Honesty compels me to say that this is the best two-paragraph summary of the last fourteen months of Georgia football I’ve read yet:
Georgia fired Mark Richt because of the widening gulf that existed between the Bulldogs and Alabama. The official word was that Georgia and Richt reached a mutual agreement on him stepping down, and there was no mention of the Crimson Tide in the program’s press release announcing the news. But it became clear by late November 2015, after 15 seasons under Richt, that Georgia was not satisfied with winning eight to 10 games every year and playing in Capital One Bowls while Alabama hung SEC and national championship banners.
The Bulldogs hired Kirby Smart away from the Crimson Tide to break through the plateau they had settled into toward the end of Richt’s tenure. His first year in charge brought mixed results: Seven wins in the regular season, a 4–4 record in the SEC, a surprising victory over Auburn, a disappointing loss to Vanderbilt. Far from providing the sort of immediate boost Georgia fans hoped for, Smart couldn’t take advantage of a favorable schedule to win one of the worst divisions in the Power 5 conferences.
Okay, maybe I would have clarified “Georgia” to read “certain Georgia boosters”, but given the overall picture there, that’s fairly minor quibbling. Well done.
Get The Picture 
Alabama’s dusty old rings certainly didn’t help but that certainly isn’t the only reason and to continually say so is obtuse. Too many major problems to accept after 15 years.
LikeLike
Fairly obvious ….as well as LSU, Florida and Auburn also winning the national championship in addition to Bama. Not to mention the fact that in a horrible East the last 4 years Missouri won twice and Florida did as well despite their incredible ineptitude on offense. Pathetic. But thankfully it’s in the past.
LikeLike
Yes, and now we can add Clemson to the list of southern schools that have won recent championships. Again, not winning the East and not beating average Florida teams are much smaller hurdles that we haven’t jumped lately; it’s not just about not being on Bama’s level.
LikeLike
Ding Ding Ding
LikeLike
“But thankfully that’s in the past” You mean since we won the East this year or the SEC title or the National Championship in 2017. That kind of past? Or, the 10 win season kind of past? This year simply wasn’t good enough. No matter what angle you choose to take. Before I could say something was in the past, I’d actually like to see those results on the field. Until then, the past could still be the good ole days.
LikeLike
2014 UF did him in more than Alabama winning NCs IMO. That was the most unacceptable, inexplicable loss of his tenure, which was followed up by the GY nut kick at the end of the year.
LikeLike
I feel the exact same way…
LikeLike
The last 2 WLOCPs did the previous guy in … nothing more, nothing less. We should have been riding a 5-game winning streak against UF into this year.
I’ll say it this way about Kirby. If he doesn’t beat UF or tech this year, the temperature on his seat is going to be scalding hot at year’s end.
LikeLike
Mark Richt couldn’t take advantage of a weak Eastern division either.
LikeLike
Cap 1? how about Shreveport, Memphis, Charlotte, and Jacksonville? No It was not Bama, it was blowing games to give away the East, and OT to our little Brother’s, little Brother in Ga. Southern at night.
LikeLike
Reading that, makes my day.
LikeLike
Whoa…. wrong thread, sorry guys. I thought this was the The Genius complaining about scheduling post.
LikeLike
Keep trolling Senator. I don’t think Kirby was hired to provide “immediate help”. He was chosen for the same reasons that many an assistant coach has been hired as a head coach. There is no data to support the view that hiring “proven” head coaches has yielded more success than “unproven” assistants, but that won’t stop you from linking posting as many articles as possible to reiterate the fact that we went 8-5 in Kirby’s first season, and that somehow the 8-5 was so bad that it calls into question his abilities as a head coach. The next 2-3 years will tell us a LOT more about his ability to learn and grow as a coach, is a career long process for great coaches. While his media relations strategy and behavior could be questioned, it is pretty clear that he is thoughtful in how he approaches his job. Though it did not work out perfectly, moving Chaney up to the box and soliciting Van Gorder and other expert’s counsel on defending the triple option are better indicators of his prospects a a coach than whether or not Catalina could play LT in the SEC or Dom Sanders can tackle in the red zone.
Whether we were 10-2 or 8-5 or even won the division this year is irrelevant. None of the above match his goals for the program. Would it feel “better” to be 10-2 in the regular season? Probably, but it would not have a significant bearing on what we are going to be in 2017 and beyond. I want to get to ATL as much as anyone, but I want to be there when we can actually win the game. We would have had almost no chance of beating Bama this past season, and quite frankly, it is not clear that getting blow out would have helped gain experience or served as any future motivation.
LikeLike
I basically agree. But I don’t think 10-2 was ever in the cards for this team, regardless. Our quarterback play and offensive line play was too poor for that, IMO.
LikeLike
We blew 3 4th quarter leads. 10-2 was in the cards, and we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in EVERY one of them. We lost one game due to a decision to kick short and gave Tennessee enough field position for the Hail Mary. We lost a game where we gave up 170 yards of total offense to Vanderbilt. We lost to tech by blowing a double digit lead with 6:00 to go.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In each of those 4th quarter losses, I think lack of depth on the D line was a major contributor along with lack of quality depth at linebacker. The UT loss was a miracle catch made possible by multiple offensive holding calls in the end zone on the hail Mary play/catch so that one was simple bad luck. We couldn’t stop Vandy or the nerds late because our defensive line was tired because we couldn’t rotate at all.
My opinion only, but I think if we had a couple more serviceable defensive linemen, we would have won tech and Vandy and ended up 10-2.
LikeLike
Because Vandy and Tech have so much more depth than us………Risking getting lynched but I’d refer you to the class rankings the Senator posted the other day for the SEC East, and compare them with those two teams over the last several years. If there is a lack of depth, it’s self inflicted. I’ll accept the playing of a rookie QB as an excuse, but depth between those schools and UGA is nothing more than a lame excuse.
LikeLike
JC, I’m not sure I agree with you. The defense wasn’t on the field against Vandy long enough to be tired. We had them 3rd and 14 and gave up the biggest play of the game (a 35(?)-yard screen pass). All we needed to do was play sound defense there. Even with the offensive struggles in that game, we were in position to win ugly. The UT Hail Mary never happens without the celebration penalty to kick from the 20, the fundamental coaching error to kick short and the offsides penalty to give Dobbs even a shot at the end zone. The tech game was a collapse of epic proportions. The defense gets a 4th down stop at midfield, and Chaney goes into a shell rather than taking the chance for the knockout. Then, we turn around, throw the ball on the next possession, and turn it over when we really needed to run clock and force tech to use their timeouts.
LikeLike
You do know that several of our victories could have gone either way as well. So, we just disagree, but seeing three fewer losses is a stretch for me.
LikeLike
The only games we won that you could legitimately say we got away with were the Missouri game and possibly the Kentucky game. The defense won the Auburn game in the 2nd half pure & simple.
The 3 games I mention are games that should have been wins. I know it’s easy in hindsight to support the “throwaway season” theory because you believe better days are ahead.
At a minimum, this team should have won 9 games in the regular season.
LikeLike
In other words, not only was this year a throw-away season, but the next two or three may be as well? Awesome.
LikeLike
This whole “Georgia wants to be Alabama” meme is interesting and everything, but I’ve yet to see any actual evidence to back it up. Anybody got any?
LikeLike