This is what convincing B-M to loosen the purse strings gets you:
Richt and defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt have lobbied for a bigger budget in recent years and have gotten their wish. The indoor practice facility is in the works, the salaries for the coaching staff have increased and the recruiting budget reached seven figures.
According to figures provided by UGA through the Open Records Act, the football program’s recruiting budget for 2015 was $1.34 million. In 2014, it was $717,091. The one-year increase of 87 percent now places UGA’s recruiting war chest in the upper echelon of the SEC.
Those resources allow for the coaching staff to send more letters, stage more memorable official visits and travel across the country to meet with prized recruits. UGA has always recruited well, but what kept it from having the No. 1 or No. 2 class in the nation was allowing a few of the state’s top prospects to get poached by rival schools. That budget increase should be the means to prevent it. The rise of the SEC Network and the cash payout to each member school has had to help this area.
Richt said he believes recruiting is going extremely well right now. The class currently ranks No. 6 nationally, but could rise if UGA receives good news from its top undecided targets.
Nobody is suggesting that Richt should simply be handed a blank check to do with what he pleases. What he should be allowed to do is make a credible case for what he wants, detail how he intends to use the increase in funds and, most importantly, deliver. Which appears to be the case in this specific area.
Amazing how accountability can work. Although the irony doesn’t escape me that Richt may not be the guy who winds up reaping the rewards from that.
Get The Picture 
It would be wild if Richt didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of his labors in this regard. The fact is that Richt, while making plenty of mistakes, has done much for Georgia Football. And he’s done it without being a jackass, which makes his accomplishments that much more impressive.
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It’d be even more wild if a bunch of you were somehow bamboozled into believing this dream team hype about a “potential” top class and we end up having this discussion again in 4 years. Wait…
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This has Jere’s fingerprints all over it. I hate you Michael Adam’s, so very, very much.
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+1
I feel like Adams robbed us of some pretty good opportunities to push things over the top, but the lack of support for the program held us back.
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The irony I’m struck with is that an assistant coach with a sense of urgency demanded and received more in a year than CMR had in the preceding decade.
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Would Pruitt have even come to UGA if Adams was still around squeezing every dollar? If so, he would have been gone the minute he raised the IPF issue in public.
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Would Richt be fighting for this as hard if not for Pruitt? Further would the IPF be moving forward at the rate it is had Pruitt not stated the intentions of building one to the media?
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Have you not been paying attention to anything? He asked for these things early on, and he was rebuffed time and time again. Eventually he stopped asking because he was being neutered by the suits in B-M and Dooley’s boys who wanted him to fail.
Pruitt comes in, doesn’t know the history of the place, and just shoots off. All of a sudden, the guys in charge realize they’ve run out of reasons not to give in, and we hail Pruitt as a hero and Richt as a patsy.
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Bullfeathers. In 07/08 when the issue came up, CMR kept pointing out that UF didn’t have one and “look, look, they win championships! so the IPF has nothing to do with success”
I would humbly state that anybody that works in sales or negotiating would have got the IPF.
CMR didn’t get it done b/c it wasn’t a priority for CMR to demand it.
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Who was in charge then? Do you remember? It was Evans, and he wasn’t one to make sure things for invested correctly. Remember Richt saying Evans put a lot of admin stuff on him?
At that point, I imagine he was just giving the party line. I get wanting to have a coach who will stand up to the administration, but ultimately they’re the ones signing the checks.
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Yes Richt does look like a patsy. I am sorry but in this day and age, I want a coach that moves on if he doesn’t get reasonable increases in investment from the athletic department. It shows complacency and an acceptance of just good enough.
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Or it shows loyalty to the university and an unwillingness to abandon what you and your coaches and team have worked for instead of quitting like a whiny teenager.
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In vacuum yes, viewing they entire way he has handled the program without emotion except occasionally getting short when criticised, I don’t see him as a loyal fighter more as lazy and compliant.
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There are ways to fight for more funding tactfully even persuading management using media. One way is to ask for investment in coaches or facilities rather before agreeing to a contract extension. It doesn’t have to be a Petrino, Kiffin move in the middle of the night way. Spurrier and Mullen both fought for increases at their schools USCe now has very good facilities something they didn’t have when Spurrier arrived.
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I imagine your managers view you as more trouble than you’re worth.
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I may be in the minority on this but lately I have begun to change my mind about CMR. First, my concern has primarily been the “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” decisions in bygone years. We haven’t had any brain fart end of game decisions this season that flipped a win into a loss. I am beginning to think those were really Bobo, not Richt, the squib kick-off in last year’s Tech game notwithstanding. Second, the “Georgia Way” has tied CMR’s hands in the past and he has been blamed for the failures of others, primarily Mike Adams. It appears that the “Georgia Way” is either changing or dead as per your post. I don’t like the idea of making it look like CMR is coaching for his job next season (and certainly not in one game) but it seems to me that if they (B-M) get rid of the obviously bad hire (Schotty) that CMR ought to get a pass. In fact, if CMR manages to win 9 regular season games with the mess of an O that has been on the field wearing silver and black this year maybe he ought to be SEC Coach of the Year instead.
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Few here will pay any attention to what you’ve said, but you make some excellent points.
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Mayor, you nailed it imo
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What have we seen from Richt to suggest he would rectify a bad hire? Other than that, good post Mayor.
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Exactly my thinking right now
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Mayor! Someone is using your handle again. Of all the nerve.
😉
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Some valid points but counter arguments, never settling on a QB, and sudden promotion for Bauta are bone headed even if not single in game brain fart decisions. Taunting Bama before the game, and chippiness later in the game reflect absence of discipline. If Richt is known for making great men this shouldn’t happen.
He did get a special teams QA coach but special teams did not turn around until hot seat talk was back in front of national sports media. All the QA coaches in the world will not help if it is not a priority in practice for the players. The coaches set priority and time aside in practice..
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Further Richt recruited 3 QBs that were in the running at the end of last year. Richt should not get coach of the year for making the best of a bad O. He recruited the players involved and interviewed the OC calling the plays.
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Who moved the Mayor’s meds?
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See kids…keep sticking your head in the oven to smell the turkey and this is what happens to your brain.
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Nice post. This is how I want to view CMR. It’s the way I choose to think of him. I have a feeling that what goes on politically is far worse than we know and CMR is truly doing more with the hands he is dealt than we will ever know.
I do hope Pruitt is a long term coach for us, if he becomes the head coach I’d prefer it to be sooner than later.
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Oh boy. We are now spending @ 2012 Auburn/UT levels. The joy.
What is dumb about all these articles is they they imply that now that the spending level has been increased we should see an immediate impact. Except that everyone else has been spending at this level for 3-5 years. Which means that all the guys that we have all been recruiting have had 3-4 times as much spent on their recruiting by Auburn and UT as UGA has spent on them. Throwing some last minute letters at them isnt likely to change their mind. These changes are great, but are going to take years to level the playing field.
UGA needs to increase football spending $25-30 million if they want to compete.
Extra money in the postage budget is a joke in the SEC.
It’s better than it was, but this is more like pissing in the ocean than opening the floodgates.
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Well played, DP
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And how in the world did Richt recruit and bring in good classes while contending with the horeshit? Our classes are a testament for Richt remaining because he pulled them upstream all the way.
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No kidding. I had no idea our recruiting resources were so far below those we’re expected to compete with.
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I think it’s pretty obvious that Richt is putting a lot into this recruiting class, and it looks like it’s paying off. I hope he can hold it together, and that he can stick around long enough to enjoy the benefits.
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Bet Tarkenton raised hell about this.
Tarkenton needs to call his favored OC and tell him we want a return on that salary. We expect 50 points in next two games, or a refund so that money could be spent on a new OC.
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50 points total in 2 games. what are we baylor?
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Sorry not buying this until I see a decided increase in our pencil portrait guys salary.
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Certainly somebody should be able to match their salaries. They are the unsung heroes and the wind beneath the recruiters’ gossamer wings
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And if they don’t receive good news from their top undecided targets and the class comes in ranked like most other Richt classes that I’m told are keeping the team from competing?
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And all the commits could change their minds and then it would come in ranked worse. What’s your point?
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Yeah! Take that big ruckus!
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My point is that it’s premature to start praising the move to increase the budget. Right now, with the current commits, the class is ranked 6th, which is in line with most of Richt’s classes.
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At the same time, or when they finished in February?
The spending doesn’t guarantee results, of course. There’s nothing stopping you from arguing in February they would have signed the same class without the extra money. But it does indicate a shared purpose and an attempt to make Richt justify what he needs the funds for.
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I don’t disagree with you there, but isn’t the idea of justifying expenditures taken as granted? Blindly throwing money at things happens, but I wouldn’t expect it to be normal, especially at a place as concerned about the bottom line as UGA. Maybe with your connections you have more insight into that stuff than I do.
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You forget this is the same program that once saw Richt pay assistants’ bonuses out of his own pocket because the athletic department wouldn’t.
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Touché.
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I had settled it in my mind that Richt would survive after the Florida meltdown and subsequent frenzy. After today, I’m not as sure. Played golf with a letterman from ’66 who stays as close to the program as possible. He said he had no inside information, just scuttle butt. The word seems to be that Richt needs to beat Tech convincingly and get a win in the bowl game to get to next year. I didn’t think he was in such a tight spot.
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