* Georgia has been playing football since 1892. In 123 years, the Bulldogs have had 21 seasons with 10 wins. Richt has 10 of those seasons.
* Richt has won 140 games in his 14-plus seasons at Georgia, an average of about 10 wins per year. With his next win, Richt will stand alone in second place on the school’s career list behind Vince Dooley (201 in 25 years), who averaged eight wins per year.
* Richt’s winning percentage, which is right at .740, is the highest of any coach in Georgia history. Dooley won 72.3 percent of his games.
* Richt currently has the fifth-highest winning percentage of all active FBS coaches, behind only Urban Meyer, Bob Stoops, Saban and Gary Patterson. That’s good company.
* The guy graduates a lot of his players (292 to be exact) and has run a scandal-free program. He had a stretch where too many players were getting into trouble, but Richt has effectively tightened up that part of the organization. Georgia has the toughest drug-testing policy in the SEC. Ever heard him complain about it? Me neither.
* Since Richt arrived in Athens in 2001, only one school (LSU) has had more players drafted than Georgia’s 79. Some see that as evidence that he should have accomplished more. I see it as evidence that good players want to play for him.
Mr. CW says the whole thing comes down to this:
Before the season, I had a conversation with a friend who is a huge Georgia fan. The subject was Mark Richt. My friend was not happy with the Bulldogs’ coach.
Predictably, he started pulling out the numbers and the well-worn narratives about Richt:
* He hasn’t won an SEC championship since 2005.
* He’s never played for a national championship, while Florida, Tennessee, LSU, Alabama and Auburn have won titles since 1998.
* His teams are good for at least one explicable loss per year (See Florida, 2014).
* He’s too nice.
* And the always crowd-pleasing, “He can’t win the big one.”I stopped my friend in mid-rant and asked him this: What if Georgia had gotten the final 5 yards against Alabama in the SEC championship game in 2012? What if Georgia had beaten Alabama and moved on to the BCS championship game with Notre Dame, where it very likely would have won?
“Oh, then we’d be OK because we would have a championship.”
All righty then. So you’re telling me that if a coach gets 5 additional yards three years ago against the No. 1 team in the nation, then he’s a good coach? But since he didn’t get those 5 yards he’s not a very good coach? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?
I would phrase it “not good enough” as opposed to “not very good” coach, but that’s quibbling over semantics. You guys – agree or disagree?
Get The Picture 
The best Richt can do is 5 yards short. In 15 tries. I think 15 is enough to decide he can’t win one.
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Agreed! Let’s look at two of greatest coaches of all time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Osborne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Bowden
Yep, 15 years is definitely enough.
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How many times is this going to be posted? Tom Osborne won 9 Big 8 titles before his insane run from ’93 to ’97. He never lost more than 3 games. Bowden took over Florida State in ’76, built it up from nothing and began his run of top five finishes in his 12th season. They were independent, so he didn’t get any conference titles prior to that.
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That’s my whole point re: Osborne. He was a far better coach than Richt, better than perhaps anyone not named Bear Bryant. He still ‘couldn’t win the big one’ for over 20 years. Of course, he could win the big one, and it was random statistical chance that he just happened to get all 3 at the end.
Whenever someone tries to base the argument solely on ’15 years is enough’, I’ll bring up Osborne. Because it’s not just that the argument is incorrect, it’s that it’s absolutely meaningless. It’s an argument made by people who are terrible at math.
So yea, Osborne had a much better record than Richt, and was a better coach. That’s fine, fire Richt because his winning percentage isn’t up to snuff. Fire him because .750 and .700 in conference isn’t good enough. I won’t back you up on it, but I at least respect the argument.
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I’m not concerned about national titles or that Richt hasn’t won one in 15 years. I am concerned by the lack of SEC titles over the last 10 years and the inexplicable meltdowns. If he had the occasional inexplicable meltdown but managed to win an SEC title a couple of years when he had the talent to do so, then that would be fine with me. But I’m tired of good seasons with nothing to show for it but a couple of nice wins and a couple of infuriating losses.
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Exactly – “I’m tired of it”. It’s an emotional thing. Nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn’t make hiring/firing decisions based on it.
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It beats faulty math based on Vegas odds.
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Still begs the question…is the difference between Richt being a good coach 5 yards? He gets the 5 yards…and it “proves” he can win the “big one” and not getting it “proves” he can’t.
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No, it’s that the 5 yards short season is the outlier of a pretty good but not great 10 year stretch.
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That a crock.
Championship seasons ARE the outlier in ANY program. You make your goal to achieve the 99th percentile and when you hit the 98th…you dismiss it as ‘an outlier’…hilarious.
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Go take your free money, then. Please give me some hot stock picks too.
Deferring to vegas odds is not faulty math, it simply recognizes that dynamic pricing systems where the most brilliant bidders get larger votes and exploit even minute inefficiencies are more accurate predictors than anything individual human beings have ever devised.
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Vegas odds are about getting people to bet. That’s it.
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I guess you haven’t the faintest idea about how odds are set?
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I’m sure it’s very complicated and extremely accurate, which is why among last year’s choices at 50/1 odds or better you had Notre Dame, Michigan, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Stanford, USC, LSU, Auburn and Oklahoma, all teams who were right on the cusp of the playoff.
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No, it’s not complicated, and no, it’s not accurate. It’s very inaccurate. It’s also by far the most accurate assessment ever devised, because anything else (yes, including your personal opinion) are even more inaccurate.
Don’t we care about the most accurate assessment about whether Richt can win a championship? If not, what are we basing it on? Vegas odds may be crap in an absolute sense, but they are fine caviar relative to anything else.
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It’s based on consensus decided by where people put their money. It’s a poll, and unsurprisingly it shapes up nearly identically to the preseason polls. So great, Georgia is consistently in the top 20 teams in the country. I don’t need Vegas to tell me that.
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They also aren’t odds in the statistical sense. It’s not a dice roll where there is a 1 in 6 chance of a number coming up. It is a payout. You put down 1, you get 20 in return if your horse comes in. The idea is to ensure the house doesn’t lose money in the process. There is not a legitimately 1 in 20 chance of Georgia winning the national title. That would indicate that if you played this season 20 times, there is an extremely high probability Georgia would win 1 national title. In reality, if you play this same season 20 times, you’d get nearly the same outcome nearly every time, because the best team usually wins.
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Yes, it is based on where people put there money, but the key insight that no one seems to grasp is that it works like the stock market. The better you are at accurately predicting outcomes, the more money you make at it, and the larger ‘vote’ you get in that consensus. These people don’t bet on their home team, they bet on games where lines get out of whack. The more out of whack, the bigger the bet they make. This brings the lines back into line, just like the stock market. So you get odds that adhere pretty closely to the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, efficiently and automatically encoding all available information.
That’s why you can’t beat vegas, or beat the stock market, unless you are incredibly insightful or incredibly lucky. That’s why the predictions made by vegas are the very best the universe has to offer. That’s why you should fire your coach when you see Vegas routinely predicting little chance of titles, and not a moment before.
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Your exactly right, Richt is just like Bowden and Osborne. Bowden had as much or more talent than anyone and list to Miami or someone else every year but 2. Osborne only had to beat Oklahoma to get to a title for 20 years and couldn’t do it. Only when Oklahoma when in the tank during the 90s did he win. One of Bowdens titles was against Osborne , the lifetime underachiever bowl. Richt follows Bowdens model – he will have to out talent everyone else before he wins a championship.
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Great! So you would have canned Dooley. He took 17 years!!!
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Didn’t Barnhart also say back in 2000 that UGA shouldn’t can Donnan bc they wouldn’t get someone that could win 2/3rds of their games?
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Last weekend sums it up for me along with the under signing.
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Do I need to say I disagree with Barnhardt? I feel like that goes without saying on nearly everything.
But yes, winning games as opposed to not winning games matters. If Butch Jones blows four more 13 point leads, will it be a consolation that they never lost by more than a few points? The difference between the two is simply of degree.
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Senator, are you a glutton for punishment?
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Agree with Barnhart. He left out the part that football is a business to UGA. And that business ranks as one of the most profitable in all of college football.
Getting rid of coaches that average 10 wins a season gets you Tennessee.
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Hiring Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley and Butch Jones gets you Tennessee.
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By that rationale, hiring Ray Goff and Jim Donnan gets you Georgia.
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What rationale. Coaching hires determine how good your program becomes. This is not a controversial idea.
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And your argument is that other schools are too stupid to use their crystal balls properly, while UGA is just too stubborn?
The fact is that Richt is one of the most successful coaches in FBS. There are two arguments for firing him that are equally foolish. The first is that it would just be so easy to upgrade from the #5 winning percentage in FBS to something better. And that’s obviously crap. Saban isn’t taking a pay cut to come to Athens. Identifying a hot coordinator to be the next head coach is more likely to get you Muschamp than it is to get you Richt.
The second argument is that Richt is so frustrating that it’s worth blowing up a successful program just for the slim chance of upgrading. Sure, we’re more likely to hire the next Butch Jones than the next Irving Meyers. But it’s worth the risk. If we get it wrong, we’ll just buy out the contract, and lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe we can hire Mike Hamilton as a consultant.
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Yes, I find Richt frustrating enough to roll the dice.
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Fair enough. But the likely consequences of that path mean that we’re the next Tennessee. Hell, with Tennessee and South Carolina looking more vulnerable than ever and Florida being too soon to tell if they’ve rebuilt their dynasty, it might be a great time to roll the dice.
But the likely result is that we take a step back, not forward.
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Unfortunately that’s kinda the point. In a time where UT and UF were both very down and SC was on fumes we’ve played in fewer SECCGs than a team that just joined the conference.
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To be fair, Missouri surprised most SEC fans by being a good team.
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Yo, don’t forget Glenn Mason
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So fear of an AD making the wrong choice rationalizes underachieving results?
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No. But it should serve as a warning that the fix is gonna be a real bitch.
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I understand why people are afraid to make the change (at least the ones who don’t have complete and utter faith in Richt, but are still willing to wait it out and see), but I’m pretty sure all of us who want the change to be made are fully aware they could botch the hire.
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“Could”? It’s a strong likelihood.
And these are not people who like paying buyouts, so if the next coach goes south, don’t think you’ll see a quick fix.
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That’s at least as speculative as saying that Richt won’t win another SEC title.
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Really? Give me that list of Georgia’s great coaching hires over the past quarter decade.
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A football coach hasn’t been hired since 2000, and Fox was a mediocre hire for the basketball program. The jury’s out on Stricklin and the baseball program. I can’t speak to the rest of the sports. I would guess there was a good hire somewhere in one of the sports I don’t care about.
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In other words, Richt’s the most successful hire you can think of. Exactly.
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As if hiring a football coach is the same as hiring a basketball coach at Georgia.
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Riiiight. They get much smarter when they have to hire a football coach.
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You seem to be assuming that there is a huge pool of elite coaching talent that 97% of FBS programs are too stupid to tap. That is a curious belief, to put it mildly.
The fact is that upgrading from the #5 winning percentage in FBS isn’t something that can definitely be done, or even probably be done. It’s something that most likely CAN’T be done. And that’s just going by the stats.
Given UGA’s history and commitment to winning, there’s even less reason for optimism. Hell, even at Bama, the model for going all in to win in football, it took them 10 years and 4 head coaches to get from Gene Stallings to Nick Saban. And that was in the old days when head coaches didn’t demand guaranteed, multi-year contracts. 4 head coaches would take 20 years to burn through without paying buyouts, which I can’t see UGA suddenly developing a taste for.
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Tubby Smith and Harrick were good hires.
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Harrick? Dude. Dude. Dude.
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But you cannot make the coaching argument in a vaccum, as if we are at the mercy of the general pool of NCAA coaches and have to play a lottery to see if we get one better than Arkansas. Our odds of getting a good replacement are dramatically better than other programs (including SEC programs) – if CMR is a “top ten” coach the last 7 years, well, Georgia is a top ten program – for many reasons, many of which are not due to CMR’s elevation of the program in the first half of his career.
Let’s turn the question around. Do those of you who dread replacing CMR think Georgia is a top 10 program with or without Mark Richt? Regardless of what Donnan, Goff, Dooley, etc made of it – in the modern era, given Georgia’s resources and home grown talent, if Georgia makes the best use of its resources, is a top ten program a reasonable expectation?
If you think so, then CMR – his championships and greatest victories 10 years in the rear view mirror – is pretty average if not below average vs his peers with similar resources, tenure, and recruiting grounds.
I was a CMR supporter until very recently – I no longer think he is the best man for the job.
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This is what those of you who are ready to move on miss about my position.
I’m not making a coaching argument. I’m making a Butts-Mehre hiring argument.
If I could trust the higher ups not to make a mess of the process, you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me, on either side of the discussion. From an emotional standpoint, I’m agnostic about Richt.
But to ignore or dismiss Georgia’s pathetic track record when it comes to hiring coaches… well, let’s just say I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who starts from that position.
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Can’t refute this. I wish I could. Maybevthings will be different under Jere.
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You’re arguing that UGA has administrative and other advantages over other programs, but that Richt just screws it up. Why?
If anything, it’s apparent that the opposite is the case. It’s only this season that UGA administration has looked to give Richt the kind of support that most other SEC programs take for granted.
As for recruiting advantage, I don’t get it. Even 70 years ago UGA was recruiting kids from hundreds, or thousands, of miles away. These days, every kid can see any SEC program play on TV, get in a car and go see games, etc. Why is it a given that every kid in the state should want to play for UGA?
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Might be a feature, not a bug.
McGarity makes a bad hire and then after 2-4 years both Coach Crap and McGarity are gone. And I think firing McGarity is the first step towards UGA athletics competing for titles.
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Given your caterwauling about this team’s winning ways, something tells me you would be as sanguine as you claim with the likely losing seasons to come from Richt’s replacement. I very much doubt that, if the 2016 team went 4-8, you would be posting, “Oh well, at least we took a chance at greatness. At least this coach only has a four year contract. If we can keep our recruiting up, things look good for 2020.”
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What? I clearly want Georgia to be a better program than it is and as good as it could be given its many inherent advantages. So obviously I won’t be sanguine if they hire a terrible coach.
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So, you admit that 74% winning percentage isn’t good enough for you, you admit that there’s a good chance that the next hire wouldn’t be as good as Richt, and you admit that, if UGA takes your advice, you’ll likely bitch even louder at this point next year.
Gee, I wonder why the powers that be don’t listen more to the fans?
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And it’s the same argument as last year. “Doing better is hard. Why try?”
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If you were paying for your kid’s college would you be happy with whatever the GPA equivalent of 74%?
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If 74% were in the top 10% of the class? Fuck yes. Its called a curve.
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It’s not that improving is hard. It’s that it’s risky.
Since Richt is in the top 5% of FBS winning percentages, let’s use that for improvement probability.
If we fire Richt, we have a 5% chance of improving, and a 95% chance of staying the same, or getting worse. And that 95% isn’t even skewed toward staying the same. Say we have a 20% chance of staying in the 9-10 wins per year neighborhood, but a 75% chance of dropping to 8 wins or less. And there’s a decent chance we get Bert or Boooch and drop to the point where we’re hoping against hope that we can squeak out an invitation to Shreveport.
You’re arguing that we should ignore the risk and just trust that McGarity can’t possibly screw up the task of hiring the next Saban. That’s nothing more than magical thinking. Buy some Powerball tickets. It’s apparent that you just can’t lose.
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You can slice these things a million ways. I look at this way: at some point in the year, vegas almost always has us with decent odds (10/1 or better) to win the whole shebang. Even after last week’s drubbing and our semi-crappy QB situation they still have us as the 8th most likely to win at 20/1. Vegas seems to think Richt gets a title every 8-12 years, and has just been unlucky.
If you are so smart, and so confident that Richt can’t win the title, why don’t you go take your free money every year? Go ahead, sports genius, those poor saps in Vegas won’t know what hit them!
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Have you bet on Georgia to win a NC every year for the last “8-12 years?”
Were you happy with the results of your wagers?
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I’m sorry this seems to elude people but Vegas odds are set to even out the action as much as possible. If you really believe in a 20-1 shot then you’d be stupid not to bet your life savings on a UGA natty.
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I got 12-1 odds preseason for Dawgs to win it all.
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Sort of agree with what Rick says above. It’s all about odds. We tend to attach too much to outcomes (which is what matters, of course) to be entirely rational. It’s kind of what worries me about Tennessee. They are a good team even though they are 2-3. Same with Bama because of a fluke loss to Ole Miss, everyone thought they might be vulnerable……not so much. If Richt is consistently fielding teams that are in the top 5-10 odds to win it all, sooner or later it will happen. Being the east favorite every year is a nice place to be IMO (assuming we actually win it this year).
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For the record, I absolutely think we should evaluate coaches by outcomes. The problem is that the metric ‘number of national titles’ is just way too noisy and insensitive. The best coach of all time can go 20 years without a title, and Gene Chizik can win one in year 2.
So you have to use something that provides better sample size. Conference winning percentage seems like a pretty good one. Richt wins 70% of his SEC games. If that’s not good enough, fire the man, but you should at least know what you are doing.
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So…are you saying spending $180k to purchase a QB AND a NC for a shitty coach is a solid investment?
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I wasn’t saying that, but I can’t disagree 🙂
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What were our odds to win the east / SEC each of the last 7 years? How wpuld those bets have worked out?
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In 32 of those seasons UGA didn’t play 10 games. I BLAME YER DAMN HEAD COACH FOR THAT!!
Didn’t read past the first stat, but there’s not really a good argument for getting rid of Richt.
A natty doesn’t define success.
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Wait a minute. You want us to keep Richt? I don’t trust you. FIRERICHT!!1!
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Oh no. I want you to hire Dooley’s kid.
Richt has done a great job and done well against AU
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I’m in the neutral camp–I think CMR is a solid coach with some obvious shortcomings–and I try to be as objective as possible when in such debates. With that said, I’ll simply tackle some of the historical stuff Mr. CW has thrown out there, and leave the rest to you all.
First, can we please stop comparing UGA today with UGA from 30, 40, 80 or 100 years ago? The state of Georgia is a vastly different state than it was than just 30 years ago, in which the state just surpassed 10 mil to become the 8th most populated in the country. When I was growing up in the 80’s, Georgia had slightly more than half that population, and Atlanta was viewed as a growing southern city…that’s about it. The same applies to UGA—it is a far better school, with far more wealth and resources, than the UGA of yesteryear.
Thus, to compare UGA today with, say, UGA (and it inherent advantages) of the 1960’s or whatever is absurd. With such a mindset, relative newcomers like Oregon, Boise State, et al should never fire their coaches; because, after all, just look where they came from.
As for 10 win seasons, call me a cynic but I suspect adding the 12th game with 3 gimmies certainly will help your cause as well (in getting to the 10 win mark). Heck, Donnan probably would have had a few 10 win seasons with the schedule we have these days.
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I agree with the number of games comparisons. UGA plays an expanded schedule with more cupcakes. In the olden times, schedules didn’t include Div II opponents. The out of conference schedule was more likely to include Clemson and Tulane than Southern and Georgia Southern.
What is a valid comparison is Richt’s winning percentage against his peers. Cupcake scheduling is almost universal these days. Georgia tends to play as difficult a schedule as most teams in P5 conferences. Being in the top 5 in active winning percentage is impressive enough that it should give pause to anyone seriously considering calling for Richt’s head.
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In response to you and 3rd and Grantham, even though we play 12 games now and used to play 10 or 11, we have gone from playing 5 conference games to playing 8 conference games. We play fewer non conference games than we did before. Thus, we actually play more difficult games than we did before.
So, yeah, winning 10 out of 12 when we play 8 SEC teams is just as hard, if not harder, than winning 10 of 11 when playing 5 conference games.
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Moral victories are the closest losers come to winning. While we’re on the subject of 2012 let’s clear up a couple things. One people forget that Alabama was the vastly superior team in that game. The only reason it even came down to five yards was because ogletree blocked the field goal attempt. To count on 2012 happening again is to count on an amount of luck above and beyond the amount required for a realistic shot at an sec title. 2011 against LSU is a better indicator of the true mean to use a staTistics term of our expected performance against a west champ. 2012 was an outlier of expected SECCG performance.
Second, why is it assumed we would’ve automatically beaten Notre dame? Our defense got smoked by every good offense under Grantham.
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Exactly. Let’s also not forget that we were coming into that game with only 65 on scholarship, thanks to gross negligence of roster management; talk about bringing a knife to a gun fight. Yet, by some miracle, we had a chance to win at the end due to a ton of luck and a QB that was superior to Bama’s.
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So Saban had 20 more kids on his team and STILL almost lost to UGA? I thought he was a better coach than that.
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His 4 national titles says he is a much better coach. Last time I checked, that almost loss still counts as a win. As long as Richt is the head man, we’re just gonna have to be content with moral victories.
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These are good points, IMO. We lost in entertaining fashion. I am not proud of a loss and personally feel we would not have done well in a Bama rematch that year. Good point about Notre Dame.
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This is such a classic example of never being satisfied. If a Richt-coached team wins a game, even when it’s your position that the opponent is “vastly superior”, it’s only because of something you define as luck. You completely fail to give any credit. Is it not an endorsement of him as a coach to be able to play even against a superior team (assuming your premise is correct)?
Yet, if a Richt-coached team loses (or almost loses!) a game due to something like a blocked kick, it is due to him being a horrible coach.
How can you not see the inconsistency in that position?
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“But you fail to give any credit.”
But Georgia didn’t win. That’s only a good point if Richt-coached teams actually won such games. Should we be giving credit for hypothetical wins? In fact, Georgia has won only ONE game in the last 6 years in which it was an underdog at all–against UF in 2012.
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Winning games as an underdog is a weird stat. What does it say that we would be the underdog in the first place? Wouldn’t that be an indictment of Richt too?
Look, I get it. Richt hasn’t won a national championship and hasn’t won the SEC since 2005. If you look back, though, you’ll see that of those 9 years since ’05, six (SIX!) of the 9 championships have been won by either Meyer or Saban. Another year was won by a generational player in Cam Newton (let’s be honest, he single-handedly won that championship).
To win a championship in the past 10 years, you had to have an all-time great coach (Meyer, Saban), an insane amount of luck and a generational player (Auburn 2010; FSU 2013…and I’m saying that FSU was “lucky” that Jameis wasn’t suspended somehow), or somehow get to play for the championship with 2 losses (LSU ’07, which is the same year we very easily could have played for and won the national championship…with 2 losses also).
I like that we’re consistently in the conversation. As long as you keep knocking on the door, eventually a bounce will go your way. Teams lose games. It’s inevitable. Perfection isn’t a reasonable goal. Hell, Bama already lost this year at home by turning the ball over 5 times. They also got housed by OSU last year in a big game.
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+1
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Husky, all that makes too much sense …
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+1 more
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Agree. And do not forget that the all time great coach Meyer was incredibly lucky to get to the BCS game in 2006. UF only got there because a crappy UCLA blocked an extra point try by Number 2 USC to enable UF to pass USC the day of the SECCG. Otherwise USC would have played OSU in 2006. Luck does matter.
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Richt can’t even win the east when it was at an all time low. Oh I’m sorry. They backed into it a couple of times. Half of you sound like Cock fans. Bragging about outback bowls and 11 win seasons without sniffing anything of confidence. Sad.
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I would argue that your position is significantly sadder. Richt didn’t win the East, he “backed into it.” We didn’t block a punt and return it for a TD because we made a great play, it was because of luck. How is that not a sad mindset for a fan? What can you possibly cheer for other than absolute perfection?
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It’s not just that his mindset is sadder, he is a sad case. You cannot help depressing people when they are mired down and wallowing in “their woe is me” funk. They just look for others that are enjoying life while they are miserable and try to drag them down to their level. It’s like people who weren’t invited to the party standing out on the street looking though a window and explaining why it is actually the losers who are in the best position. There is no logic to their attitude about things. I really don’t care if they get saved from their misery,and,propped up, just wish they could find a different subject occasionally, the same group only shows up to espouse the same tired comments, there are really more significant subjects than changing coaches 5 games into the season.
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+1 – that team played its guts out and if we saw that kind of focus and grit every Saturday I don’t thimk many would be upset, regardless of the record.
But the 5 yards mantra is wearing thin. “What if” a UGA receiver had dropped a pass in another tight game against an east rival and we’d never even won the east division to play in the SECCG?!
Why are we arguing about CMR’s hypothetical “wins” and not his hypothetical losses?
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Because the point is that to win championships, you have to have a succession of good fortune. Or a truly historically great coach (and even then, you sometimes also need a succession of good fortune). If you want to argue about hypothetical losses, then feel free to. Just make sure you don’t give credit for the national championships of Auburn and FSU in those hypotheticals. Every single championship season has a string of “what ifs” that are largely based on luck that could have/would have easily prevented the championship.
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Thank you. The fact that we were the beneficiary, rather than the victim (as is usually the case) of such a huge play in terms of point swing (10 points) in a big game…. and still lost, made it that much more heartbreaking. I’m doubtful that any FBS program or fan base has milked so much credit from a loss as Georgia has from that 2012 SECC game.
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GMVOOE®™© ℠
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I support CMR as I’ve stated before, but this 10 wins stuff is total bullshit. With the 12 game schedule and playing 2 or 3 cupcakes a year, you cannot compare CMR’s wins per year to other eras. Then how do we compare them you ask? Well I’ll tell you. You can compare losses per year. CMR may well have the fewest losses per year, I haven’t done the homework, but can we stop the 10 win bullshit.
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I posted above before reading 3rd’s post. His last paragraph was what I am getting at. Agree 100%.
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Look at his winning percentage then and compare it to his peers. It’s not like everyone else on the list is playing the ’85 Bears, the ’72 Dolphins, and the Patriots every week. All top programs play bottom feeders and cupcakes.
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As I posted above, you overlook that we have gone from playing 5 SEC games a year to 8 SEC games. Our out of conference games has decreased from 5 to 4.
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To me the question behind the question is how do we judge our coaches at UGA. Win % vs. historical has some real holes in it. # of NCs is a problem too.
Are their metrics we as a fan base could actually somewhat agree on?
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Short answer is ‘no.’
Long answer is that the reason isn’t because we couldn’t find a good metric rather it’s that 66% of the fan base fall in the camp of ability to reason while the rest fall in the edges of not being able to reason one way or the other.
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“Not being able to reason” is an interesting description. I think the time for labeling those who are not happy with CMR is over. Yes, there are good, legitimate reasons to be unhappy with CMR right now. I understand them, and I share them many times. After the past decade, it is inexplicable to me how anyone could call people names for feeling less than satisfied with our head coach.
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Ahh. So it’s the fans’ fault that UGA hasn’t even won the conference in 10 years?
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Well, Richt’s records go as follows:
8-4
13-1
11-3
10-2
10-3
9-4
11-2
10-3
8-5
6-7
10-4
12-2
8-5
10-3
4-1
If you want to make the breaking point the day optimism started to die against Alabama in 2008, Richt was 76-19 (.800). Since, he’s gone 64-30 (.680). If you want to use his first five years, when he won both of his SEC titles, vs. the rest, it’s 52-13 (.800) vs. 88-36 (.710). Perhaps you want to break it up by DC. Well, it’s 42-10 (.808) vs. 48-17 (.738) vs. 36-18 (.667) vs. 14-4 (.777). Pick any permutation you like, and there’s basically a downward trend. Personally, I think Richt is still getting by on those first five years and just enough flashes to trick people – I’m not accusing Richt of tricking anyone on purpose – into thinking the glory days are around the corner.
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“ick any permutation you like, and there’s basically a downward trend”
Except for the breakdown by DC. With an admittedly small sample size JP has a better win percentage than either WM or TG which suggests to me we should give a little more time to see where this program is heading. If Richt can maintain or improve a .777 winning percentage over the next 3-4 seasons it’s going to have to include winning some big games and I think we’ll all be happier with it.
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Hate it when you spot a typo as you click post.
“Pick any permutation…” Sorry I cut your P off Big. 🙂
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I thought the small sample size problem disqualified it, but we’ll see. Unless this season really unravels, Richt isn’t going anywhere until the same stuff happens for a couple of more seasons.
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My favorite part is that Richt gets more credit for backing into the 2005 SECC game with a two loss SEC team and then pulling the upset than he does for either the 2011 or 2012 teams that only had one conference loss but lost the SECCG in dissimilar fashions.
I honestly think that if UGA had better bowl selections over the years, most fans would be fine right now…
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+1 -good point, Irwin
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Biggus you obviously think with your rickus. You will understand a little better when you reach 25 years old.
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Well, that put me in my place.
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Man, i sure would like to have the energy Biggus got.Dude has fire for days. It’s almost Friday and dude is still fired up if i’m in a fight he’s the first person i’d try to hire to kick the person’s ass.
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The tendency to whining and complaining may be taken as the surest sign symptom of little souls and inferior intellects.
Francis Jeffrey
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If I can change even one mind, it will all be worthwhile.
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Lol, BR, you da man!
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I throw my hat into thinking Richt can get a title. I personally feel they’re in year 1 of revamping the culture and commitment to football and it’s too early to fully judge the results. That said, if they lose the East I think it would be fair to begin thinking of replacements.
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Dearest Bluto,
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I agree those in favor of bettering the program probably shouldn’t be stirring the pot. Richt has proven his ceiling.
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Hah..that’s convenient. What makes you think Bluto’s in that camp anyway?
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The tough thing about Richt is that you can find ample evidence to support completely opposite views of his coaching legacy, i.e.:
“Fire Richt! Georgia always faceplants, he’s had 15 years with all the talent you could expect and couldn’t get it done, etc…”
“Keep Richt! He’s top 5 among active coaches in winning percentage, consistently recruits well, has so many 10 win seasons, etc…”
When I try to evaluate his legacy objectively, this is what I come up with. If you think about Richt within the history of UGA football, he’s at least the 2nd best behind Dooley, using whatever criteria you use to evaluate such things. Ironically, he has been the victim of his own success. After the declining years of Dooley, then Goff and Donnan, Richt was the steward of an ascending program, with expectations ratcheting up higher each year. All of a sudden, the fan base considers the program on the same level as the Alabamas of the world, and adopted the expectations that came with that.
But Richt isn’t a Saban or a Meyer (at least he hasn’t proven himself to be yet). Should we as a fan base demand a Saban or a Meyer? That strikes me as slightly delusional, especially when you consider that traditional powerhouses like Texas and USC have struggled in recent years to attract a top tier head coach and have records to match. The question always comes down to: would you rather languish behind the top tier coaches and hope that your second tier coach will have a breakthrough, or take a chance on hiring another coach and risk a Tennessee like meltdown?
For me it’s the former. Richt has shown that he has the ability to learn from his mistakes, and I’d much rather languish in 10 win seasons hoping that he gets things figured out than become Tennessee or Texas.
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Exactly. Even second-tier coaches like Richt are very hard to come by. I’m sure Texas, USC, Tennessee, or most other programs would jump for joy at finding a coach like Richt who doesn’t quite match up to Saban.
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What do all of those programs have in common Napoleon?
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I agree with this and also want to add that not only is Richt not Saban or Meyer, but Georgia isn’t Alabama, Florida, or Ohio State.
We’re 15 years in to Richt’s tenure and he’s just now getting an indoor practice facility that he’s wanted since he arrived. Whether or not you think that directly affects the team’s performance I think it’s fair to say it’s an indicator of the level of support he’s gotten from the AD.
Saban came in and went 7-6 in his first year with the type of institutional support he wanted before starting his run. Meyer came in to Florida and was 9-3 in 2005 (and honestly, Urban’s legacy would be much, much different without Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin. He’s a good coach no doubt, but those players in his system would make almost anyone look great. He’s going to be successful at Ohio State because there’s basically no competition, but he would have really, really struggled had he stayed at Florida).
I’m not happy with the face plants, the emotional letdowns, and the disappointment we’ve had to deal with throughout the Richt era, but I still feel like things are trending up when you look at things like coaching hires, recruiting, and institutional commitment to the program. I’m still willing to see whether Richt can continue to make improvements to the program on his own.
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I think that one issue that’s simmering just below the surface for many folks is Jeremy Pruitt. Though I’ve not seen it openly discussed much, the perception exists that a great deal of the one hundred and eighty degree turnaround at BM (IPF, new assistants, emphasis on S&T, opening the money spigot, etc.) has been driven by Jeremy Pruitt more so than Richt. No doubt Adams departure had a lot to do with the culture shift. But I think some people feel the same way we did when Dooley briefly considered a foray into politics. Go ahead, we thought, Erk will make an excellent head coach. Which or course he did. But Dooley stayed so Erk had to go elsewhere. Perhaps they think our next head coach is already in house.
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Just about everything good that’s happened to this program can be attributed to CJP since he arrived. Even a casual observer would conclude he’s far more than a DC. I consider him the backbone of this program.
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All you baby seal clubbers out there forget one thing, Georgia is for some reason not as attractive job as we and the media think it is. You think following a legend is hard, try following a coach that has won 10 games per year over 15 years. You know the fan base is dysfunctional and has a much higher opinion of its team than do the other coaches in the league. You had better get a lot of front-end guaranteed money because you are not long for this job. if you take the current players and win less you are gone.
In the end this is just a game played by college students that, unless you gamble, means nothing in the greater scheme of things. We get pissed because we can’t brag to our Alabama, SEC friends about being dominate, well guess what we aren’t and I would say that barring the second coming of Urban Myer or Nick Saban we will not be. So chill out my brothers and sisters and just enjoy the ride. Bring on the hate because I really DGAS what you think.
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Guaranteed money. I’m sure B-M will be all over that. Wasn’t Dink demanding less guaranteed money for coaches just a few short years ago?
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Our dysfunction is caused by our annual sharp blow to the head no show games, accentuated by the malnutrition of SEC championships and National Championships. This dysfunction leads to being a proponent of a very risky “fire the head coach, we can do better if we score a home run with the next hire” mentality.
If you are this fan, then you are also resistant to the “10 win, Richt is a good but not great coach” and “Richt has made the appropriate adjustments and we need to be patient” therapy.
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“Since Richt arrived in Athens in 2001, only one school (LSU) has had more players drafted than Georgia’s 79. Some see that as evidence that he should have accomplished more. I see it as evidence that good players want to play for him.”
Probably it’s evidence of both, Tony.
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Can I please remind everyone out there who thinks that Georgia cannot ever be like the ‘Alabama’s’ of the world that Florida didn’t do jack shit in football until the 90’s when they hired some guy named Spurrier. Damn! Defend Richt if you want, but saying we should be happy with what we get now from him, and that it won’t ever get better based on our history is a loser mentality.
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Nope. It’s being realistic.
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Honestly, I don’t understand this mentality at all. Should Bama and Oklahoma just play in the NC game every year, with Notre Dame and USC in the semi-final game? These are four of the “historically best” teams. Should Oregon, Baylor, TCU, Florida and all the other “non-historically best” teams just quit trying? Look at present day reality, not the past, and then be optimistic and say “Why not us?” SEC championships should not be too much to ask of our program, IMO.
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The mentality I don’t understand is that somehow, just because we wish it, this time Butts-Mehre is gonna hit a home run with a Richt replacement. There’s nothing in Georgia’s history to suggest that.
I don’t have a problem with folks wanting Richt gone. But ignoring the selection process is wishful thinking.
Ask yourself one question to start with: has Greg McGarity hired a single coach for Georgia who’s been an unqualified success?
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To me, we have to believe that positive change is possible. If we don’t believe we are a championship caliber program, we never will be. Taking chances is part of success. Failure is part of success. Keeping the status quo because we are afraid of change lets fear, not confidence, drive the entire process. This off-season gave me hope, mainly because it involved change; the status quo definitely won’t get it done.
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Clean house in B-M, from the AD down to the little old ladies who have worked in the ticket office since the Eisenhower administration. Fire all the hangers-on, ex-athletes who have been “on scholarship” working at B-M for decades, relatives of ex-athletes who owe their existence to a recognizable last name, and especially ANYONE who utters the phrase, “we don’t do things that way here”.
The only way to eradicate The Georgia Way is to start over with a clean slate.
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I’m sorry, but I don’t think any of those things had anything to do with what we saw last week. Incredibly incompetent offense and special teams to me reflect bad coaching.
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Richt isn’t going anywhere:
The Senator’s words. “They need Richt.” sums it all up.
But on the NC not only was Richt 5 yards away vs. Bama I believe 2007 Hebry robbed Richt of a shot at the NC.
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Or it could have been the two losses to worse teams that cost them the East. But sure, blame “Hebry”.
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If I remember and I am getting old, UGA was in until Herbstreit claimed UGA didn’t win the East, while true, and didn’t deserve a shot then a couple years later called for Bama and LSU after they had played and Bama didn’t win the west. UGA was clearly the best or at least in the top two that year.
But yes winning one of those would PROBABLY assured UGA of a shot.
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I don’t know if UGA was “in” before that, but the year before he was calling for a UM vs. OSU rematch in the MNC game even though Michigan didn’t with the Big Integer.
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It is a bottomline bidness – win the SEC enough to keep the dogs at bay( if he wins other one he’s got a 7-10 yr grace period) and win at least one National Championship (Dooley got 8/9 yrs)…
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Disagree. Richt’s a great coach and I wouldn’t want anyone else running this program. People talk about the top 10 recruiting classes, but the teams that keep winning championships have been in the top 5. The fact that Richt has revamped his approach shows that he will do whatever it takes to win and I believe he’s earned the time with the success he has had bringing UGA back into the conversation from the 90’s.
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Richt is not as good of a football coach as Saban or Meyer and a handful of others. That is certain. Still, he and the UGA program remain good enough to win a title. The recruiting momentum and offensive and defensive coordinators are high quality enough that I’m optimistic UGA is still getting better. Its probably not a good sign that I’m ok with the loss to Bama, but the truth is I’m playing a game of patience. If UGA recovers this week, I can accept the Bama loss for now. If the season were to truly fall south, some of the recruits peeled off and gave UGA a sub top 10 class, and Schotty or Pruitt left, then I’d quickly shift back to the Fire Richt side. But I really don’t think these concerns will play out. I’m giving the Dawgs my full support as they try and right the ship and finish with one loss headed to the SEC Championship. I’d love nothing more than a rematch with Bama. UGA would have more to gain than lose in a rematch, and deep down I think most Dawgs fans think UGA really could have a nail biter with Bama on a better day with no rain.
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Also, I think the most under-appreciated part of Todd Gurley at UGA was his knack for raising the level of UGA’s play against tough teams. He not only excelled athletically, but he brought toughness and attitude to the field. Every year he played against Florida he was jawing and pushing. One could argue he was borderline inappropriate, but it helped set the tone. When he played Bama in the SEC Championship, he manned up and pounded the Bama front seven with aggression. Someone at UGA needs to channel a bit of Gurley the rest of the season. I could see Michel doing that a bit. Chubb might be too quiet. Against tough, spirited teams like Bama, sometimes leading by action isn’t enough. We need a bit more meanness to keep the team focused.
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How did that pre-game jawing and pushing against Alabama work out? Save that crap for between the whistles!
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One of my biggest issues is that even when TN and FL are not good, Georgia is still not winning the SEC East. The fact that Missouri has gone to more SEC Championship games since joining the SEC and as many as us in the past 9 years concerns me quite a bit.
I’m not happy about this past Saturday, but I can tell you this much, I am going to be PISSED if Florida bests us in the East this year after being the shit show that they were the past 2 years.
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You might as well get pissed now and avoid the rush. Florida with the exception of the 3 wins via Agent Muschamp has owned our butts, whether we are better or not.
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Just curious here, but is there anyone in the crowd that has a degree from Georgia, attended before Richt was Head Coach, and is in the Fire Richt / National Title or Bust group? I am a Donnan era Alumnus, and my college buddies are of like mind: 10ish wins a season, treat the players well, and, for the love of god, don’t do anything to lessen the value of my degree.
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Got my degree in 1969. Dooley without HW was a good not great coach. His worst seasons came when he tried to coach the Offense without a real OC. His teams were one dimensional run run run teams. Even with the talent we had at RB after HW we could never climb back to the top. The worst thing that happened to UGA was Dooley not taking the Auburn job. Erk might not have worked his miracles at UGA like he did at GSU but the team would have played hard for him. Georgia has always been a good team maybe even a very good team but except for 1980-1982 we have never been great.
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You never struck me as part of the “MNC or Bust” or “Fire Richt” crowds.
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Double Dawg, attended through Goff/Donnan. I would bet that most are either relatively new or have faulty memories. I can recall so many nightmarish games. I will never forget the Half a Hundred game nor the 1997 Auburn game as long as I live.
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What this team needs is a full time sports psychologist to develop tests to give to the players to see why when they win a few games they suddenly think they are good enough to play like crap against other SEC teams. Usually they snap out of it after a good butt kicking from Bama, UT, UF USCe etc. but we defiantly have a problem in this area. I personally think we have at least two more wet the bed games this year, it’s just the Georgia Way.
Mark is just an ACC coach coaching in the SEC. Bowden didn’t win an NC as much as he should have based on his quality of players and the quality of his competition after all FSU lost to Southern Miss when they were suppose to be number 1. Mark’s offense works Championship great when he has the best players on both sides of the ball. News Flash we don’t have those and haven’t had them for at least 5 years. This is of course on the HC but what you going to do?
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Those who accuse Richt defenders like me of being “Disney Dawgs” or “settling for mediocrity” create a false dichotomy. Of course, we are dissatisfied with being embarrassed in big games and the empty trophy case. But if you look at all the possible courses of action, sticking with Richt seems to be the most likely path to a realistic level of success. If we win 3 national championships in 5 years at some point, I would consider that an outlier. But win the conference every few years and win the big one once or twice a decade…I think that’s a realistic level of success that I could live with. Neither Saban, Meyer, nor Lombardi’s ghost are coming to coach at UGA. Some may call that settling for less, but given the choice between a realistic shot at success and a high likelihood of a hire who’s going to do worse, give me Richt all day long.
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Well played.
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Right, because no school has ever hired someone who changed the program overnight. Hell Florida has hired 2 (and possibly 3 with McElwain). Funny how everyone focuses on Tennessee hiring goons to replace its losers rather than Florida hiring winners to replace its losers.
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When a team looks to replace a loser, as you note Florida did twice (Gary Darden and Ron Zook) the pool of available candidates better than the losers being replaced is huge. When a team looks to replace a guy winning at a 74% pace the pool of available candidates better than the former guy is small.
That is why you hit on a 6 at blackjack and hold on 19, despite the fact that you will not get a blackjack by holding on 19.
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+1
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You might want to consider a different example. Florida has sucked for 7 years.
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Haven’t won the conference in ten years.
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What’s a better option then?
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I’m late to the party, but Georgia didn’t become unreliable until 2007 when “you know who” took over the offense. Before that year, I expected Georgia to win against anyone. I think the with the coordinators we have now, and the way Pruitt is changing to culture of recruiting you give Richt a few more years. If we aren’t competing for a title by 2017 or 2018 then the sky might be falling. I’m not sure how good Schotty is, but he squeezed an NCAA single game record out of UVA’s back up qb.
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The offense has been the least of our problems.
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The man has been here since 2001 and you’re telling us “just wait until 2017”?
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Voldemort was our OC?
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All this blathering and we’ll end up trouncing Ohio State to win it all. This season.
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It’s not just that CMR came up 5 yards short. It’s HOW CMR came to that moment, and HOW he coached the players to handle that moment. I don’t think CMR’s teams are as fundamentally smart as Dooley’s teams were, and CMR’s teams definitely haven’t handled pressure situations the way Dooley’s teams did time after time.
Case in point: you think Terry Hoage, Jeff Sanchez, Tony Flack, Scott Woerner…hell, even Chris Welton—you think they would have tipped a pass into a reviewer’s hands rather than knocking the ball down? Do you think Belue would have thrown underneath against Alabama, and would Lindsay Scott or Herman Archie have caught the pass knowing it would have meant losing the game?
My beef with CMR is that he has an M.O. for making/approving bonehead coaching decisions and his team’s have an M.O. for making bonehead plays in critical situations.
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The fact that we have to guess which games we will face plant and brainfart in every season is why we’re even having this discussion in the first place. There are just too many resources in place at UGA for us to be having those type of conversations in the 15th year of Richts tenure.
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Well there is always “close but no cigar”…
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Some of our fans just won’t give any credit to Richt. If UGA sweeps the rest of it’s games this year, wins the SEC and goes to the playoffs, we will still hear “but he didn’t beat Alabama”
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I agree with a theory that each season every team plays 1 game.THAT IS
better than the other games & 1 game is worse than the others. The bad game.
Examples this year: Ala. lost to Ole Miss; Ole Miss lost to Fla; The Dawgs lost
to Ala, USCe lost to UGA; & Tenn. lost To ? Examples of the 1 Bad Game?
The one Best Game is not As evident. Have they been Played this year?
Could Be: Ole Miss against Ala. ;Uf against Ole Miss.; Ala. against UGA,;
& UGA against USCe, Tenn, has not played its best game & UF has not
played its worst game this season.Best games prt team this season?
Hopefully UF’s worst game will be against the Dawgs & Tenn’s best game
will Not be against the Dawgs, For this season only,The Tenn, Game Is
crucial for the Dawgs But, The next 3 or 4 tears will be better for the Dawgs.
:
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