This is what happens when you take trolling seriously.
Aside from that, does anyone really believe Smart will be under the slightest bit of pressure if his second year goes as well as Richt’s second season did?
Kirby Smart, the Georgia man, walked into the head coaching job with way more good will than Mark Richt did. (Initially, Richt wasn’t even the unanimous choice of the men making the hiring decisions then. If that doesn’t convince you, compare their compensation.) Richt built his good will with the results he achieved in his first five seasons. Eventually, he overdrew at the good will bank, as Towers points out, but to the extent he was pressure-free, it was due to his own efforts.
Smart has an obvious path to eliminating pressure on himself. The reason he’s facing more right now is because (1) the fan base has those first five years of Richt’s career to point to as a baseline; (2) it’s been promised results by the man who hired Smart; and (3) the 2016 season was a disappointment. Duh.
Rocket science, this isn’t. I suspect John Kincade knows that as well as the rest of us do.
Get The Picture 
Sheesh. I sense citations to message board comments coming soon.
“He’s on the hot seat! Trust me! Click on my article!”
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John K needs to take his @$$ back to Philadelphia. He makes my ears bleed.
CMR didn’t have pressure because his early teams performed. 2 titles and 3 SECCG appearances in 5 years … I don’t think we lost a game on an opponent’s home field until Auburn 2004.
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If Kirby has a similar run, he’ll reap the same rewards the previous guy enjoyed.
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It’s something that has been alluded to in a previous blog here. It can be argued Boom overachieved in his first year at USCe and we all know how he is mocked throughout all of UGAdom. I suspect if he overachieves again this year and Kirby doesn’t show marked improvement, that maybe the biggest ‘tell’ of how things will eventually pan out for him. In short, he better do better than Boom or a lot of well paid people are going to look very foolish.
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Thing is, Boom can spot the D talent. Look at all of his recruits littered on NFL Rosters. Hell Atlanta has a few and I like the ones they picked. He will build a world class D in Scar.
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I have this aweful feeling that the wheels will fall off this year and expose Kirby as a real head coach
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SP
*awful
*not a real head coach
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The SEC is a much different conference now than it was 16 years ago. Houston Nutt and Ron Zook are long gone. Winning the SEC now means beating Saban, or essentially being one of the best teams in the nation. That is a high bar to set for anyone in his second year on the job. IMO, winning the East is a much more reasonable goal this year, then hopefully winning the SEC next year.
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The conference is NOT as strong now. Especially looking at coaches. Phil Fulmer. Steve Spurrier, Lou Holtz. Nick Saban. David Cutcliffe. Tuberville. Sherrill, Richt. You are right, it does look much different. There are no great coaches now except Saban, and he was there in 2001, the year you reference, and the next year when we won the SEC, Richts second year. Like Dantzler, we better find better excuses for Kirby.
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T, I believe what you are saying is there is no room for excuses. The only thing that matters is results. If that is what you are saying I agree with you.
I sense there are a lot of people on this blog who would have a hard time coping with success.
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Might not be any room for excuses…except for folks like UGA85 inventing some. I don’t think KS is on the hot seat after this season even if he only goes 7-5 again. But there will be fewer fans buying in that he will ever be the guy, and recruiting may take a big hit. Some will hang him in effigy and others will let him stay for 7-8 years and watch us become another TN holding a place in the middle of the East.
We have the team, we have the schedule, let’s do this. If we don’t expect significant improvement with the talent edge we have, we deserve to become mediocre again. The SEC has always been a beast, it may get pounded by a few in certain seasons, but it is the toughest test in all of CFB, and has been for over two decades. Before that, you could argue one or two other conferences that were close to equal, but if you are the SEC champ, you are the best of the best and have to apologize to no one. Becoming that should be our goal, and that goal is attainable this season and next from what I see as very strong talent on board. I hope Kirby makes it count this season, but nine wins should be bottom of what is expected from anyone for 2017, and 10 is closer to what I feel we should demand this season.
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“…and has been for over two decades.” Longer Mac. Much longer. Remember when the press called the SEC the “Really Big Ten?” That was in the 60s.
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I disagree. The SEC then was still a regional conference. Since, it has become the premier conference, winning how many national titles? Beating Saban in ATL is much different than beating Nutt. In fact, if Saban and Meyer had not joined the conference (and Saban going to Bama), CMR would conceivably still be at UGA. Asking CKS to beat Saban in year two, IMO, is a tall order.
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Yeah, Fulmer and Spurrier were bad
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Spurrier was gone and Zook was in place in CMR’s second year. Fulmer, I hope most would agree, was well past his prime and fading. It was a good time for UGA; that changed when Saban began his ascent and Meyer came to UF.
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And Zook beat LSU, in Baton Rouge, in 2003. That year LSU with Saban won the national title after losing to a Zook coached team! Why didn’t we play Saban in ATL in 2002? Because he lost to the other coach you denigrated, Nutt. I listed 8 coaches above. I’ll take out Richt if he is too hot-button, but do any of those teams have better coaches now than they did then? Maybe mcelwain is better than Zook. Spurrier followed up Holtz. Is he better than Muschamp? I don’t really need you to answer these questions. Now, I do agree that asking Kirby to beat Saban at Bama is a tall order. In fact, I haven’t seen anybody demand that. I know I’m not. But to pretend that winning ten games and the East is so much harder now is not true.
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I never said anything about winning the East. I fully expect us to do that. My point was about winning the SEC in CKS’s second year, like CMR did. So, it seems we basically agree.
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Well, I for one disagree. Win the East, beat Bama (or LSU or whomever) for the SEC.
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Uh-oh. UH-OH. THE PRESSURE BUILDS.
Details at 11.
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Losing to Tenn, Vandy and tech at home last season drained the good will tank for Kirby. Richt’s win over Tenn his first season bought him a ton of love and he beat tech. I think the fans are still pulling for Kirby but they aren’t in love with him at all. Underperform this season and it will get ugly.
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Exactly right. Richt won games we didn’t expect (at Tennessee, for example) and Kirby lost games we didn’t expect. Huge difference.
That said, I’m still optimistic Kirby will show much improvement on the coaching front this year and we should win the East. Another 8-5 or 9-4 and things will start to heat up.
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Richt gave the hobnail boot in his first season. Kirby took it. It’s that simple.
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Right also ran Sanks at the end when we didn’t have any timeouts and the clock ran out. Kirby beat Auburn at home his first season. Want to keep going?
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Richt beat Vandy and tech his first season. End of discussion.
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The Towers response got a legit chuckle out of me.
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There is a fourth reason Senator and it is important. Georgia averaged 10 wins a year in Richts last 5 years but that was not good enough. His successor has to do better
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Exactly. UGA got rid of a successful coach. People expect the next guy to be better.
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CBS poll on ranking college coaches is out. CMR is 19. Kirby is in the 60s. Some improvement.
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Kinkade and his side kick Belue are both worthless air bags.
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If not for Lindsay Scott, Buck would be selling insurance in Valdosta.
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You make that sound like a bad thing. Take a seat for a few moments and let me tell you about the magic of whole life insurance….
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Not a bad thing at all … he clearly wouldn’t have the voice in the media he enjoys today without one play in 1980.
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There were a lot of plays he made in 1980. That one was just one of them. Just sayin.’
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No doubt he made a lot of plays that led to that championship. He also played a stinker in possibly the program’s largest game ever in that Sugar Bowl. IMHO, no Belue-to-Scott, no championship, and no position in the local media like he enjoys today.
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If your aunt had balls she would be your uncle
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Intelligent comment there … my point was even with his other achievements (Buck is a DGD just not entertaining on the radio), he isn’t an Atlanta media member without that play.
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Maybe he would have ended up in the World Series if he signed out of high school to play baseball .
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I don’t see direct pressure, but a lack of improvement this year will have people talking a lot louder. Recruiting would possibly take a hit as well, making things more difficult.
That being said, I’d be shocked if there wasn’t improvement, wins and losses included. I think that’s where this is coming from.
We were obviously a mediocre team, and a below average team by Georgia standards. So, the idea that, in year two with a lot more experience and talent, we wouldn’t be able to improve by at least 2-3 games seems a bit hard to fathom. Thus, if we don’t improve by 2-3 games, people will really start to doubt this staff’s ability to coach.
Hell, you turn around those Vandy and Tech losses this year, and keep everything else the same (which, I hope we get better results than that), you’ve got yourself a 10-3 record this year. Seems beyond reasonable to me to expect.
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I think his point about CMR being nicer is a big one. He was…and I doubt articles like this were written before CMR’s second year…the game has changed drastically since 2002. For everyone involved…from the reporters to the AD’s in charge.
Kirby knows what’s going on…
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I think another factor is the amount Kirby is being paid. He is making veteran head coach money, he needs to be delivering veteran head coach results. BM hired Richt like they generally do everything, on the cheap. They poured money onto Kirby, he needs to start earning it.
His gruff demeanor didn’t win any friends in the press so he, and we, shouldn’t be surprised at his being somewhat called out by reporters. Being a grumpy old man like Saban only works when you are getting Saban results. Kirby needed to win the hearts and minds last season and he didn’t. His only way of keeping off the hot seat now is to win more.
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His salary is not out of line with other Coaches, IMHO…10th in the SEC per this link..might be low.
https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/updating-sec-coaching-salaries-2016/
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How many of them are first year head coaches? He’s in line with SEC coaches but he was the only first year coach.
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I think the pressure on Kirby is focused on the first half of the season. We have three out of conference games to start and then four conference games before the bye week before Jax. The first three games are must wins and it is how we fair in the four straight conference games that will determine the season.
Two losses after Jax will force changes and have us staring down the throat of another 9-3… 8-4 lost season. I can’t imagine what that would do to the program. The wait until next year meme is on life support and many fans would probably pull the plug.
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Smart has pressure because he was hired to be better than UGA’s greatest coach. Otherwise, I think he deserves time to enact his plan to become Saban 2.0. It would seem unreasonable to assumine he can do that in the second year. This needs to be a 3-5 year plan. After that, he should be expected to deliver exceptional (better than Richt) results annually.
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Which is the rub – some of us (a lot of us?) around here think we’d have been, at worst, 10-2 last year with our 16-year veteran head coach and a new OC. But we rejected that so we could go 7-5 and now suffer through potentially another “throwaway season”, before things “maybe” turn around next year. I would’ve been fine averaging 10 wins a year for the next 15 years and maybe catching fire/lucking into a Top-4 spot once or twice, which I think was certainly achievable. Instead, we were told/led to believe that 10-2 wasn’t good enough, Top-4 regularly was our birthright, and so people expect it now and are impatient for it – that’s why the H is O.
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I tend toward the same feelings, especially if the program is lead by as good a guy a Richt.
Besides, no coach got his team up for Auburn more than Richt.
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The problem was; the last 8 years or so when Richt coached teams faced good teams they were getting blown out and, they consistently found a way to lose what appeared to be a fairly easy game that would knock them out of a championship shot. The first 5-7 years, Richt was as good as there was. After that, I don’t know if he got lazy, complacent, stubborn or his wife’s cancer changed the way he looked at life and football but he, and the team, were never the same as the first 5-7 years.
Richt didn’t get fired because he wasn’t averaging enough wins. He got fired because he wasn’t winning the games that mattered and he continued to lose games he should win. Honestly; to me, winning 9 regular season games and crapping the bed against SC or FL or Tenn to allow another team to go to Atlanta is really no better than winning 7 or 8 regular season games and watching another team go to Atlanta. Both seasons end with a trip to a lackluster bowl and a sense of disappointment..
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Bed crapping UT, Vandy and GT, now there is some real bed crapping.
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Comparing CMR to CKS isn’t as important as comparing the programs. CKS probably has 30% more “consultants’, ‘off-field experts’, ‘seasonal imports’, and funds than CMR had. Proof of a nervous and insecure A Department preparing for a defense that the A board will believe. We will know when CKS feels the heat when he starts ejecting visible coaches from the Lido deck. Chaney better start wearing his bathing suit under his work pants….
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All the comments that talk of comparing CMR and CKS tend to leave out the biggest single thing that changed for CMR going forward after 2004. Having been a teenager when Eaves came to Athens, watched Parker hold serve for a few seasons, watched Dooley be forced out for a butt licker, and then this AD who has been as complete a failure as I could have ever imagined was possible……….. We have much bigger problems than just who’s the head coach, and that goes for nearly ever program at the moment. But hey maybe that’s just an old man who’s been drinking, and stayed up to late talking. Seems to me we need a Homer Rice about as much as we need a HOF coach!!
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Red Panties was a butt licker for Mike Adams and no one else. That’s why he got the job, really. Adams controlled him. He was Adams’ man and not the University’s man–or the alums’ man.
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