Andy Staples, in a piece about what every D1 program’s brand is and should be, writes this:
Georgia
The brand: The Bulldogs wear red and black with silver britches. They run a pro-style offense, usually led by a deep stable of backs. They have used a 3-4 defense since 2010. They have better players than almost every other program. Despite this, they routinely underachieve.
What it should be: Some of the nation’s best players wear silver britches and compete for a playoff berth at least every other year.
It used to be the media would say it indirectly, with hot seat talk. But when you get down to it, that’s more about pointing a finger at the fan base. It seems like now they’ve begun to eliminate the middleman.
I’m starting to think Richt is going to get some rather pointed questions at SEC Media Days this month.
Get The Picture 
Yeah, he’s in the top ten winningest coaches active today total wins and percentage wise. Let’s stir it up – it’s a sloe gin kinda day.
What channel is that rhesus monkey game where they line up in pro sets and 3-4s?
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I’d love to hear CMR address the fact that there is at least one game a year where we fall flat on our face and look completely unprepared. Definitely think we are moving in the right direction with new blood in the coaching staff, mainly Pruitt.
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He certainly should be called out immediately for this because every other coach is unqualified to speak on losing games. Maybe force him to come to the Arch every day at noon with a bullhorn and apologize to all those who are furious. Perhaps bring some food coupons for the whiney and hungry from all that money he owes us back. If I could think of the game where we were “unprepared”, I could call and ask for money for ticket refunds to be given.
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Yet you have to acknowledge that we never do better than expected (except maybe Richt’s first year) and often do slightly less, like last year. I like Mark Richt as much as anyone but he’s earned this tag.
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His first year was not great, 8-4 with a loss in the Music City Bowl. His second year is the one that got me to drink the Kool Aid. I was all in until ’08, then I saw the truth and haven’t been proven wrong since then.
I like him too, but he is what he is.
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No doubt. I hope he learned something from Bobo before he left.
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High Five!
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Well, has it occurred to any of you that the problem was Bobo? And CMR being the kind of guy he is just wouldn’t throw Bobo under the bus? That has occurred to me so I am waiting to see if some of the end of game problems disappear this season.
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You can start with asking for refunds to 2007 Tennessee, 2011 Boise State, 2012 SC and 2014 Florida. I can come up with a more complete list if you really want to pursue that refund thing.
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You forgot to mention 08 Alabama, although that game really goes without saying. Then there was 09 in Stillwater vs Oklahoma State. There are so many games if rom 2010 to pick from I really don’t know where to start, however, Colorado and Mississippi State seem as good a starting point as any.
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Losing to Kentucky and Vandy in the same season might be another legitimate refund request. The bowl game loss to UCF, without scoring a touchdown, might be worth a double your money back refund. The ’05 Sugar Bowl might be good for half a refund since the team did show up for the second half, but not seeing the fake punt that everyone in the nation saw coming would probably go ahead and qualify that game for a full refund.
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Dude, you are so disturbingly wrapped up into UGA football in such a negative fashion that I truly hope (expect, actually) that your personal life is absolutely perfect, and thus needs no addressing or overall focus whatsoever. And by perfect, I’m talking a revered captain of industry, have generational wealth, a perfect marriage, top 1% in key health metrics, awesome hobbies…and the list goes on.
After all, if this wasn’t the case, then your priorities are so utterly screwed up that you really need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and perhaps seek some sort of guidance or counseling.
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3rd & G…..hope you settled for an ugly wife, drive a Hyundai, live in a trailer, shop at Salvation Army, work for the government and never hope to excel in life……those of us that aspire to achieve and over-achieve, well we want better!
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Huh?
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I actually like Richt but the letdowns are unacceptable. You don’t see Ohio State lose to at least one inferior team year after year, so no every other coach doesn’t need to have the question posed to them.
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Except when they lost to VA Tech last year, but whatever.
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I think it’s the “year after year” thing that bothers most people.
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It’s how memes are born…funny how that works.
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First of all, Ohio State plays in the Big Fucking Ten. Give me a break.
Second of all, they that game against VT last year at home, by two touchdowns, to an eventual 3-5 ACC team. If that doesn’t qualify as not showing up, I don’t know what does. And Ohio State was supposedly the best team in the country last year. And they didn’t show up for a game.
Also, as for the year to year comparison, they play in the Big Fucking Ten. Give me a break.
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What conference do they play in?:) One loss like that can be forgiven if you win the rest. Like 2012 for us. We got whupped by SC but who cares, we won the rest and had our shot. Same with Bama last year with their loss to Miss.
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RIght…because Ohio State has been winning nothing but national championships for the past 10 years.
Oh wait….
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Don’t go there, Irwin. Ohio State played in several BCSNCGs, won some, lost some, and has plenty of national championships in football. I don’t like the Buckeyes and sure as hell don’t like Irvin Meyers but let’s not engage in revisionist history.
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How many of those were vacated thanks to cheating?
Oh…oops…is that ‘revisionist’ too?
The loss to Va Tech should have cost them a place in the playoffs this year. If it was Baylor, TCU, Mich St, or whoever with less national brand appeal, that loss would have kept them out of the playoff. Period.
Anyway…you go back and look at their success under Tressell. A bunch of seasons where they play no one because the Big 10 was turrible. Put them up against the same competition as Georgia each season and they aren’t getting to BCSNCGs. I can’t say that’s definitive…but it sure seems like a pretty good hypothesis based on the following:
2014- Va Tech
2013- A Bowl loss to Clemson by almost 2 TD’s (hmmmm…do they go to the Sugar Bowl if they lose to Clemson earlier in the year like UGA did?)
2012- Probation
2011- went 6-7
2010- a loss at #18 Wisconsin(when they were #1) keeps them out of the national championship picture (Wisconsin is the only team they face during the regular season that finishes ranked BTW)
2009-A loss to unranked Purdue (which finishes 5-7) ruins their title chances
2008-Lose to both ranked teams they play in the regular season but get a Fiesta Bowl invite and get beat by Texas (10-3 record….hmmm…where have I seen that before? I guess it looks better if you play in a weak conference and can still get Fiesta Bowl bids.)
2007-Play Zero teams in the regular season that win 10 games….lose a home game in Week 12 to an unranked Zooker-Illini squad…luck intervenes and they leapfrog several 2 loss teams on the final week to get into the championship game where they get frogstompped by a two loss LSU team
2006-Go undefeated in the regular season…hooray…only to lose 41-17 to a Florida team that won 4 games in the SEC by 7 points or less (UGA, Carolina, Tennessee, and Vandy) and also lost to Auburn.
2004- They go 8-4 (4-4) in Big 10 and lose to NW, Purdue
And don’t even get me started on the Cooper years.
My point isn’t to say Ohio State isn’t a great program….but context is really important if you are going to make the UGA-OSU comparison.
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The answer to the question (” How many were vacated because of cheating?”) is: None.
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Losing an early non-conference game, and then running the table is a hell of a lot different than controlling your own destiny in late October and doing a face plant against your biggest rival, but whatever.
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Are Urban Meyer and Nick Saban coming to Athens any time soon? Crickets??? I thought so. Now, list someone else. Oh, and by the way, we all know that Va Tech was a major player last year don’t we?
Richt deserves the tag. But so does just about everyone else on the planet. Malzahn was awesome against A&M last year. Ole Miss sparkled in the Peach Bowl. Les Miles really did well in the Music City Bowl.
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I guess we can ignore the championships by Meyer, Saban, Malzahn and Miles, those things don’t really mean anything. I think that’s the main difference in Richt and the other coaches people like to trot out, recent championships. If all anyone cared about was winning percentage, Donnan would still be the coach.
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Malzhan has not won a NC as a head coach. He won one because he had the best college football player on the planet that year. He did not win crap. Cam Newton won that title. I would take Richt over Malzhan every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Last year when they face planted against UGA, he looked like an idiot on the sideline with that goofy look. Like what is going on here. In fact, Paul Johnson is a much better coach that Malzhan. What would PJ do with Cam Newton, win a NC and score 70 points a game.
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If Malzhan has one then Richt has two, right?
Last I checked…the Gus bus is 1-1 as a HC against Richt with the 1 win coming…well you know.
But I guess as long as we are ‘ignoring’….
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Exactly, by lumping the gus bus in with Saban, Meyer, Miles than Richt deserves to be in there.
But lets not step on the meme with logic and facts.
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He won the SEC championship in ’13 in his first year as an SEC head coach with a qb that was a converted db. That counts as a championship in my book. I wouldn’t trade Richt for him, but Bob’s post was about how he lost to A&M.
He did play for the MNC his first season as an SEC coach and came within less than a minute of winning it. I don’t like him and I don’t want him as our coach, but he has had a pretty good first two seasons.
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JC, you are a trip. Curly could have played for a National Championship with the fortune that befell Malzahn that first year. I asked a legit question…other than Meyer and Saban, who you got buddy? Everyone else has warts. Would you trade Richt for Miles? Not me in a heart beat. Fact is that Malzahn got his ass handed to him on his home field by a very pedestrian Texas A&M when his Tigers were in the Top 5. Thems the facts.
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Gary Patterson – straight up.
Art Briles.
Todd Graham.
Gary Pinkel.
Mark Dantonio.
Pat Narduzzi.
All over-achievers.
I love when the Richt lovers ask, “who would you replace him with?” Now comes “they would never leave ______ for Athens” or “what credentials do they have that Richt does not possess”.
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“All over-achievers”
They are ‘over achievers’ because of the programs they coach. (Well…most of them. I love that you label a guy that has never been a HC an ‘overachiever’)
So take them out of programs that you don’t consider traditional powers, put them at Georgia… their ‘over-achievement’ (10-2 seasons, SEC East ‘champs’, etc.) a’int going to be ‘over-achievement’ any more. For every Meyer that leaves Utah or Saban that leaves MSU, there are literally dozens of guys that make the same move and never top what they did at the prior stop.
So the question is…why would you trade a guy that for all purposes can hire top flight coordinators at will, has recruits in Georgia and else where coming to Athens like at no time in the past 30 years, and had one truly awful season out of 14 for a crapshoot?
If the evidence was there that Richt is slipping or will never do it, etc., then I’d agree with you. but I think you look at the last 5 years…a couple of SECCG appearances, two top 10 finishes, recruiting mo’, great hires, and full backing of the admin and I think you’d be crazy to think about replacing Richt without giving him 2-3 more years to bring home a championship. (I guess my point is…if Richt hadn’t done what he did in 2002..and instead 2001-2005 looked like 2010-2014, I think we’d all be foaming at the mouth in anticipation of the break-through and multiple SEC titles instead of claiming he can never win one.)
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It took Bear Bryant 17 years before his 1st, A LEGEND……so please shut up about how CMR will never win one, we need the current staff to keep building up the program for another two years and it will happen,
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Donnan isn’t our coach because he lost 3 in a row to tech, the 3rd in embarrassing fashion. He also couldn’t beat UT or UF with any consistency.
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I thought that was more about who the opposing coaches were (George O’Leary, Phat Phil and SOS) than it was about Donnan’s skill as a HC. All three of those guys were among the best (in SOS’s case THE best) coaches in their school’s respective history. When your opponent is winning 80% of his games it is really hard to have a winning record against somebody like that. Look at what SOS did when he moved to South Carolina. Same with CMR and Urban. It was hard for Georgia to beat FU with Urban as HC because he wins 80%+ of his games. He’s just a really good HC (shit human being, though).
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My main point was a Georgia coach that loses 3 in a row to tech should lose his job regardless of who is the coach. In the cases of UF & UT, we weren’t even competitive in most of those games. Don’t even get me started on Auburn ’97 after beating Florida and the Ben Leard disaster of ’99.
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Well…if that’s the case should a Georgia coach who loses 3 in a row to South Carolina lose his job? Just askin.’
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You saying Richt should have been fired after his second straight SECCG appearance in 2012, Mayor? Just askin’.
Donnan being fired in the wake of losing his third straight Tech game wasn’t an “if”. It’s widely known that’s why Adams pulled the plug just a couple of years after that $250K under the table bonus he paid Donnan.
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No, no, no,no, no, no, NO! I’m saying that the comment about firing Donnan because he lost 3 in a row to Tech was BS. Those kinds of comments cut both ways. CMR lost 3 in a row to USCe yet ee isn’t calling for CMR’s scalp–so why is he saying that about Donnan and his 3 straight losses to Tech?
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I said because of exactly what the Senator said – it was widely known as the reason Adams fired him. If we had gone 8-4 or 7-5 with the 3rd consecutive loss to USCe, I probably would have thought firing CMR in ’12 would have been appropriate. Instead, we finished 12-2 and an eyelash from a title and a top 5 final ranking.
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Virginia Tech much? How much CFB do you actually watch, watcher?
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Guess the “unprepared” is the word that doesn’t fit…at all. We dominated the start to two of those three losses in 2014, and was competitive to the last millimeter measurement of the other. We lost games, everyone does with very, very rare exceptions. And to hear UGA fans reactions to losing a game it’s always: we recruit better than anyone, we have better facilities, we pay our coach more money….none of which is true.
We are damned good, but like everyone else, we lose occasionally. And if those occasional losses happen to be the wrong week, we will be shut out of a title shot. You have to get very lucky, get a break from another team (winning or losing to specific teams), and stay healthy. In sports, as in most every business, you cannot please some people regardless how good your product is.
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No Mac. You just have to win all your games. Then you can’t get shut out by luck. That other stuff is just excuses.
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I like that the media and a growing number of fans are finally picking up on this. Now if only Richt could see it. As was mentioned yesterday, the excuses are slowly being removed by B-M.
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I bet if you asked Richt, he would say they’ve never lost a game, right?
The idea that he’s sitting in his office thinking he’s accomplished everything he ever wanted…I’d love for you to go and find some Richt quotes where he made excuses for any loss.
Heck…if I remember correctly, he typically either admits mistakes (squib) or double-downs (call against Carolina, not spiking it against Bama, etc.). I don’t find the man to be an ‘excuse’ maker.
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I amazed that folks can post the same thing day after day after day after day.
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Seriously. The two weirdest seasons ever have been followed by the longest offseason of bitching and moaning ever.
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3 weirdest: 2012, 2013, 2014.
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In 2010, I remember standing in the parking lot of the Doubletree in Westminster, Colorado after losing to CU (who a couple of weeks later fired their coach) and wondering if Jon Gruden might be our next coach. The comments from this and other threads about the excuses being eliminated seem accurate to me. I’m not sure there’s another CU or FU fiasco left for CMR, and I wish I could say I feel confident that nothing like that is on the horizon. Man, how I wish.
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If past performance is any indicator of future results, there are more fiascos on the way. I’m glad to see the patience and acceptance of those fiascos seems to be running out.
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I just wish our alumni and fans were as impatient with and demanding of the folks in Butts-Mehre and our administration as they are with Mark Richt. Georgia has underachieved at a departmental scale in athletics since before the Jan Kemp scandal.
Richt may not make it to the promised land, but I have no confidence that our leadership will be able to make a splash hire that can “right the ship.” Get ready for Houston Nutt, Skip Holtz, Tom O’Brien, or Jerry Kill if we reach a point where Richt and his staff aren’t retained.
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This might just be the fuckin’ stupidest post ever. Including the AJC flogs.
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Sorry to disagree with you SD but that post isn’t stupid. The underachievement by Georgia’s football team begins in the B-M building. I have long advocated a complete housecleaning of that facility. Let’s get rid of all the hangers-on who populate that building. Where in the Constitution does it say that ex-Bulldog football players and coaches who can’t make it in the outside world get to come back to Athens and have a paper-pushing job taking up space in B-M? The problem with Georgia athletics goes way deeper than Mark Richt. Georgia (Cobb County in particular) is the Little League center of the United States–but we can’t field a winning baseball team. Every time Georgia looks like it has broken through in men’s basketball something happens to kick the legs out of the program. And sorry, but the women’s basketball program, while better, isn’t championship caliber, either. We are good at tennis and men’s golf and those coaches are the lowest paid in the Department–likely the reason for success of those 2 teams is that McGarity and the rest of those B-M bums leave them completely alone. Good things happen for a reason and not by accident. I am hopeful and encouraged by the actions of our new President, though. It looks like he is taking names and those that neither lead nor follow are going to be getting out of the way whether they want to or not. Mark Richt isn’t the problem. Mark Richt is a symptom of the problem.
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I do hope that expectations now are finally being raised for UGA. After 14 years, and now a decade without a championship, the media, fans, everyone should be asking “Is this all there is?” Expecting SEC championships will ultimately be good for our coaches and their motivation to win and excel at their jobs. We should be among the nation’s best, based on every measurable parameter. Complacency and acceptance of mediocre play is the enemy of success.
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Is there a flip side to that coin? Aren’t there many many times where we slip and beat teams where we’re the clear underdog? AU last year (at least in the weeks leading up to the game, if I recall correctly), and at Mizzou, the Gators were undefeated and #2 when we beat them in ’12, etc. I don’t have time look back at the schedule for every year, but most years (if not all) there are games where we are expected to lose, if not clear underdogs. This even happens in a few losses, like when AU was undefeated in ’13 and we made the massive comeback (and almost did again after their miracle hail-mary), or the ‘Bama game in ’12).
Maybe those lowered expectations are the result of an earlier face-plant (like last year), or maybe the raised expectations are from an earlier upset.
It just seems to me that as often as we look unprepared and inexplicably flat there are games where we play better than everyone thinks we will and smack the crap out of someone. Hence why I both love and hate football season.
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The meme has flipped in the last few years. Remember when it was “Richt can’t win big games, 1-whatever against top 25 teams when the game really matters in the past four years etc.”?
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I guess the Florida game really didn’t matter last season. It’s not like all he had to do to lock up a trip to the SEC championship game was beat the worst Florida team in 30 years who had a qb that couldn’t complete a pass if his life depended on it. Oh…wait a minute.
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Just curious, did Georgia or Florida have more players drafted in the 2015?
They weren’t a great football team and we should have beaten them, even without Todd Gurley (and folks like you often gloss over the effect his unexpected additional suspension had on our team that week). But worst team in 30 years? Come on.
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Actually…winning the Florida game wouldn’t have ‘locked up a trip’ to the SEC championship game. They still had to beat Kentucky and a Top 10 Auburn team after the Florida game.
And…that wasn’t the worst Florida team in the last 30 years. Georgia should have beaten that Florida team without a doubt…but there really wasn’t much different between that 6-5 Florida team and the 6-6 Tennessee team, the 6-6 South Carolina team, the 8-4 Louisville team, the 7-5 LSU team….they were a top 30-40 team in college football last year. The Mizzou game the week prior to the Cocktail Party tends to skew the perception of how good or bad they actually were.
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I think UF had the week off, like we did, prior to Jax. But I agree that Mizzou did give us and the teams that played UF late in the season a great formula for beating them.
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What are you talking about?
UF went 4-2 after the Mizzou game and almost upset then #1 FSU. They lost 42-13 despite holding Mizzou to 20 yards passing and under 100 yards rushing. They had 6 turnovers and gave up TD returns of 96 yards, 82 yards, 46 yards, and 21 yards on kicks, INTs, and a fumble recovery.
Help me understand how anyone used that ‘formula’ to beat Florida later in the year.
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SC beat Florida, as did FSU. Who did Florida beat beside us? Vandy? Muschamp was fired, despite beating us, for a reason. Mizzou humiliated Florida on their home field by playing stout defense, great special teams, and winning the turnover battle. That’s a great formula, used by many in the past, for winning games. If we had showed up at all in Jax, we would have beaten Florida. Spurrier and Fisher almost certainly learned from Pinkel’s beatdown.
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so the ‘formula’ was winning the game….okiley dokiley.
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Please explain what Fisher learned from Pinkel. Those two games couldn’t be more different, except for Florida losing. Surely you’ve got something more than that.
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Well, I admit I’m not a football coach. But Florida’s poor quarterback play cost Florida in their losses vs. Mizzou, SC, and FSU. Against us, poor quarterback play was never an issue, as Florida only needed running backs to beat us. It seems that those three teams made QB the issue and exposed this weakness, though to varying degrees of success and margin of victory. For us, this formula (strategy?) was either never applied or thought about, or it was poorly implemented.
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Come on, man! You know the answer to that! If we won, well…we should’ve won anyway, despite the line. We’re the only team that ever loses to an underdog. That should be obvious by the otherwise cheerful people here that routinely recite all the games we’ve lost.
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Actually, rather than “clear underdog,” Georgia was the betting favorite in both the Missouri and Auburn games last year–two out of the three examples you provide.
A simple answer to your legitimate question “Aren’t there many, many times where beat teams where we’re the clear underdog?” Answer: Not really…and definitely not as many times as we have lost as a favorite (twice last year as a double-digit favorite).
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JCDAWG83.. Ok, we get your point. Give it a rest.
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I’ll pay for those damn refunds if he will just STFU.
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That’s funny! Well played, sir
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Well, if the pointed questions motivate Richt even more, then great. A pissed off Richt is dangerous and takes more chances, which is what we need, I think.
And I say this as a full on Richt fan.
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Dawg help us if we lose to anybody this year. After all we have an experienced QB, and an experienced center. We are loaded at WR with guys who are durable. Our punters are league leaders. We have massive DT’s that can stuff the run. The DB’s are seasoned performers. Oh wait, WHAT, oh Never mind.
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Another strange dude, don’t try to figure those guys out. They are miserable, you have to be also or it is too depressing for them.
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