Hardly a surprise as to what game that was.
On Jan. 1, 1981, Dooley’s Bulldogs turned back Notre Dame, 17-10, in the Sugar Bowl to claim Georgia’s first and only Associated Press national championship, forever making Dooley a national-championship coach.
“Now that it’s all over, I think it did,” Dooley said. “What everybody would like to do as a coach is have a team that would be undefeated and then the undisputed national champion, and that’s what Georgia did in 1980. They always found a way to win, and there was no question that Georgia was the undisputed national champion. That was very, very special.
“Everything has to fall in place for that to happen. Some teams play a long time and never win a national championship, and other teams have things fall into place a couple of times just right.”
What makes his reflection particularly remarkable is that it’s easy to forget Dooley almost didn’t coach that game.
In early December of 1980 and only two days after Georgia had defeated Georgia Tech to complete a perfect 11-0 regular season, it was announced by The Birmingham Post-Herald that Vince Dooley was leaving UGA and heading to Auburn to replace the resigning Doug Barfield. Citing sources, the newspaper declared Dooley had decided to return to his alma mater when he was also promised the athletic director position. Reportedly, Auburn was offering a contract of anywhere from $1 million for five years to $1.8 million for eight – a nice chunk of change 30 years ago for an Athletic Director/Head Football Coach.
With the Sugar Bowl less than a month away, who would replace Dooley immediately began being discussed. The logical and leading candidate was defensive coordinator Erk Russell – Dooley’s top assistant since they arrived together to Georgia nearly 17 years before.
If Dooley was going to leave for Auburn, Russell stated that he “would like very much to have the head coaching job [at Georgia].”
Dooley was lobbied for the switch by his former Auburn teammate and Alabama Governor Fob James. In the end, he turned down mama and stayed in Athens.
Get The Picture 
Ah! “The Road Not Taken”…We can only imagine how different things would have been. Would Erk have won that game against ND? He would have almost certainly stayed on as Head Coach. But what if he’d lost that game to Notre Dame..then we wouldn’t even have that to cling to.
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I hate to say it in this context, but I’ll always have regret that Erk never was the head man at UGA. Whether it started in 1980 or 1988, we needed to see Erk in that job.
83–22–1 at a job that didn’t have a football program before he got there
16-2 in the playoffs
3 National titles in 8 years.
To paraphrase Steven Baldwin’s character from the movie The Usual Suspects: to Erk “Nick Saban is a fag.”
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agree
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Spot on.
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The inability to get Erk signed, on campus and coaching football is really the beginning of what is now known as The Georgia Way. That fuckup is a clear indicator of problems to come.
Seems like Derek and I have debated the reasons this did not happen, but ultimately why it did not happen is not all that important now.
We had an opportunity to have one of the most seamless coaching transitions in college football history and we fucked it up completely.
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I don’t know (remember?) what your theory is but mine is that when we hired Chuck Knapp in the wake of the Jan Kemp scandal there was a strong desire not to be a “football school” any longer. Hiring who would have been not only the most powerful man on campus but in the entire state was inconsistent with those goals. As far as football is concerned, we’ve paid a huge price. Between the change in leadership and the HOPE you can’t argue with the academic results that have been acheived. I would have had to study in HS to get in there now.
I think they offered Erk the job the same way Foley offered SOS the UF job after Zook: I’m offering it to you because I have to, not because I want you.
SOS and Erk both saw that and walked.
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I would never argue that the Kemp thing had nothing to do with anything football or Georgia.
In any case its a Greek tragedy we did not, could not, would not…whatever, get Erk hired.
Ask Ray.
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Scorpio, that last sentence is sublime.
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(referencing Scorps 9:31 post)
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How about a Lemonheads palate cleanser. Always liked that song
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had forgotten them, thanks.
My wife calls them along with Gin Blossoms, Connells and a host of other music I’m nostalgic about “white people music” (she went to HS at Cedar Shoals)
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Painfully so.
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The above re: Ug’s comment.
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Derek , lightning strikes. I could not agree more. I was able to be a part of watching that live and if he had been the coach in Athens , there would be more hardware in the trophy case.
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A lot more. That was exactly where/when the program got off track. If VD left and Erk became HC likely the Dawgs would have won multiple SECs and NCs before SOS even arrived in Gainesville and the Dawgs–not the Gators–would have been the dominate team in the East.
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The entire campus and community was abuzz with the rumor that he was gone. There was mixed emotion, some said the end of the world was coming, and others thought that if we got Erk we would be fine. I was in the latter group, wanted to see what Erk would do if given the chance. God knows, his players loved him and would do anything for him. He certainly did his job well at GSU.
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I still believe we would have had a 3-5 year run of winning national championships. The 81 – 84 teams were loaded with talent. Erk was certainly a better motivator
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“Those were the days my friend.. we thought they’d never end…” Spike.. UGA ’80.
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Those WERE the days..and while the younger set may think we are looking back at 1980 alone, there were actually several years there where UGA was easily one of the top programs in the country. Eventually UGA landed CMR, who approached but never realized that same level of glory. I said then and now that he was missing the ingredient that a personality such as Erk Russell could bring. Erk was a hell of a coach. I’ve always been thankful that he never landed at GT…that would have been our undoing.
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Agree…..Mr. “Vankickass” came close (also liked Pruitt), but threre is no substitute for Erk, he was the best imo.
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According to Dooley’s books his kids cried a river about moving to Auburn. Erk would have won that game but the greatest sin was not bringing Erk back in 89.
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Yep, apparently SOD said something to the effect of “I hate Auburn” between his tears. Dooley always said that’s when he knew his conversion from Tiger to Bulldog was complete.
While I agree with you about Erk, he retired in 1989 … a year after Dooley .,, at 63. Even if he takes the job in 1989, we’re likely right back in the coaching market in 5-7 years. Eric Zeier & Andre Hastings (possibly Garrison Hearst) likely never step foot on campus. Just my opinion.
Erk = DGD
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Erk went out on top, 15-0 in 89, at a school still operating on a shoestring. With some resources he had at least 5 more good years left in him IMO.
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I agree – my point is we would have been right back in the market at the time we were for Donnan. The question is whether Erk would have been able to beat the OBS and Phat Phil at a different clip than Goff. I suspect so, but would it have made any difference?
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We were “right back in the market” anyway. That should have been a minor consideration. Erk was the best pick, but as Scorpio remarked above, “The Georgia Way” was being hatched.
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I don’t disagree … my only point was Erk was at the same stage of his career as Dooley. The younger coaches were already using Dooley’s age and tenure against him in recruiting. There’s a reason Goff stepped into a talent void (with a few exceptions) in 1989 and 1990. Those same coaches would have used Erk’s age against him as well. I don’t doubt he was the best pick of those considered for the job at the time.
I still say the first call that should have been made in December 1988 should have been to Durham, North Carolina.
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I would have taken 5-6 years of Erk building on what UGA had going at that time. Easy to say now, but I felt then he was a strong option.
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I get that and totally respect that opinion as someone who was on campus at that time. Georgia in 1989 was not Georgia in 1981. Could Erk have prevented the cratering of the program in 1990 and the mediocrity of the Goff era? Likely yes. Could he have prevented the changing of the guard with Spurrier in 1990? I have no idea.
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that talent void had more to do with Jan Kemp than VD
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Kemp didn’t help clearly, but Dooley had begun to shut it down on the recruiting front as well. We weren’t recruiting at the same level at the end of the 80s that we were at the beginning of the 80s.
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Dooley said, following Kemp, “We are unilaterally disarming.” It is impossible to separate Kemp and any drop off in recruiting. We changed OUR rules…nobody else did.
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IMO, though Erk was a vastly superior coach to Goff, he still would have struggled and thus his legacy would have been tarnished a bit.
Honestly, its a good thing he didn’t get the job.
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I don’t know about Erk’s legacy, but it is quite possible anybody would have had a hard time under the rules imposed following the Kemp fiasco…anybody.
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Recall that period of VD being tempted but had forgotten (over time) that it was that December. Thanks for the reminder.
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I’ve never forgotten the Auburn flirtation. Good ol’ Vince, always looking out for #1, even when his team is about to play for a national championship.
And you can see in his passive-voiced comments about how teams win championships (“everything has to fall into place”) the way Dooleythink has guided this program over the years. He thinks championships is something that happens TO teams, rather than something they go out and earn.
I’d have thought the coaching success of Nick Saban would have put an end to the Georgia Way idea that championships are something that just kinda falls out of the sky onto some lucky team each season. Because Saban has proven that winning championships isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, something that comes down to luck, but rather the end product of the focused execution of a deliberate plan.
Of course operating that way requires admitting when such plans have failed or were flawed to begin with. A bit of accountability, if you will. Something we haven’t seen much of over the decades in Athens.
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Alabama’s championship in 2011 was nothing but luck.
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There’s been a good bit of luck involved in Auburn’s national championship appearances as well.
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And a church steeple
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like
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Many national titles involve luck.
’11 Bama was lucky Okie Lite was upset.
UGA had “luck” in 1980, the fumbles against S. Carolina. 6? games won by a TD or less. Don’t forget Herschel’s Trans Am which was and can still be the topic of much conversation.
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Luck can certainly play a role in a coach or program winning one championship. It certainly played a role in Georgia’s 1980 national championship.
But Saban’s winning 5 national championships in 13 seasons blows the idea that championships are only won if “everything has to fall into place” out of the water. It shows consistent greatness isn’t a product of good fortune and that “luck” is a very poor Plan B to great preparation and execution. But the “luck wins championships” mentality has existed at UGA at least since the time Vince became AD, and possibly before. As you can probably tell, it’s annoyed me for a long time.
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Agreed the luck thing annoys as is that many fans by essentially justifying absence of on field success by pointing to the cheating of others.
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Erk personifies everything I love about college football. He was the man. Good to see the board back to normal.
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I hope I get to experience a moment like that before I die.
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The rest of the 1980 story straight from one of the team managers. When Dooley’s flirtation with Auburn was found out by the team the shit hit the fan. Dooley wanted to coach the team in the Sugar Bowl then go to Auburn. The team held a meeting and basically told Vince to choose the Sugar Bowl or Auburn because if he chose Auburn he was not going to coach them period. The entire team wanted Erk. This whole thing was the beginning of the end of a beautiful friendship. Erk left for GSU and the rest is history. The 1989 thing was just a cluster F from the get go. The Pres wanted the NCST coach but he turned it down, he then asked Erk and Erk turned them down because of his age. The Pres when asked about offering Erk the job and being turned down out and out lied that Erk had not been offered the job. The problem was everybody in the State of Georgia knew the Pres was lying. In desperation they hired Ray and sealed our fate for 7 years. Kind of biblical.
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Sheridan accepted the job, but wanted to tell his team before official word went out. Folks at Georgia jumped the gun on the announcement and Sheridan backed out.
Erk was offered the job, but balked when informed the hiring committee intended to put him through the normal interview process.
Dooley came back after that and faced a choice between Haffner and Goff. He chose the latter and the rest is history.
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Why did Erk say in his book he thought he was too old to take the job and declined. The part about Pres saying Erk had not been offered the job was all over the papers at the time.
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Because he was too honorable to slag UGA in public.
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There is a good bit of evidence Erk had already begun assembling a staff, as I have said before….Pat Sullivan as offensive coordinator….Rusty Russell as D coordinator.
There was also some problem with Erk’s tenure track at Ga Sou, Georgia would not honor his transferall of his tenure (read retirement points) to Georgia….or something like that. At Erk’s age it seems logical he would have been concerned about that.
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