late.”
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We all are looking for reasons why UGA is not where we thought it would be at this point. Nine or ten years ago, I thought that SEC titles were to be common under CMR. Time has shown that coach BVG’s presence and the lack of a Saban or Meyer were primary reasons for CMR’s early success. Now, we all are looking for answers for unmet expectations, IMHO. Some blame B-M, Mcgarity, etc., while others (like myself) blame CMR’s decisions. Either way, I think we all see the need for change. CJP is a great step, but I think more change is needed to create a championship environment at UGA.
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I just pulled up the McGarity interview. I already didn’t like him much but after reading that I’m a little worried. What a passive aggressive dick head of a move to talk that way about Richt to the media.
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To me, Mike, what he says is not as stupid as giving Bradley the interview in the first place.
Unless, of course, McGarity knew exactly what he was going to be asked and exactly what he would say.
The idea the AD would discuss personnel issues, especially this one, in the media is incomprehensible to me.
This is not an indication of great leadership.
Nor is it an AD trying to deal with the backlash from losing to Tech for the first time in years.
My God…maybe Blutarsky is right.
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There is some discussion of the Ghost of Jan Kemp up above, which may be pertinent in light of the fact that neither the starting running back or the starting quarterback at FSU would be on the team at Georgia.
This is one result of the Kemp case that I find it very hard to argue against.
There was a time at Georgia that behavior off the field, in some cases just as egregious as some of the things FSU players have been accused of that was handled in basically the same way FSU has handled things.
The Kemp case and its very public airing of the way UGA did business allowed the folks who had, for years, been complaining the “tail was wagging the Dawg” get complete control of the way the institution viewed athletics….institutionally.
Many of the results of this sea-change in attitude are positive and make UGA a better institution than it has ever been.
The head football coach at the University of Georgia is never…never going to have the control of the football program that the head football coach of the University of Alabama, or any of a number of other schools have.
Because the University of Georgia does not want it to be that way, ever again.
The results of the Kemp case were numerous and far-reaching throughout college athletics. And in many ways make the landscape of college athletics a better place for athletes to actually get an education.
That Georgia chose to deal with these results in a Draconian over-reaction was unfortunate for the football program in the short term.
In the long term, as with any revision of institutional philosophy, the landscape has evolved, and we have found a coach who could succeed within the rules he has.
That success apparently does not suit every Georgia football fan, hell it does not always suit me…certainly does not make losing to Tech, even once in a great while any easier to stomach.
But you know what?, the tail quite obviously wagged the Dawg for a long time, but we have actually won more games since Kemp than before.
Maybe we are actually doing something right, doing things the right way and winning some football games anyway.
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Good word.
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Bad word.
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Good and bad, Mayor, good and bad.
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Damn poor clock management at the end of the game by Nick Saban…this continued string of inexplicable losses is completely unacceptable.
If I am the AD at Alabama I am going to give an interview to somebody at the Birmingham news and talk about the head coach.
And then, if I am the AD at Alabama, I am going to clean out my office and begin looking for a job in the private sector.
So, is it worse just to go ahead and lose to Bama in the Sugar Bowl or lose to Oregon in the final?
I sure do hope they got some pizza chilling in Texas.
Go Dux.
Weird year.
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