So, Field Street Forum links to a post judging that the Georgia fan base is the eighth-most delusional of its kind in the country. But not for the reason you’d think. Quite the opposite, actually.
Even with all of that being said, the major reason the Bulldogs find themselves at No. 8 is the cries from within the fan ranks to dismiss Richt. Sure, he seems to have been the bridesmaid many times while never actually getting to be the bride, but he’s a fine recruiter and has turned Georgia into a perennial contender. That’s more than we can say for his predecessors Jim Donnan and Ray Goff. If Richt does get bounced, the Georgia opening would be an extremely attractive one, but Bulldog fans should be careful what they wish for, as there’s no guarantees Richt’s replacement would be the one to take the program higher than it’s been.
Heh. Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah…
Get The Picture 
So most Georgia fans believe we suck worse than we actually do?
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After so many decades of Munson-ing to lower our expectations, I guess we just don’t know how to stop.
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There are plenty of articles written about Richt’s performance, both favorable and otherwise. This one compares him favorably to Goff and Donnan, acknowledges that he struggles to win championships, but seems to assert that our talent level nonetheless usually is enough to keep us ranked at season’s end. I think that assessment is fair, but I disagree with his subjective warning about expecting more at UGA. A decade between championships is too long at UGA. We aren’t Clemson. Articles like this, along with perpetual excuses for talented teams that don’t win championships, won’t help push us over the top. Fear of change is not a characteristic of an elite program.
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Articles like this don’t have any impact at all, other than on my level of amusement.
Butts-Mehre is gonna Butts-Mehre, no matter what you or I think, say or write, as long as the money comes in.
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Butts-Mehre is not our head football coach.
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Not sure WTF that means, other than it sounds like you’ve found your excuse.
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I do believe that the coach of the team bears most of the responsibility for the team’s performance, especially when we have 14 years to review. A decade without a championship is CMR’s fault, IMO. Why is this even debated? Because CMR is such a good man. I, along with many, have looked for excuses elsewhere and devised theories about luck, funding, etc. because I like CMR. In the end, though, UGA doesn’t block and tackle and prepare as well as the premiere teams in the SEC, and my personal feelings for CMR can’t change that. He is the only legitimate excuse left for me, unfortunately.
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Because reasonable people can disagree.
Look, if you’re right, then all the changes we’ve seen since the start of the year won’t mean squat. Give it a couple of years with no improvement and I bet you’ll see a lot more folks in agreement with you.
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CJP is the biggest recent change by far, IMO, and I do think he can make a difference, though he may soon be looking at head coaching jobs.
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Richt deserves blame for our SEC title drought, but a majority of the blame should be directed at Michael Adams, the UGA Athletic Association, and Greg McGarity and his cronies inside Butts-Mehre.
A large portion of our fan base and some of the media bash Richt and our staff for failing to achieve Alabama-level results with Vandy-level investment and support from the administration.
I’m interested to see what Richt can do now have a president who seems at least mildly interested in the success our football program.
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This^^. P.S. You left off Ole Red Panties’ name. He deserves prominent mention in the blame-worthy category. If he were still our AD the Dawgs wouldn’t be able to beat Kentucky.
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…Vandy level investment.
$31 million dollar IPF
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and they (Vandy) are still going to suck. Much to do about nothing. Forget the facilities and buy a Corvette for every player for the next 20 years. It just a part of COA,you gotta get to class right?
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The day that hack from Montgomery via Ohio State stepped foot on our campus, we were doomed. We are just now beginning to turn the football program and the university back in the right direction.
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Didn’t the program reach it’s highest point since 1980 with that hack in charge of the university? Who hired Richt? Did that hack keep Martinez around for several years after he was obviously doing a crappy job? Did he hire Grantham or any of the other asst coaches everyone talks bad about now? Other than giving pay raises for having another disappointing season where nothing of consequence was won, how are things better now?
I’m no fan of Adams, but blaming him is simply incorrect.
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To blame Adams for any shortfall in the athletic program is incorrect. To place blame for his failure to provide financial support for facilities and other resources is totally in bounds and proper.
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How are things better under Morehead?
We’re finally going to build an indoor practice facility. We’re the last remaining SEC program without an IPF. Richt was promised an IPF when he was hired in 2001. It’s taken 15 years for that promise to come to fruition.
We have a full-blown football support staff in charge of self-scouting, advance scouting, and coordinating recruiting efforts. We’re one of the last major SEC programs to have that benefit.
We dumped our video-coordinator turned strength and conditioning coach for a full-blown strength and conditioning program.
We are starting to compete with our peers and rivals with coaching salaries. Whether or not you agree with our recent pay raises, you have to pay your staff to keep them. Richt may not have had to settle for Todd Grantham (he was the fourth or fifth choice) if he had a larger budget to hire a coordinator when he sacked Martinez.
Those are four major changes that have been made since Michael Adams retired. I’m sure I could think of others in time.
You sound like a fan of Adams to me. Adams wanted us to do just well enough to keep the money trickling in from fans and donors. He wanted to run things as cheaply as possible. If you fail to recognize that he was a major hindrance to all of our athletic efforts (not just football), than I don’t really know what to tell you. If you think Adams or Evans or McGarity would have replaced Richt with someone as good or better, than you’ve lost your mind. We’d probably have Houston Nutt, Chan Gailey, or Dan Hawkins on the sidelines right now if we fired Richt under Adams’ leadership.
Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, and the “elite” coaches often compared to Richt would not coach at UGA due to our administration.
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THIS…many times over…
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No.
I’m not a fan of McGarity (in case you couldn’t tell), but that is one case where he deserves to be defended. Richt was given the go-ahead to spend money and to take the unprecedented step of offering a guaranteed multi-year deal. The reason Grantham was not the first candidate was because the DCs who were offered before him (including at least one who approached Georgia first) took Georgia’s generous terms as a lever to pry more money out of their then-current employers.
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Senator, your comment here is the reason I hope and pray Kirby Smart never makes another appearance on the south sideline of Sanford Stadium as a coach or alumnus. He did that to CMR and then turned around and allegedly bragged to recruits that he would be returning to Athens in 2012 as Georgia’s head coach.
It’s 2015, Kirby, and you still won’t come out from behind your boss’s short shadow.
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Everyone makes in-game mistakes and their teams sometimes don’t play their best (even the great Saban and Meyer have that problem) no matter how much the head coach gets paid. As a coach, you have to hope those times don’t cost your team the game.
The only time I really thought CMR made a decision (or delayed a decision) that really hurt the program was his reluctance to fire Two Thumbs until he really had no choice. Leaving the Georgia Dome after the Sugar Bowl, my Dad said Martinez had no business as our defensive coordinator after the performance of the defense that night. CMR kept Martinez for another 4 years. Did his personal friendship cloud his professional judgment? No one will ever know unless CMR writes a book of his memoirs, but I have to say at best, CMR was loyal to a fault and almost got himself fired because of the impact of that loyalty.
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Can’t really agree with that. UGA’s D was unprepared for WV for sure, but the whole team was not up for that game. The 2007 defense was ferocious by the end of the season, and it’s fair to lay some of the blame for the 2008 defensive collapse on key injuries. So I get why Richt didn’t get rid of Martinez until 2009, when it was clear that Martinez simply could not make in game adjustments or teach proper fundamentals.
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That 2007 defense got shredded by Tennessee (they still gave up 30 to Florida and 30+ to Troy). Regardless of the injuries, the 2008 defense never lived up to its billing getting shredded by Bama, UF and tech (even giving up a lot of points to GSU at the beginning of the season to knock us out of the #1 spot). The 2009 defense was absolutely awful.
The defense showed cracks in 2005 especially at the end of the season with the game against Auburn and the complete collapse against WVU. The WV game was a team loss, but I still pin that loss on the defense and the failure to adjust to the WVU running game.
In hindsight, Martinez was in over his head, but it wasn’t apparent until 2008. Richt should have taken him out after the 2009 UT game. There’s a reason Beyond Crompton is in the Senator’s lexicon, and Two Thumbs is a big reason for that.
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Sorry, not a fan of Adams at all but the never ending diversion of blame for the football program’s shortcomings from Richt to anyone or anything else has gotten silly. There have been coordinator changes, AD changes, player changes, asst coaching changes, almost everything has changed in the past 15 years, the two constants are Richt and underachieving.
The fans love fest with Richt has kept the money pouring in, not trickling. I have to wonder if Donnan, with his prickly personality and not being such a “good man”, had the same record and experience as Richt, how would the fans feel about him? Currently, Georgia fans as a whole appear to be satisfied with being “almost good” as long as they can have a good man on the sidelines.
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Donnan (for his last 4 years, throwing out the first year to at least give him a fair chance to get the Ray Goof out of ’em) had just about the same winning percentage as CMR now has. Just sayin.’
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…who hired Richt? Well do tell.
but who fired Donnan?
http://onlineathens.com/stories/042901/opi_0429010007.shtml#.VZFoYEZUzqE
And who crowned him King of UGA anyway?
http://onlineathens.com/stories/071303/uga_20030713078.shtml#.VZFor0ZUzqE
Just sayin’ he wasn’t good for Georgia. And all those buildings he is so proud of are only utilized 40% of the time. Ridiculous.
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Just about everybody compares favorably to Goff and Donnan. That’s not exactly high praise or a good reason to retain any HC.
Until CMR proves otherwise, anyone who says he reached his zenith 10 years ago is stating the obvious. We all ‘hope’ he’ll reach a higher plateau, but that’s a wish and not really based on the last decade’s results.
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Westy, a good argument could be made that CMR reached his zenith in 2002. In 2005 the Dawgs won the East and the SECCG but lost the last conference game of the regular season to Auburn with an end of the game screw-up on D at 4th and 19, then lost the bowl in Richt-like fashion by not showing up for the first half.
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So the SEC Championship isn’t a ‘conference game’? Interesting.
The Dawgs finished #2 in the polls in 2007 and received 3 first place votes and were one play away from the SEC title and the national championship game in 2012. 2007 and 2012 were arguably the closest UGA has been to a national title under Richt. Go back to 2002 and ask if an undefeated UGA team gets in the national championship game over Miami or OSU (think Auburn 2004). I think your zenith would run into some strong counter arguments.
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The “last conference game of the regular season” was the exact statement. Reread the post carefully please, Irwin. Also, my statement was factually inaccurate. That year, in unusual scheduling, UGA played Kentucky after Auburn. So we were both wrong. 🙂
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We aren’t Clemson? Are you sure?
Clemson always has a few exciting players that are worth watching but they can never quite put it together. Clemson loses to SC regularly and inexplicably loses another one a season to a lower opponent.
Sounds a helluva lot like the Dawgs to me. The only thing we have over them is playing in the SEC. It used to bother me when people would say “ahh UGA is just the Clemson of the SEC.” It doesn’t anymore–because I just can’t argue that they are wrong.
Here’s hoping this year we break every one of those parallels…it sure feels like they are on the right track.
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We have Clemson’s results and South Carolina’s delusion.
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This is quite possibly the absolute topper of a dumb comment that you’ve made since you’re so blinded by your anti-Richt hammer (which hey – your position on the guy can be whatever the hell you want it to be, but methinks your statements be just a wee bit hyperbolic because of your commitment to banging that hammer constantly). Remind me how many conference titles (not just SEC) South Carolina has won in the entire history of their program? How about division titles since the SEC split when they joined in 1992? Now compare that to what Georgia has on both fronts (hell – how about the last 14 years since Richt sucks and all) and get back with me on who is most delusional about their chances year in and year out.
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We are an hour from ATL, the single greatest concentration of football talent around. We are the only in state school of substance that recruits that area. We play in the SEC. Clemson has nothing comparable in any of those categories, IMO.
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Well….we are the only in-state school of substance, whether we recruit that area or not…. 🙂
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NO ONE in the East has won since 2008.
If you don’t think there are two sets of standards in the SEC between divisions you’re kidding yourself.
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Exactly right. The SEC West members have fully committed themselves to football excellence at an institutional level. The SEC East members, with the sole exception of Tennessee, have not.
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If by “football excellence” you mean rampant oversigning, lax discipline and winking at NCAA rules, I agree
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Well, this “fully committed” business really hasn’t worked so well for Tennessee, has it?
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Well duh! Obviously they are just willing to accept mediocrity.
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This reflects what I hear from CFB fans I know, or run into, around the country. Our fans are nut cases for the continual uproar over a huge asset., It has led to other SEC observers (FBomb and unknown Bo from Mississippi) picking up the mantra because they would like to see us make this mistake and return to Georgia’s role as a team not to fear. For that, we deserve to be in the Top 10 of imbecilic fan bases.
Despite all that, UGA looks more solid today than at any time in my memory. The 15%ers are annoying and delusional but they haven’t succeeding in sinking the program, hunker down Dawg fans, this too shall pass.
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Spot on Mac. I would disagree that its 15 percent…more like two or three percent who are perpetual whiners about woulda, shoulda.
Having agreed with you and said what I said, I think we are at least a year away from having all the kinks worked out. Too many key spot question marks for next season, in my mind.
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Scorpio, the problem is; we’re always “a year away”.
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“Always?” That sounds like a personal problem.
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+1
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It does become a personal problem when you get to be my age.
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You may be right Scorp, we certainly don’t have all the questions answered yet. My confidence that we could win the SEC this year is because we have the first month to figure those questions out, and are a solid bet to get to the title game…and that is a significant step. When we get there (Atlanta), who in the West looks any better than UGA in 2015?
If we were in the West, we would be one of the top 3-4 contenders just like they look right now….there is no clear leader in the SEC at this point. Doesn’t mean we are the best, but we look a lot like the others (Bama, LSU, Arky, and maybe Auburn or A&M.) But I agree, we could be much better in 2016 with the way the talent is flowing in; we already have the coaches we need. Would be great to go back to back in 2015 and 2016 to make the negatrons go back in their sand holes.
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I didn’t know Field & Stream magazine did articles on cfb.
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Boom
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What??? Only number 8? Georgia gets ripped off again. What other team has to suffer through Hirky Kertskreet cut the Dawgs down on ESPN and in twitter messages. What other major college team has suffered since 1980?
What other team is still blaming Willie Martinez all these years later? Who was that offensive lineman coach who supposedly ruined us? Heck Grantham is still the reason our defense sucked against Florida. It ain’t just Mark Richt blame we fall back on.
We’re number 1…We’re number 1…
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I’m tired of the Munson-ing. It’s fun to talk about a team’s long snappah or the best onside kicking team I’ve evah seen when we know we’re superior to the team on the other sideline. Our fan base (and our program) needs to develop an early 90’s UF mentality or current Bama mentality that believes the Dawgs are going to win every time they step between the white lines. The Munson mentality keeps the fan base from creating a true home field advantage because we’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop or for the “Herschel curse” to strike.
The 90s killed the confidence of the program and screwed the top on the program with Goff, in particular, with some assistance from Donnan. The perennially embarrassing losses in Jacksonville (and Athens & Gainesville), losing 3 in a row to tech, and the long losing streak to UT absolutely sucked the life out of the program. Some people forget the dumpster fire our program had become at the end of 90s.
I agree with Mac. The program hasn’t been healthier (other than ’80-’83) than it is now. It’s time for the DawgNation to take the next step. Let’s GATA on August 1 and not stop until early January.
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Its not just the 90’s…The fans go as the team goes. We all remember the last time Bama came to town. Remember early on when Richt’s teams were coming from behind to win? We never believed they were out of it. That is not the case anymore. Win more of those big/close games and the fans will believe. Give us something to believe in. Be more consistent. Don’t crush AK and MO back to back without your best player then let a shitty FL team curb stomp you.
Fans are conditioned by the team/program…not the other way around.
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Son, son, son. Fans are conditioned by they own selves. Trust yo daddy.
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Make that AR…we are as likely to play in Alaska as in LA. 🙂
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I agree with you, Lamont. If Georgia started winning games at the end like the Dawgs did in 2001 at UT, rather than blowing games at the end, like the 2014 Tech game, the fanbase would get united behind the team. Call me crazy, but I think Georgia’s best days are ahead, though. The new Prez appears to be behind the team rather than an albatross, and the addition of Pruitt has reinvigorated the D and the entire attitude of the team, IMHO. I’m looking for a breakout year in 2015 or 2016.
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Totally agree. The change in president is a huge factor. I kind of wish the focus on all of the sarcastic Gameday signs from the students would be Adams.
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Good point, Lamont, but our fans have the memory of an elephant when it comes to the failures of the program (Bama ’08, etc.) and Dawg-grade our big wins. All of our losses are “big” games and our wins are taken with the mentality of “we didn’t win a championship, so who cares?”.
No one wants to talk about how we pounded Clem’s Son last year but want to remind everyone of the loss in Columbia the following week. It’s just the Munson mentality has our fan base looking at the negatives.
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Of course they do–that was a SEC game! 1 of 2 that kept them out of the SEC championship, if I remember correctly.
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I think you just made his point.
there can be no big wins if every win is followed with a but.
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Exactly, we beat the hell out of Auburn in epic fashion, but still people want to talk about UF. I get that we have lost games that make me think WTF, but to focus only on those to the exclusion of the wins makes for a pretty miserable existence … By the way, Lamont, you definitely aren’t one of those guys.
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I am ever hopeful…just far more reluctant to buy into the hype than I once was. The more hype there is, the more reluctant I am to believe. Because that is when they tend to shit the bed. Maybe it was the all those Florida losses where I thought “Oh this is the year–we have XXXXXXXX…”
I am not going to wreck anyone else’s good time watching the games with negativity (as I mostly watch with my kids and want them to be excited about watching)–but in the back of my mind I am thinking “Come on guys–don’t let us down!”
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Your last sentence sums up the sad state of Georgia football. Most fans expect to be let down because they have experienced it so many times. Winning a big game now means we have an inexplicable loss coming soon. Clemson/SC, Missouri & Ark/UF, Auburn/tech and that was only last season. Go back 10 years and the pattern is always there. Even in 2012, the best recent season (we didn’t win anything, but at least we had the chance to), we crapped the bed at SC.
I don’t think it’s delusional at all to think Richt can’t get it done. There is a 10 year sample of his work that indicates he can’t.
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If you’re expecting UGA to win national titles like Alabama then you are going to be disappointed year in and out. Thats comparing the resources invested into a crop-duster and a G6. Blaming Richt for not winning titles when he has turned what was truly mediocre or less than that for two decades into a consistent contender who is “expected” to contend year in and year out is flat out lunacy…. or just a level of pessimism and misery that I can’t comprehend.
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Just to point something out…Bama has 2 SEC titles and 2 National Championships in the past 5 seasons. That’s amazingness and deserves praise…but….Saban’s had disappointing losses…to teams that Bama was favored to beat by at least -7…squib kick or 54 yard field goal attempt to lose a game?…not showing up for your bowl game or not showing up for your bowl game etc. etc. etc. Clearly fewer of those issues at Bama over the same stretch, but you must acknowledge they exist.
Here’s the crazy part…Conley catching the tipped ball in the SECCG. That’s pretty much the difference between Bama and UGA having the same number of SEC titles and National Championships over the past 5 years. That’s it.
That isn’t to say UGA and Bama are on the same level over the past 5 years…whoever you want to give the credit to, Bama has built the deepest, most resilient stable of talent in the country and that more than anything keeps them in the top 10 every year. But it also should signal that there isn’t some insurmountable chasm…there isn’t some glaring flaw in our coach…I think the answer is spending on the right staff (coaches and ‘staff’), having the right facilities, and signing a full slate of talent every year because of it…that’s how you close the gap and that’s what’s been happening. It isn’t a new coach…it’s more resources to get that very good coach to greatness. Saban couldn’t do it without those resources. Neither could Meyer. I don’t know why we would think Richt could do it….yet here we are, competing for SEC championships regardless and maybe, just maybe, seeing signs that Richt will get everything he needs to be on a level playing field.
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You made a really great point about the 2012 SECCG end of game scenario, Irwin. If UGA scored at the end of that game and won, the Dawgs would have been 2012 SEC Champions and undoubtedly would have beaten ND in the BCSNCG to become BCS National Champions in 2012. Bama WOULDN’T have won that SEC title or that BCS National title. UGA and Bama would have basically the same number of titles in the last 5 years or so. All because of that one play. Pardon me….I think I just threw up in my mouth……(staggers slowly toward the bathroom muttering, “spike it, spike it, spike it.”)
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I think the points made above about support staff etc changing big time in the last year or two are a big factor. We will know in 2-3 years how much it pays off..or not.
We are recruiting at a higher level than we have in years..numbers are finally up against 85….paying coaches comparatively with other schools…support staff if probably equal to most others except Bama..I think we will see results…
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Whoa now…my relative pessimism is not driven by a single factor–and it is certainly not Richt. I have been frustrated with some of his game decisions–but every coach has those–even Saban. Kids want to play for Richt–their mom’s want them to play for him too (maybe just as importantly!). They wouldn’t have been as close as often as they have been without Richt.
We could be mired in Goff’s second coming or the like. Instead we are conditioned to believe we can’t get over the SEC Championship hump. That is not THAT bad a problem to have. What if that hump was a .500 record…or bowl eligibility?
Is it better to consistently miss the SEC championship by 1 game or by 5 or 6?
As a fan I lack this perspective. Fans care too much and are unreasonable. I can be that way, get pouty, cross my arms, and say they’ll never do it. It passes though.
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No, “most fans” don’t expect to be let down, or even feel left down. You just hang with some sad people and you feed off each other is all I can guess. You, and assumedly your crowd, is what the delusional ranking is all about, nailed it perfectly. You are the Gamecocks in reverse.
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If we don’t win the conference or make the playoff in the next 3 years, will the excuses finally stop?
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To think that Mark Richt is the only coach at UGA that always lost to a mediocre team after a great win is to not know the history of UGA football. UGA has a long and storied history of crapping in games they should have won. Goff didn’t invent it, neither did Donnan, Vince with the exception of the 1980-1983 years was a past master of it. Even with the beloved Erk Russell as our spiritual leader we still did it. We lost to Richmond, Miami of Ohio, Vandy at homecoming and Ky. Hell Mark’s just following in the long UGA tradition of not being able to focus the team to play mediocre opposition following a big victory. It’s the Georgia Way.
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69, you left off the loss in the late 70s to UVa, after Furman Bisher had written an article for the fishwrapper calling the Cavs “human garbage.” And the 7-6 loss at Missy State (which really was a bad team at the time) in 1969. But, to be fair, you can find things like that in the history of every serious football program in the nation including Bama, Southern Cal, Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame, just to name a few. Georgia is 12th in the nation in all-time winning percentage and about the same in all-time number of wins. That’s really not too shabby.
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Suppose Saban had been in Athens for the last 10 years instead of Richt. Does UGA win an SEC title in that span? If you think that answer is YES, then everything else about Adams, B-M, red panties, drug policy, and curses from a goat peddler, is just making excuses for Richt.
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I don’t think those two issues are mutually exclusive, though. There’s no way in hell Saban gets the autonomy or institutional support in Athens that he gets in Tuscaloosa. Nobody will dispute that Saban is unquestionably one of the best coaches of this generation, but comparing those situations is not apples to apples. I sincerely doubt whether Saban could do much better than Richt given the lack of support (both financially for hiring coaches and institutionally from managing the ACCPD or loosening the idiotic drug policy) from BM and I doubt he would stick around in Athens for 10 years when one of the West schools would give him what he felt is necessary to succeed.
For the last time for all of you out there that think citing those issues is being a Richt apologist…NOBODY believes that Richt is blameless for the shortcomings / problems in the program during his tenure. There are obviously things he could have done / managed better. However, to pretend that the institutional limitations he has faced during his time in Athens when compared to his SEC West counterparts haven’t somehow made his margin for error much smaller is just being intellectually dishonest.
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Well done.
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I disagree. To pretend that Saban would not have done better than Richt in Athens is being, as you put it, intellectually dishonest.
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If you assume that Georgia’s administration would have given Saban the same level of support he demanded when he took over at Alabama, you’re correct.
If you’re not willing to make that assumption… well, then it’s likely Saban wouldn’t have come to Georgia in the first place.
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Whether he would have come or not is moot. You are saying that Saban could not have done better in Athens without the same amount of support he gets in Alabama, which in effect really means you think NO ONE could have done better in Athens during that time period than Richt?
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It’s your hypothetical, so you can make up whatever parameters you want. I gave you my answer.
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You brought up a new parameter first. My hypothetical only asked could Saban have won.
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Saban didn’t win like he is now at Michigan State or LSU for that matter. Is he that much of a better coach now or is it something else….
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^This.
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Considering Saban will never coach a down in Athens, it’s an impossible position for me to disagree with you. Not sure about you, but I’d love to have all my disagreements with my wife predicated on a point where she couldn’t prove me wrong. 🙂
I didn’t say with certainty that Saban wouldn’t do better than Richt nor am I pretending it’s out of the realm of possibilities. I just simply stated my opinion that I believe the Georgia Way to be an obstacle not even Saban could overcome entirely. You’re the only one arguing a hypothetical with certainty (i.e. Saban would fare better in Athens that Richt). I’m arguing reality and the reality is that the Georgia Way is a beast that Saban has never had to contend with. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on whether his “Process” could function at even half the deathbot mode he’s currently running in Tuscaloosa if he had to deal with the Georgia Way. Certainly you don’t believe that Alabama would take 15 years to give him an IPF?
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I’ll give you Saban…but no one else under the constraints that UGA has put on our staff…from lack of support to drug testing the day they get back from spring break, and actually suspending kids.
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CMR can be frustrating on occasion, but he rarely makes a truly boneheaded call, they’re more often just not the optimal thing to do at the time. The pooch kick, for instance, was annoying but hardly the “reason” we lost the entire football game against Tech last year.
But can I just say how terrific it is that in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, I was able to turn on the television EVERY Saturday and feel the Dawgs had an even-or-better chance to win the game that day?
And in every game I can remember except one, I still felt that way at the start of the 4th quarter.
Every single Saturday…for four years.
Few fans except perhaps at Alabama and Florida State can probably say that over the same time frame. I mean, what fans would you trade places with to guarantee your mild discontent with the occasional pooch kick wouldn’t be an entire season (or two, or three) of rage / exasperation at your team getting its ass kicked?
The only time in that span where I saw Georgia get its ass kicked the whole game was Columbia in 2012. That’s about fifty games since the UCF horror show, and only one real embarrassment since.
And we want to grouse about our coach? We really just have no sense of perspective on this.
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We can all agree Saban is better than CMR right? Well, all we have to wait is 2-3 more years and then once he is bounced at Bama for not winning a 4th championship, maybe the UGA faithful will actually agree we could finally FIRE CMR and throw an offer at Saban I hope.
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