I’ve said on more than one occasion that Georgia is a program that believes itself to be better than it is, historically speaking. What do I mean by that, exactly?
Well, here’s an example. The Massey College Football Ranking Composite
is a composite of more than 100 college football rating systems compiled to produce a consensus ranking order of teams. Brian Fremeau has gone back and looked at the last ten years of Massey rankings and grouped teams on the basis of how they’ve finished over that period.
He’s grouped team types as Elite (1-5 composite average), Very Good (6-15 composite average), Good (16-30 composite average), Above Average (31-50 composite average), and so forth. So here’s the test for you: off the top of your head, without wading back through the Massey archives, which group would you place Georgia in?
If you’ve chosen, then you can see the answer:
- 2015 — 25
- 2014 — 6
- 2013 — 23
- 2012 — 5
- 2011 — 18
- 2010 — 50
- 2009 — 27
- 2008 — 13
- 2007 — 6
- 2006 — 23
The average of those ten seasons? 20th. That puts Georgia firmly in the ranks of the Good over the past decade. Take a look at how Good teams have performed against other team types in Brian’s analysis, and you’ll get a pretty good picture of how Georgia has fared during that time.
To be fair, if you go past the ten-year point and take in all of the Richt era, there’s a definite bump upwards in the rankings.
- 2005 — 9
- 2004 — 10
- 2003 — 4
- 2002 — 4
- 2001 — 17
The Massey average over Richt’s first five years was 8.8, or Very Good, according to Fremeau’s breakdown. Remember how excited we were about Richt and the program’s future at that time? It still wasn’t elite by Fremeau’s definition.
Further, if you average the entire fifteen-year period, you get a result of 16, still within the Good team type grouping, which doesn’t really change my point. And this result comes from one who I would say is no worse than Georgia’s second-best head coach in the program’s football history.
You can talk all you want about the natural advantages the program has in terms of resources. The reality is that over time, it’s never delivered on that promise. Which means that either we’ve been unrealistic about those, or we’re expecting Kirby Smart to do something we’ve never seen before, despite those natural advantages – elevate the program to an elite level and sustain that.
Get The Picture 
I’m not sure that this analysis is valid unless UGA is compared to other teams. I wonder how many teams are “elite” by this definition, or even “very good” over a 10 or 15 year period. Still think it’s interesting to take note of, and agree with your point that UGA hasn’t accomplished as much as our fan base likes to believe historically.
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By definition there are 5 “Elite” teams (1-5), 10 “Very Good” teams (6-15), 15 “Good” teams (16-30), and 20 “Above Average” teams (31-50).
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In a particular year, you are correct that there are 5 elite teams, etc. But an average ranking over time doesn’t follow the same rule. Perhaps only Alabama was elite over the last 10 years.
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Yep that’s about right. And hence why we have a new coaching staff.
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I sure would like for UGA to have an elite run for 10 years.
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So would 126 other FBS teams.
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Gee, that’s nice of them to want that for us 🙂
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I would settle for an elite year about every five. I think the goal should be for every player who graduates from UGA to have been on at least one playoff team.
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Looking at the 15 years we have been elite about one in five what you are asking for. Believe with all the money being spent for resources now expectations should be higher.
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Too bad Fremeau did not do an analysis from the 1940s through 2015, to show that over time we have not averaged better than good or above average. Our 1940s record was probably very good, perhaps elite. Our 1950s would probably be average. The Dooley years would vary between elite years and average years, with the clustering of results in the good range.
The fans who are now in their 40s began following Georgia football, and forming their impressions of Georgia football, during the 1980-1983 period. It makes sense that those fans view that as what Georgia’s historical norm is.
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The ’50s were average? Methinks, outside of ’59, you’re being kind.
The ’60s pre-Dooley were pretty bad, too. They just didn’t last that long.
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Fair comment about the 1950s. I figured if our 6-7 2010 team squeaked into the “above average” category then perhaps 4-6 and 3-6-1 might be rated “average.” We had 4 seasons with winning records in the 1950s., 1 5-5 season, 2 4-6 seasons and a 3-6-1 season. We also had a 3-8 and a 3-7 season. That is how I figured the 1950 decade was average after adding in a 10-1 season.
Agree about 1960-1963. The best season was Butts’s last at 6-4.
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If you remember the 60’s…… you weren’t there. 🙂
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If you take out 2010, the average rank for the other 9 years is 16 as well. That goes back to the fact that keeping Two Thumbs too long, the underachievement of 2008, and following that with the only losing season literally consumed every bit of capital Richt built in the first 7 years.
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You are too smart of a poster to call 2008 underachieving. 23 season ending injuries according to Georgia’s own website. People give 2013 a pass because they witnessed the injuries while most of the ones in 2008 happened during fall camp. UF exposed it in the WLOCP. Sorry to bitch. Just tired of the 2008 meme. I’m going fishing.
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I agree about the injuries, but the injuries had very little to do with falling behind Alabama 31-0 in a half at home and getting shellacked by Florida. Then to blow a 16-point lead at home to tech was the icing on the cake. There were extenuating circumstances, no doubt, but that team did not meet expectations.
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I would think that talent and depth, which injuries take away from a team, are very important factors in blowout losses.
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True, but the Alabama game wasn’t about depth. Saban was still in the building phase in year 2 and didn’t have the talent advantage he developed over time.
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The underachieving set in before the injuries, which were overrated to begin with. When a DL went down, we were still plugging in NFL talent in his place. That team had Stafford, Moreno, and A.J. Green behind a more than credible OL. On defense, forget the injuries and just look at the actual starting line-up that took the field and got shredded by the likes of Kentucky and tech.
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Talent is great. But if you have a DC that puts the talent in positions that make it difficult to succeed …
There’s a reason “third and Willie” is in the lexicon.
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Look at Florida–pre Spurrier. Not even in the consistently “good” category. A coach CAN make all the difference.
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Do these numbers mean that UGA has chronically underachieved relative to its resources? Probably. And, with the explosive growth of Atlanta over the last 30 years or so, that guess seems more than just probable. But I don’t understand why the past has to limit anything about the present or the future. So many of the good programs of the last several years have little to no football history (UF, Oregon, Baylor, now Houston, etc.). Is it reasonable for UGA fans to expect SEC championships? I think so. Lowering expectations because of past underachievement is a great way to become irrelevant, IMO.
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Absolutely.
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“…we’re expecting Kirby Smart to do something we’ve never seen before…”
This is accurate.
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I should qualify that. When you say “we,” I think you mean “a lot of Georgia people, but certainly not all of us.”
I, for one, don’t expect Kirby to somehow elevate Georgia to elite status when it’s never been there before. I hope that happens. It would be nice if that happened.
But to say I EXPECT that, particularly from a rookie head coach who made his name as a defensive assistant under the most notorious micromanager in college football (a defensive coach himself)? No.
I expect Kirby to maintain Georgia’s recent status quo of 10-plus-win seasons and the occasional SEC championship, although even that standard would be significantly better than Georgia’s historical record would indicate.
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But to put it in perspective – we are 1 SEC title shy of #2 on the all-time list (and nobody is going to catch Bama for #1). Tied with LSU, 1 behind Tennessee if my memory is correct….
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The emergence of Atlanta as a nationally fertile recruiting grounds probably coincided with the downturn of Dooley’s last few seasons. Our struggles to dominate Atlanta ever since has been well documented. Richt (and Garner) made inroads, but a big part of Kirby’s success will hinge on a strong presence inside the perimeter.
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And I forgot to mention one of the best up and coming programs today. Clemson. A young coach brings energy and enthusiasm, very good assistants, and a dynamic offensive philosophy, and look where they are. A fraction of our resources and history? Yes. But expectations of excellence and the right coach can create history and change the course of a program.
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don’t forget playing in the ACC. See Florida State in the 90s.
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Clemson beat FSU, Oklahoma, UNC, and Notre Dame this year, and they played Bama off their feet. The SEC East, in truth, for the past few years has been awful. UGA, to me, has no room to complain and whine that Clemson has had the easier schedule, especially over the past few years.
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Allow me 3rd & Grantham….validates the points he has been screaming for months.
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Well, just because something has never been done doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. 25 years ago (and certainly 50), Georgia didn’t hold the natural advantages it does now. The population shift had not started. Now, metro-Atlanta is booming, Atlanta is the epicenter of college football, and the SEC is the brand everyone wants to play in.
Bear once called Florida a sleeping giant. They’ve found 2 coaches since then and won more national championships in 20 years than we have in 125.
It happens with companies, churches, and schools all the time. Senator (and this data) are dead on. Richt really raised the bar on what we had been. I’m forever grateful for that. He made us aspire to more and yearn for even better days. For whatever reasons, we never fully realized our potential.
I do believe Kirby has a kind of institutional support that we’ve never seen in Athens. I also believe he is adept at connecting with a generation of recruits in a way that our rivals might not be. He’s the youngest coach in the SEC, appears to understand technology more than our rivals, and is a good bit younger than our other chief recruiting rival at FSU.
It ‘seems’ like it could be the perfect storm. The right coach at the right time who understands the current state of the game can go from good to elite in a hurry.
It is something we’ve never seen, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t entirely within the realm of possibility or even probability.
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Well said sUGArdaddy
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I think the real question is this: can Georgia experience the highs of a program like LSU or Auburn without the attendant overreactions when the performance curve dips?
I see the patience of the fan base as a virtue. It does put enormous pressure in the AD to make good decisions, though.
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We definitely need an “edit” option, your next to the last sentence reads that UGA has a patient fan base and that it is an asset. LOL
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We all have varying opinions and judgements about what constitutes the different levels of performance, and who fits into each category, so there is no argument to be won. I would contend that no team is “elite” for more than a temporary stretch of years so there are no elite teams on a regular basis, because it comes and goes. If we were to take the “modern era” of CFB, which I will define as 1950 to the present, there are five teams, in my opinion, who have enjoyed the best/most runs of being “elite: 1) Alabama:in much of the Bryant and Saban era, 2) FSU in much of the Bowden era, especially the 90s, 3.) Miami starting in the 80s and off and on for over a decade, 4) USC in the early part of this century and, 5) Oklahoma in the Wilkinson era and some in the Switzer/Stoops years. All others have had flashes of being near dominant for multiple years, including Georgia’s 80-83 years. Surprising how few teams have ever had a three consecutive year run like UGA did, and incredibly more rare that one specific player was almost single handedly responsible.
I think UGA has been an Above Average program in the modern era, closer to average, but was a Very Good program (Top 10) overall in the past 15 years. LSU, Florida, ohio, and Oregon would be others I would put in the Very Good category, but just short of “Elite” for the 2000-2015 period.
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I guessed ‘good’ and that is,as we all see, fairly accurate over the last 60 years..back in the 1990’s I was fretting one day about the team not being in the national spotlight enough to suit me…a customer of mine was quick to point out that the Dawgs have never really bathed in national prominence…he couldn’t understand the lofty expectations based on one NC in many, many decades…he made me think and I grudgingly admitted he was on to something…
We had a good coach in Dooley and then we had Goof, Jim ‘Prickly Pear’ Donnan and Richt…despite pretty good players, these coaches had their own struggles…
Calipari mentioned one day that Kentucky basketball lives at the top because the University is totally committed to excellence from the President on down the ladder…100% buy in…maybe that is where UGA came up short…I wish I had the answer…
Kirby plainly wants us better or he will die trying…
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No doubt that Richt’s first 5 years at UGA were very good, I said that yesterday. It is the last 10 that are the issue, no titles, one BCS type Bowl…record vs ranked teams went in the toilet.
Frankly, I think UGA and it’s resources can do better. We shall see.
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Except in the history of UGA football it has rarely done any better than the results we have for the last 10 years.
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Pointing out the underachievements of UGA’s past is a very limiting process, IMO. None of the current top new programs started out their runs with “Gee, we’ve always been average, so we shouldn’t even think about winning a championship.” In fact, such an attitude, almost by definition, is never found among winners and achievers in any field. Let’s look forward, not backward, and ask the question: “Why not us?”
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Resources can and do change. They have changed, substantially. Like I said, we shall see.
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That’s not totally true. We very rarely have gone 10 years w/o an SEC title. Goff’s inability to win one (or get to ATL) got him dumped, same with Donnan. Richt fixed that, then we went on a 10 yr hiatus. Win one of those games in 2011 or 2012 and Richt, rightfully so, would be our coach. With our resources, we should win an SEC title at least once every 10 years, probably once every five. Just no excuse otherwise.
The Goff years really dulled our expectations. Dooley was really good, but every 7-8 years we’d be elite with him: ’68, ’76, ’80-’83. You gotta win those titles when you’ve got a chance.
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Dooley also had the opportunity to share titles which none of the subsequent 3 coaches got to experience. The number of SEC titles is irrelevant in this argument because the way the champion is selected is different.
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And, only playing 6 SEC games per year, plus a reasonable chance you don’t face the best “other” team in the conference at all many years.
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Dooley could share titles, and might have lost an SECC in ’66 if he’d had to go to Atlanta…but he’d have played for many others instead of sitting home, such as ’71, ’75, ’78, etc. And the conference teams he had to compete with for SECCs played the same number of conference games and had the same advantage there. So yeah, it’s hard to compare.
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And Florida, Florida State, Miami, and LSU used to suck as well. I guess since they weren’t very successful in the past they should’ve stopped trying. Coaches like Spurrier, Bowden, schnellenberger, & Saban should’ve thrown up their hands and said “well we’ve traditionally sucked so who are we to expect better, never mind this recruiting hotbed we’re located in, that other schools use to stock their rosters”
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Talent and $$$ increased for those schools around the time the coaches mentioned arrived.. UGA has as well. I don’t expect to see a run like Bama is currently having but I wasn’t happy with what I regularly saw when UGA had the national spot light on them.
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Richt is Georgia’s second best coach namely because Dooley was able to convince arguably the greatest college football runningback of all time to stay in state during an age where the power running game was king. That being said I totally agree with the premise of this article. Georgia fans as a general rule think of the program a lot more highly than they should which is why most of the reasons they gave for wanting Richt fired were laughable to me.
Some of the criticism of CMR was well deserved, and the small sampling that we’ve seen from CKS is promising, but let’s call a spade a spade, we lost some recruits that would have helped the program (R. Davis, E.J. Price perhaps D. Brown) and flipped two three stars from Bama. He was also able to keep a long standing commitment from Eason. Flipping Fromm was huge, and it wasn’t an inevitability, but the kid wanted to come to Georgia from the get go.
My point is the same fans that wanted Richt gone will be calling for Smart’s job if Georgia only wins 8 games next season. The bar is set at winning the East, and there will be heavy dissension from the unrealistic fan base who thinks Georgia and Bama are on the same plane if that doesn’t happen (especially by year two). They will also be e-mailing ADGM to help pay to cover up their UGA 2016 National Championship tattoos that they’ll be getting this summer.
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Richt also had more better facilities and access to talent than any coach before him.
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*had access … flipped access to talent and facilities while typing
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The facilities were not better if you compare to the competition. He didn’t even have an indoor facility. Also, could you define access to talent? I believe Donnan coached Champ Bailey, Richard Seymour, Marcus Stroud, Jermaine Phillips. Robert Edwards, Hines Ward you get the picture (see what I did there?).
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UGA and the SEC as a whole did not have the revenue they do now, nor was UGA a top 4 talent producing state. I would actually argue UGA is closer to Bama than ever before in terms of facilities, access to talent, and funding.
Historically UGA is the 3rd winningest SEC program behind Bama and UT. I don’t think it is unreasonable to regularly be top 3 again. Also during the Bear’s most dominant stretch from 64 to 81 Dooley was the coach that most frequently won or tied for the SEC championship.
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What were the top four talent producing states during that era? Also, what were the differences in facilities between Alabama and Georgia at the time?
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Anyone in the SEC fighting Saban and Bama is in for an uphill battle. CMR should have made hay before Saban got entrenched at Bama. Fact is he couldn’t beat the shitty UF teams….so we have moved on. I doubt Kirby thinks just because Richt didn’t win crap the last 10 years that he can’t.
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I would certainly hope he doesn’t think that. What Coach has ever thought they couldn ‘t win based on the previous coach?
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I disagree with you. Many of the fans that wanted CMR gone are reasonable people who felt UGA needed a change. These fans will be patient and give CKS a chance. I don’t know anyone who feels that UGA and Bama are on the same plane. On the other hand, Bama can be beaten and can’t stay on top forever; why not lay the foundation to be the next great SEC power?
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Given the %s of people who wanted Richt gone was less than those who did not, I think its more likely the heat is on Smart to deliver quicker rather than not.
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I don’t think you do disagree with me. I’m not talking about reasonable fans, I’m talking about the large population who thinks they have the ability to evaluate play calling and quarterback fundamentals despite having never played a snap or coached at all on the college level.
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I’d love to see where we rank on preseason rankings alone. My guess is we’re firmly in the Very Good category prior to the actual season.
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Winning starts in the front office. I don’t remember winning ever being a priority with the Administration. Dooley had to fight for everything he got and was always butting heads with one UGA president or another. Hopefully the culture has changed enough post Pruett to give Kirby a fighting chance.
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Pruitt has nothing to do with it. The AD realizes his neck is on the line if Kirby doesn’t succeed.
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