It’s only March, so, yeah, a grain of salt is in order, but one thing Kirby Smart has working in his favor is that Georgia appears to be on the way to becoming 2016’s anti-Tennessee.
Before you go there, I’m talking about in terms of what the media’s perception of Georgia’s prospects are likely to be this season. Take, for example, this bit from Paul Myerberg’s SEC spring football preview:
The Volunteers will enter the 2016 season on a six-game winning streak, the second-longest streak in the SEC — trailing just Alabama, which won its final 12 games after an early loss to Mississippi. For Tennessee, this stretch has helped to validate Butch Jones’ steady progress since being hired following the 2012 season…
But it’s time for a breakthrough, particularly given the undecided nature of the SEC East Division. Florida remains a heavy favorite to repeat atop the division, though the Gators’ offense needs to see drastic improvement. Georgia is talented — Georgia is always talented — but starting fresh under a new staff. With Missouri and South Carolina in similar states of flux, the time is now for the Volunteers to take the division and challenge the SEC West for conference supremacy.
That’s third place in the East versus “it’s time”. And No Pressureville is a nice place for Smart to hang out for a while.
True, there are personnel issues to sort out in several key places, as well as a new staff that has to settle in. But one thing quietly working in Georgia’s favor is the schedule. Checking Phil Steele’s 2016 Spring Guide reveals that Georgia faces opponents coming off a combined 74-76 season last year. Only four of those finished the 2015 season ranked. Five had winning records.
In comparison, Florida has an even easier row to hoe. But Tennessee’s path is more difficult. (Although to be fair, nothing compares to what the SEC West teams face, at least on paper. The top four on Steele’s list are LSU, Arkansas, Mississippi and Auburn. Alabama is eighth, only because it doesn’t play Alabama.)
Bottom line: the schedule appears manageable five months out from the start. If Smart can sort out the most egregious personnel problems, at least to some extent, he’s got a chance to make a better season of it than perhaps most will be expecting. We’ll see how it goes.
Get The Picture 
Have Georgia and Tennessee changed that much since last year? Georgia clearly would have beaten the Vols..and handily…but for the (yes, this is arguable, but I think the Vols went for his knees) ugly hit on an unforgiving turf. With a healthy Chubb and some improvement..ANY improvement in the passing game…Tennessee should lose in Sanford this year. I’m growing to hate that program more than any other.
Once again, Georgia is “under the radar” and the Vols are lauded and tracked, and will hopefully dissapoint the hoard of green teethed (toothed?lol) cousins.
Tennessee is to the SECE what Auburn is to the SECW.
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“And No Pressureville is a nice place for Smart to hang out for a while.”
Well, hopefully for this season only anyway.
Another thing I’ll add is that UGA football often performs better in an underdog role than when the expectations are jacked up in the preseason. I know that the past is the past and all the rest, but spanning back many years and former coaches, from Dooley, Donnan, and of course CMR, this trait seems to be part of UGA’s overall DNA. Thus, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a few breaks and end up winning the east in Smart’s first year (similar to McElwain at UF last year), even though none of the so-called experts would predict as such for us.
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How is Smart in No Pressureville? He didn’t inherit a mediocre Vandy roster. UGA may not have Alabama-depth talent, but it has lots of talent. Florida was solid last year, but they aren’t Alabama. UT? Please. The rest of the East? Didn’t we beat all of them last year? Is there any reason we shouldn’t beat all of them this year? Havent we beaten Auburn 8 times in the last 10 years? Ditto Tech? (and didn’t it take massive flukes for it not to have been 10 out of 11 with AU, and 15 in a row with Tech?) Did we not have a very good recruiting class? If the coaching staff is an upgrade, why would you expect less for this season than last season?
Smart got hired because winning 10 games a year was considered mediocre. There’s no reason at all for us not to be in contention this year. Why should UGA be afraid of Florida, or anyone else on this year’s schedule? I get the “set expectations low” if you’re Kirby Smart, but realistically, why would anyone expect UGA to not strongly contend for the East title THIS year?
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“Smart got hired because winning 10 games a year was considered mediocre.”
I don’t know why people continue to repeat this line, even though this has been debunked hundreds of times just since CMR’s firing. First off, in CMR’s last 7 years as coach, he averaged 9.1 wins a year; not 10, with an overall winning percentage almost identical to Donnan (who faced much stronger UT and UF programs yearly). Second, CMR was gift-wrapped the SEC east over the last few years but never took advantage of it (thus little Mizzou winning the east several times and a mediocre at best UF team winning it last year).
Finally, CMR was fired because we were getting utterly trucked in big games, with losses averaging something like a 14 point defeat and with a pathetic W/L % against ranked teams going all the way back to 2006. Oh, and in years where CMR won 10 games, those 10 wins often weren’t all that impressive. Take last year, for example—we beat exactly ZERO teams with a winning record from a P5 conference. Yet you and others keep making it sound like CMR guided us to a triumphant season with all these great wins yet was sadly fired anyway.
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all he said was that winning 10 games wasnt enough for some people. You just went on a 2 paragraph rant proving his point.
UGA might have lowered expectations with the beat writers, but this fan expects to win them all.
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It’s a pretty impressive rant, though. If CMR won a few more games, and just the right ones, he wouldn’t have been fired.
While I was halfway on/ halfway off the fire’em train, I am looking back at things and seeing that it was time for a change. The program was struggling.
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not sure about that. By definition (of some) any games won are meaningless and all the games lost are the important ones.
hard to win the right ones when winning makes them the wrong ones.
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No, it hasn’t been debunked! The loudest and most obnoxious have only become hypocrites. That’s all that had happened.
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*has
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You missed his point. His point was not to revisit the Richt years. His point was to discuss expectations for 2016 by comparing the evaluation of the 2015 results against the same teams we play in 2016.
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Do Fulmer and Spurrier have to give their rings and trophies back because Georgia was down?
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Selective use of stats really bolsters an argument. (/snark) 7 years pulls in the 2010 season but cuts-off 2007 and 2008. Guess you have to start somewhere, right? Pretty sure this last senior class had 40 wins.
Richt got fired for losing to FL and not winning the SEC. Period. Calling 10 win seasons mediocre is absurd, but not accomplishing the first two agenda items was a legitimate reason (for some) to move on. If it was just coaching as many imply that held back Richt, seems Kirby should hit the 10 win mark himself, if not the SECe title, no? You and others love to point-out how easy / meaningless those 10 wins are, so what’s so tough for the new staff if Richt was sleep-walking his way all these past few years?
Truth is, Kirby will find out how hard or easy it is. If we truly “out talent” the rest of the SECe, then Kirby should be expected to at least match our prior 10 win seasons. If he’s an improvement, he should start to own the SECe in the next few seasons. But if Richt really was getting more out of less, then Kirby has a similar mountain to climb and we’ll see if he’s up to it. If he’s not, it doesn’t mean firing Richt was a huge mistake as much as it will mean we didn’t get the right guy to replace him. And we’re back to the main argument…Richt seemed to be close, but coming-up short, so who else can come in an better his 8th best overall record in CFB during his HC tenure at UGA? A record without a lot of championships, but one to be proud of IMHO anyway.
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2008 strikes me as another one of those 10 wins but very disappointing seasons. Also a big “what if” moment, because if CMR had looked at the defense giving up 40+ in all 3 losses, and said “you need to go Willie,” Chavis was there for the taking. Instead Martinez stayed on for one more season, and LSU got a head start on an SEC-winning defense.
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take 2009 out of the mix and tell me what the numbers were the last 5 or 6 years. Or add in enough years to make it 10; what’s the old line, statistics don’t lie, but liars can use statistics? Glad to see you have lowered expectations, apparently. Kirby should rest easy knowing you have his back.
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We probably don’t know exactly why Smart was hired. But possible reasons may have included not winning the SEC in a decade, not winning a very weak SEC East since 2012, and then the CBS hiring and the 2015 offensive issues. Ten wins that would have included East titles and signs of progress toward championships. IMO, would not have been considered mediocre. But the recent drought of big wins and the bad losses to UF instead indicated to many that CMR’s best days at UGA were behind him. And I do think it is fair to expect CKS, or any UGA coach for that matter, to contend for the East title; that probably means we go 1 and 1 vs. UT and UF and 1 and 1 vs. Ole Miss and Auburn. I think we can do that.
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Richt was let go for competing once in the last 10 years on a National Stage…and we lost that one. Can we move on now?
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Is that the expectation for UGA? Should it be?
UGA has never put in the resources and effort to be a national player, why would we expect it?
Its like people think that the very existence of UGA means that we should be competing on the national stage. That being in Georgia is simply enough to speak it into being.
UGA has fielded one national title team in the last 70+ years. A team that many consider to be one of the least dominate title teams in CFB history. And that is a team with what many consider to be the best player in CFB history.
Getting to a national stage once in 10 years would be a huge improvement for UGA.
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Richt’s first 5 years were superior to his last 10. The last 3 especially bad in my opinion. Name a game we won of consequence that lead to a title of any kind? All 10 win seasons are not the same.
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So Kirby gets 3 years for a title or he’s out? Your words/timeframe, not mine. Your first 2 sentences were fine…why take that jab when you begged everyone to “move on” just an hour ago?
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I am not in charge of setting timetables. I will say that I think 10 years of nothing is too long. I realize opinions vary. You have to think if Kirby is here 5 years and has nothing to show for it, he’s on thin ice for sure.
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+1
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The Georgia Way is alive and well
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He was clearly referring to himself and his overall expectations for Smart starting now. And nothing I said did anything to prove his point, as I’ve never subscribed to such nonsense about CMR being fired for 10 wins. Besides, as mentioned in recent years CMR averaged 9 wins, not 10, so we probably should get his average wins per year right before saying anything else.
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You know you’re reaching when you’re STILL trying to make Donnan equal to Richt. Hey! I know it’s a far fetched idea but maybe Richt had something to do with the decline of those programs. Certainly did with UT but let’s ignore that.
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If we win it all but all the teams we beat have losing records it doesn’t matter that we won right. 😉
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The schedule breaks Kirby in reasonably nicely: We’ll get a big challenge with UNC and if we lose, no big deal really. Then a gimmie win with Nicholls State and a road win at Mizzou puts us at 2-1 and off on the right foot in SEC play (1-0).
I’ll mark Ole Miss as a loss: on the road, to a west team, much worse games in league to lose. 1-1 in SEC when we play UT for the SEC Home Opener.
That’s not a bad place to be positioned for the rest of the season. Even if the Vols are 4-0 with a win over UF.
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No comments on the quality of those six opponents that Tennessee beat, national media? November turn of the schedule for the Vols is nothing new.
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In the East the last three seasons, Georgia has finished 3rd, 2nd, and 3rd.
After blowing up the program and starting over, a projected 3rd place finish speaks more to the weakness of the division than it does about Georgia.
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I think that is the point that people are trying to make. This isnt a blowing up and starting over situation. This is probably the best situation that any first time head coach has every stepped into.
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Larry Coker might argue that point ;-).
That said, Kirby is off to a very good start hiring his staff and recruiting. He appears to know his way around the organization despite being gone for so many years, so I don’t anticipate the ‘starting over’ phase will last long.
Hope to see good evidence next month on how well the team has bought in.
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what would dawg fans do if we got another Larry Coker situation in Athens?
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I don’t see it myself, we beat one team with a pulse last year, in OT no less. Our schedule cannot be that weak again.
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I respectfully disagree with your assessment that this is the best situation ever for a new head coach. Richt won 10 games including a bowl last year so that does look much better at first glance than what most new coaches get when taking over a program. Otherwise, Richt left Kirby no experienced-serviceable QB, absolute crap for an offensive line, one proven receiver, only one SEC caliber RB ready to start in Sept, no returning starters on the defensive line……oh and no punter or kicker. You think we should compete for the division with that plus a new staff?
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while the points you make could be true, the comparisons is with school who fired their coaches. Look around the country at schools where the coach was fired. Are any of those schools in as good of a position to win as UGA is?
doesnt seem like it.
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Can’t speak for DP, but, given the state of the East and Georgia’s schedule, yes, I do expect the Dawgs to compete for the division.
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I think we’ll be in the thick of it. Would be nice to not get our doors blown off in Jax. to put out our lights. We can hope.
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Lowered expectations?! I think the sec east is ours for the taking.
Let’s face it, we handed the sec east to our opponents on a silver platter the past 3 years. We scraped by on our finger nails against teams we should’ve pulverized. We made asses of ourselves in Jax. Many of our chances to distinguish ourselves as a football power was met with ever more creative ways to squander opportunities.
From the actions I’ve seen so far, this new HC isn’t the type of guy who’s going to sit back and let things get out of control. I like the work ethic and attention to detail. Those are the kind of traits that pay off on game day.
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(Alert: Total non-sequitur from a very occasional poster/long time reader)
Whatever happened to Joyriding Dawg?
For years, especially in 2011 and 2012, he/she would pop in, talk about having martinis with the former governor of Mississippi or something, and then disappear. Always wondered if he/she was legitimate or just a troll.
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I banned her ass a while back.
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I guess she will remain a mystery then…
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Thank goodness.
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