Ray Goff, bless his heart.
“I got fired. He doesn’t need to hear from me. He needs to hear from the people who were successful.”
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“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
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Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
No issues with Ray, DGD in my book.
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Was not a great coach, but has never wavered in support and love for UGA
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Agree, Dooley was totally responsible for bungling this hire. Goff was a “Peter Principle” example who got moved too fast, and too far up the ladder for his skill set (at least at the time). Not only did VD botch the hire, he failed to man-up to it until UGA had paid a big price for his error. As you said, Ray was a solid dawg back then, and he remains one today.
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Vince Dooley did not hire Ray Goff. A committee, led by Chuck Knapp, hired Ray Goff. Had Vince been in a position to make the call, it would have been Erk.
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Dooley didn’t hire Goff? That’ll come as a surprise to both men.
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Never said Vince didn’t endorse it or that he had zero input. Picking Vince’s replacement was left to a committee. Even if, due to the committee’s work up to that point being such a disaster, that they essentially let Vince make the call, it’s wrong to lay Goff at Vince’s feet. It’s not like he would have been starting from scratch at that point. A lot of factors reduced the field by that time.
Vince made one recommendation to the committee charged with replacing him: Erk Russell. The committee fucked that up. We ended up with Ray, by whatever means, after the committee fucked that up.
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I’ve heard Vince specifically did Not hire Erk. Not that there was anything to back up this statement, but I’ve heard it ofen repeated.
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VD DOESN’T want any Georgia football coach to be as successful as he was. He is that self centered. Ask yourself why every 2-3 years he pops out with another book about the 1980 team?
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Erk said in his autobio that he was offered the job, but declined. UGA officials said they didn’t offer him. If I have to choose between believing Erk or Butts-Mehre, I’m with Erk.
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Agreed
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This is not true. Dooley wanted and pushed for Goff over Erk for several reasons that I won’t bother opening up that can of worms as to why.
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Of course he hired him. Whether a committee was in place, or not, he was the responsible manager and had the most say. Additionally, he was responsible for that whole cluster for making a snap decision and putting UGA in that position. Wasn’t his first choice but things got desperate. Will always be on him. May not be in your la la land, but how things are viewed in the real world. But keep opining on things you don’t understand, odds are you will right about something one day.
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Vince was not even a member of the selection committee. The committee didn’t follow his advice. You can invent all of the opinions and facts all you’d like, but you don’t get any closer to the truth.
For people like yourself “telling it like it is” is akin to watching YouTube conspiracy videos. It’s just nonsense upon nonsense upon bullshit. You’ll believe anything so long as it’s isn’t based in fact. Look up “confirmation bias.” It describes you.
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Tell it like it is/was Derek. I’m in agreement that so many will form strong opinions on absolutely no facts…..only unfounded baseless rumors.
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Of course he did. The committee was a front that had no authority no power and no people. Of course it was. It was like an empty room. Of course it was. Why would they engage a committee unless they would give the ad full hiring power? Of course they would. It doesn’t even make sense not to have a committee when it’s Vince’s call. It’s so obvious. They didn’t have a committee when CMR was hired because a committee decided on CMR and not Vince because that’s how it works. You want Vince to have full responsibility? Get a committee. When you want it to be obvious that he has no say so at all then no committee. It’s so obvious what the truth is. You’re on it dude. You got it all figured out. It’s people like you and your magical powers of logic that will make America no longer suck a big donkey dick like it does today. Just 100 days to go before this apocalyptic hellscape we call America is made livable again! I understand we’re all getting a pony! Of course we are!
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Good grief.
“It’s people like you and your magical powers of logic that will make America no longer suck a big donkey dick like it does today. ”
This is a grown up blog son.
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Homey, Derek is right about Vince and Goff. That some folks don’t care for Derek’s choice of words is their right, but that don’t make him wrong.
One thing I wouldst quibble with is the deal with Erk. The deal breaker was transferring Erk’s tenure track from Georgia Southern. Erk had already begun hiring staff when the thing fell through. Goff may not have had the experience to do a great job, but he manned up when it became obvious the hiring process had become a cluster-fuck, mainly because Dooley had so little hands-on involvement.
And Derek….can I have a red pony? I’ve always wanted one.
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Of course you can! What other color would it be? Of course red. I mean come on! Of course the pony is red. Everybody knows it’ll be a red pony! Of course red is the color of the pony. It’s funny that you don’t know it will be a red pony! Of course the ponies will be red. Why are people so naive? It’s so obvious that the pony will be red. Of course the pony is red. Of course…
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Brilliant, man, but…ah…I gotta ask, do you ghost-write stuff for one of the presidential candidates, cause the above seems….well…you know? 😀
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You cut and pasted and reposted it? If you aren’t part of the solution…. Anyway, unclutch the pearls dude. You expect more mature discourse in a sarcastic blog post clearly intended to be absurd, eh? Seriously? Why not just keep your oh so delicate sensibilities between you and the gals you drink tea with? Your role as “self-appointed hall monitor” is as transparent as it is annoying.
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Still a grown up blog son.
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WTF are you talking about?
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My deep respect for Macallanlover’s insightfulness and for AHD’s moral authority over blog comment content.
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Read the thread. Jeepers dude. Keep up.
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Neither of us should have ever engaged him, his long history of losing continues. Usually hope springs eternal but in his case…..
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I can’t blame Ray for his unsuccessful head coaching tenure. Vince and the administration completely bungled the whole process of hiring a successor to Dooley. Ray was foolishly offered a job for which he was not nearly qualified, and of course he could not turn it down. Ray was a valiant Dawg on the field, and he has continued to be a DGD, in spite of his sour coaching experience.
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Also agreed, Goff was offered his dream job but was not ready for it (which is a reason why I was not a fan of hiring a HC without HC experience) Goff was learning on the job and had he hired Kines earlier who knows he may have lasted longer.
Donnan bungled Kines and Ramsey. The word from a lady that sat in the seats next to my uncle and worked in the ticket office was that the players under Donnan were not disciplined, toss in losing records to rivals, with opening to Who Let the Dogs Out and his firing is not hard to understand.
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Hell of a option QB!
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I’ll always remember him for this comeback.
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Great video …Pollard had a great game at full with a lot of touches. The offensive game sure has gone away from that.
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one of my all time favorites –you just knew at half we were gonna come back — the 76 team one of my all time favorites – yeah bama 21-0
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Goff is a damn good Dawg. Loved watching him play and he bleeds red and black.
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The weird part is that I don’t think Lambert has worked under a high quality OC since he has been in college. We have all seem him look spectacular at times and pedestrian at best in other games. We are going to have to score more this year to stay in games with a new front 7. I think we all know who probably gives us more explosive plays from QB but a freshman is still a freshman and his mistakes will be ugly. The only way the game will slowdown for JE is if he plays and plays a lot. This team has a ton of question marks. Let’s just pray for a healthy camp starting tomorrow. We can’t afford a rash of injuries. Gawd I’m ready for the season!!!
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Ray Goff is a good man and was a decent coach. People forget he inherited a different UGA than what Dooley had. That was after the UGA got caught (via Jan Kemp) with some academic bad habits. Goff recruited some good kids but had a hard time keeping them in school. Depth on the defensive line was often an issue. Maybe I remember things wrong, but that’s how I remember them. And man, that offense was sure fun to watch!
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You can’t totally let Ray off the hook though. While there were a lot of things stacked against Ray there are several things he just has to be held accountable for in no particular order and certainly non-exhaustive:
vandy’s 43 points on homecoming
the coaching negligence so obvious that Randall Godfrey called them out after the Bama game in 1994
blaming your struggles on not having a TB while a future 2000 yard rusher is on the roster
cheating while losing. I mean I’m not one to endorse cheating, but as I understand it you’re supposed to gain an advantage. Pretty pitiful that.
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Figures you would come here and trash a Damn Good Dawg….
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That reply button can be a little tricky. Copy and post your reply up there under Macallanlover where you meant for it to be. He trashed both Ray and Vince so I can understand how you’d get so upset over such a thing that you’d misplace your reply.
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When the trash is slung from the left it’s always more offensive.😉
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If Ray had been perfect, he’d still be coaching. Are you saying his shortcomings as a coach are exempt from criticism?
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When Vince retired from coaching he was going to run for the Senate. Because of that he did not make the selection. He did recommend Erk. The committee asked Erk but he turned them down due to his age. The committee then embarrassed by Erk’s turn down lied to the media, saying they never asked him. They then went after Dick Sheriden the coach at NC State. He used the offer to get a raise and turned us down. All the while Ray was politically working behind the scenes to get the job. He got all the asst coaches to back him. In desperation the committee gave him the job. So Vince really never picked Ray.
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People forget but the “politically working behind the scenes” you mentioned included Goff’s wife who had been the homecoming queen while in school and was a very popular alumna. I heard she got all her sorority sisters to do a telephone tree and call all their friends who in turn called all THEIR friends asking for telegrams of support. Thousands of letters and telegrams showed up at B-M supporting Ray.
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That’s the worst of the Georgia Way. Ray should have never been allowed that close to the controlling levers of the Georgia football program. He will be a DGD for his exploits on the field, but Dooley didn’t even trust him enough to run the offense as an assistant. He’s what Dabo would have become if he hadn’t hired Chad Morris to run his offense.
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The above is what I had been told by parties involved.
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Yep, that’s the story I always heard. Ray worked very hard behind the scenes to get the job. Nothing wrong with that, he just shouldn’t have gotten it.
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Ray was a cracker jack recruiter and whoever was doing the hiring fell for thinking great players would be enough. Ray did bring one of the best assistant coaches ever in college football back to Athens, Wayne McDuffie. Like Donnan, Ray could never get it right on defense. Lots of talk during his tenure also that Coach Dooley was calling the shots.
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Ray is a DGD and always a class act but he deserves credit for something he did as a coach – opening up our offense. I remember there was a lot of excitement about that when he got the job. Then Eric Zeier came to campus and that sealed it. Zeier put up his best numbers when we actually had losing records, go figure.
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Goff was better than Donnan in my opinion. Goff put some great Offenses on the field just never had a Def and made some iffy game day calls
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Goff was a great and gritty player. He just didn’t work out as a head coach. But, whatever the circumstances with Erk.. What might have been had he been hired as the UGA Head Coach…?
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