Part two of the Chronicles of Legge is behind a paywall, so I’m not going to quote anything from it here, but let’s just say that “No one believes in Brian Schottenheimer” bears a strong resemblance to something I wrote years ago.
… Mark Richt wakes up this morning as the captain of a very dysfunctional ship. I doubt there’s anyone in the Dawgnation, including the head coach, who feels same way about the program today as I did in Jacksonville seven years ago.
If I had to put my finger on what’s wrong, I’d call it a crisis of faith. I don’t mean that in a religious sense. (By the way, of all the arguments I’ve seen about what’s wrong, blaming Coach Richt’s religious convictions for the slide has to rank as the dumbest.) Rather, it’s a systemic doubt: the coaches lack faith in the players to execute and the players lack faith in the coaches’ ability to deploy them efficiently and effectively.
Sigh. Déjà vu all over again.
Bullet point reactions? Bullet point reactions:
- If you’re someone like me, what this reminds you most of is one of Richt’s glaring issues, the ability to fix one thing and have something else crop up to bedevil him. The depressing part is that in this case, it was a repeated mistake.
- That being said, it was a problem Richt fixed before and seeing that there wasn’t the personal relationship with Schottenheimer that there was with Martinez, I don’t doubt that had he been allowed to stay as head coach for 2017, he wouldn’t have needed much urging to show Schottenheimer the door.
- Even so, there would have been some other issue right behind it.
- Did I mention that Richt let this happen before?
Get The Picture 
I won’t violate the paywall either, but I’ll just say this: not one person quoted in the article has anything even remotely neutral to say about Schotty. It is unabashedly scathing.
He was by all accounts universally not trusted, not liked, and not respected by anyone associated with the program.
How you can be that loathed in less than a year on the job is beyond me.
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Go Gatah!
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Speaking generally, a lack of humility and an expectation that the whole adapt to you as a leader rather than the other way around is a good way to find yourself universally despised and out on your ass. Say what you will about Pruitt, but you could justify some of what he did as being about giving his players opportunities to get better. Schotty on the other hand…
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CMR stole money from UGA. He got lazy.
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“CMR stole money from UGA”
That is ridiculous….and a “lazy” comment.
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A failure to do your job is stealing money.
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If you want to blame anybody, blame the ones that kept him employed.
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CMR got complacent and the administration allowed it to continue. He should have been let go several years ago and the only reason he wasn’t is because of two players. Aaron Murray and Todd Gurley.
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If it wasn’t Murray and Gurley it would be Chubb and Michel. Richt like him or not signed some good kids especially to skill positions.
Richt was and remains loved by many in the fan base. In a profession of Urban Meyers, and Bobby Petrinos, he tried to be the good guy which earned a pass for other short comings by many who support the program which goes a long way in a program that is typically slow to fire.
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So, he should have been let go except for the fact that he convinced great players to come here which helped us win lots of football games?
Huge if true.
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Plenty of blame to go around to pretty much everyone Schott, Pruitt, Richt, B-M. If you are burned out or can’t get the resources to do the job don’t sit on “this is the job I will retire from” attitude especially if you could be a candidate for other premier jobs. Posts in the past here have pointed to McGarity wanting Richt gone but the President not giving the approval of the firing. It seems dysfunction and conflicting opinions filled every level of the program.
It still blows my mind Richt did not take play calling back. I am sure someone will pull the B-M card but if your job is on the line due to a failed hire, the Manager steps up to pick up the slack or appoints someone to step into additional duties. Richt rocked on until the bitter end with Schott. I don’t know if he was naive, passive, or wanted to get out by getting fired thus in a passive aggressive way not going back on his word of leaving UGA for another job.
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Yes!
Go back and read some of my posts around the time of the Belk Bowl.
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Senator, we may disagree on how key individuals should have handled things, who is to blame, and how to move forward. But we don’t disagree dysfunction reigned.
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Do you think Mark Richt got a call from Blake James during the off week in ’15? I do. And I’m sure it wasn’t the first.
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What a trope.
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So, I’ll pay for the article, but how long does the trial subscription last?
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A month is what I understood. Probably can cancel right away because you should still get access for the trial period you paid for.
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Yeah, that’s what I did.
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Thanks, I’ll be signing up. Pretty smart move by them to tease part 1 and put the rest behind the paywall. This is a story everyone has been wanting to read.
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Loved CMR, he did a lot for UGA. His players and coaches respected him for the most part imo. He was one of the best at UGA, but it was time to move on. Glad we made the change, but honestly…. I thought we made a mistake initially. Glad I was wrong.
Appreciate what he did and wish him well…..but now, he is dead to me.
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Nobody knows 100% if a new hire is the right one. Many of us chose to believe it was, based on his work for the best Coach in the Country.
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The thing that has always struck me is, what kind of offensive coordinator comes in and agrees to run someone else’s system? Seemed to me that right there we had a problem. He’s just going to learn someone else’s playbook and that will be just fine? That’s nuts. Can anyone think of that happening anywhere else?
The mistake (other than Bobo leaving) was Richt not taking the OC job himself. That would have got him the continuity and control the program needed to at least save his job, IMO.
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If my memory serves me correct, Shottenheimer (sp?) agreed to run the same system…..only to change his mind later and install his. That was part of the problem imo, the personnel did not fit the offense & learning a new one. Why change it, if it was already working. That is was a pretty damn good offense the year before, then went to the shitter.
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Why change it? Because coaches have philosophies built on years of learning things a certain way and designing plays around that. He shouldn’t have agreed to run someone else’s playbook, IMO, and frankly, Richt should not have asked him to. Also, BS should have been expected to hire his own OL coach. What if part of the problem was that Sale also didn’t know Bobo’s playbook and wasn’t particularly receptive to it?
In the end BS did what he knew–ran his own playbook.
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You are making my point for me….“why change it?
WELL….he did change it and the results is history. They went from #8 in the country in scoring offense (shattering all kinds of UGA records) to 85th. Horrible mistake, offense and defense should fit the personnel, not the other way around. Part of the reason for the downfall in production imo.
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I’m not saying he should have done it. I was trying to address what I think is the answer to why he did.
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Gotcha, misread it…….that whole mess on offense was a nightmare.
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On this point – does anyone have insight as to how much Sarkisian kept of Shanahans playbook with the Falcons ?
It seems he was saying the same things Schottty was saying when hired – but the Falcons O dropped off quite a bit too
Is it just unreasonable to think an established coordinator can come in and pick up where the old guy left off ? That’s not rhetorical – I dont know what to think of changing playbooks. Interested if anyone does
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Bobo leaving wasn’t a mistake it exposed why UGA were very good but not great getting beat by Florida and Bama teams. From the 1st article:
“Bobo had introduced a fluid and accomplished offensive system that used smaller offensive linemen and skilled quarterbacks and running backs to slice up defenses in the SEC in record book fashion”
Smaller offensive lineman will very rarely be able to capture SEC championships especially while Bama is rolling. The philosophy explains a big reason why even at its very best Richt/Bobo were just short.
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Didn’t the Broncos employ a similar philosophy on their way to two Super Bowls? That is, smaller more agile OL? It’s an honest question that is relying on a vague memory I have within some pretty limited technical football knowledge.
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True, I always try to bring up that point also. Not always the size of the dawg, got to execute as well. Alex Gibbs was a helluva coach, he also ran the zone blocking scheme. Some of the best teams I’ve seen were on the smaller side…HS, college or pro.
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Falcons Sark is running Shanahan’s offense.
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In the comments, Ekeler is quoted: “I learned a valuable lesson watching Brian Schottenheimer. He came into a situation where he tried to run an offense that was already in place and didn’t run his offense, so to speak. I didn’t want get into a situation like that after watching the difficulties that he had. When you do that and I watched it happen as a coordinator, and it’s not really your stamp but it’s your name, that’s not a good gig.”
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“He’s dead to me”
Maybe a little overkill there? Kirby is indebted to Richt for much of last year’s success whether you want to admit it or not. It’s okay to be happy with our current situation but hyperbole doesn’t do you any favors.
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“Dead to me”
Meaning I’ve moved on, but very grateful for what he did as a coach. He will always be one of my favorites. Not looking for “favors”…. Kemosabe??
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I think we all knew it was time for a parting of the ways. Some of us expressed it a little differently than others.
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I think about half thought it was time for a parting of the ways, and many on each side were insulting and condescending to the other. Last year healed a lot of wounds, but 2015 to 2016 was the most acrimonious period I’ve seen between Georgia fans.
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I didn’t want to let Coach Richt go, but if they’d pulled the trigger after the Georgia Southern game it would have helped me emotionally.
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Just to pour salt in the wound, I was playing bingo with the fam at Sea Island two weeks ago and in a room of 500 people, who do you think wins one game?
Brian Schottenheimer!
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HA!!….did you speak to him? Bingo, that’s for OLD people, right??
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Did not. He’s doesn’t seem to be the friendly type. When he was in Athens I saw him outside church one morning with his dad. I went up and introduced myself to Marty and thanked him for speaking at the funeral of a mutual friend. Marty was gracious and spoke to my daughter. Brian just smacked his gum and looked annoyed.
Bingo at “the Club” is a family event and a ton of fun, though the kids get really down when they don’t win. Billy Bingo has retired but they now have Ringo Bingo and he’s a funny guy (from Augusta, a Georgia fan).
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Just kidding on the bingo (comments), hopefully, we all will be old one day….old and healthy. Nonetheless, it does not surprise me about the Schottenheimers, Brian certainly appeared that way on the sidelines and his Dad always seemed approachable to me. Thanks!
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I just got done reading it (you can sign up for premium for $1 as a trial, I’ll just cancel before it renews).
Just “damn” is all I have to say.
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Ditto.
My Dad and I know some people close to the program, they were saying a lot by what they weren’t saying, if you catch my drift. Holy shit though, i had no inkling it had gotten that bad. The dirt on the QB situation makes it worth the dollar. That and UF teeing off on the cadence ……..
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Look at the change in Gurley once he got out from under the foot of Fisher. Shottenheimer is part of the Fisher tree and that offense was the most dismal production I ever saw. The fact that cmr brought in Shottenheimer is more of an indictment of cmr’s utter lack of focus and work desire than anything else being discussed.
No wonder Pruitt assumed the role of defacto head coach… somebody had to give a damn.
CMR was obviously burnt out and needed a change. And Pruitt is putting together a nice class this year. Unfortunately they will be back in our face sooner rather than later just like Muschamp. Thank goodness for Kirby.
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This is no defense of Schottenheimer, but he coached for quite a while before he went to St. Louis. It’s like arguing Kurt Roper is a Boom disciple because he coached for him for a few years.
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The similarities between us and the Rams were evident. Shottenheimer is the common denominator.
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*Pruitt is putting together a nice class this year.”
I must be missing something because, currently sitting at #19, behind 8 other SEC schools, that doesn’t appear to qualify as “a nice class.”
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It’s solid by average rating, but he’s also going to be signing a huge class ultimately. If it ends up with as many 3 stars as I expect, they won’t be getting in anybody’s face soon.
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Just seems like if you’re going to make a splash as a coach, your first couple of classes better be damn good, not just “average,” because that’s likely as good as they’re ever going to be… and Tennessee isn’t going to be resurrected by average recruiting classes.
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Oh sure. Especially with the way Georgia’s recruiting.
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Perhaps he should have taken a photo of Bama’s recruiting board before he left?
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Haha!
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My point is that Pruitt like Muschamp and Kirby is extremely driven by success on the field… cmr not so much.
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The mistreatment of Keith Marshall, for no apparent reason other than sheer spite……didn’t get it then, still don’t get it now.
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This is old, rehashed stuff for those who had a modicum of insight into the program back then, but I’m glad to see this all finally come to light for the masses, as over the past few years it’s been little whispers here and there asking about what exactly happened.
There is nothing really to add at this point other than to say a combination of weak, hands-off leadership, and palace intrigue among the staff with much stronger and ambitious personalities led to utter chaos. Unfortunately, CMR had been asleep at the wheel for quite a while by this point, which led to the powder keg of what was the 2015 season.
For me personally, the changes happened 5 years too late, but at least the timing worked out where we have the perfect guy in charge now.
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This is old, rehashed stuff for those who had a modicum of insight into the program back then
You really are an insufferable d-bag.
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He did say for people who had some insight and you pst in the 1st article your job dropped. So he is rather on point.
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He did say for people who had some insight and you posted in the 1st article your jaw dropped. So he is rather on point.
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Sorry for being out of the loop, but what exactly were the Butts Mehre time constraints everyone keeps referring to? Did Richt take on additional duties towards the end of his tenure?
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Mcgoofy forced cmr to take on more public appearances, booster functions, and administrative responsibilities via a new contract. Cmr was being pushed away from his time with the team, seemingly against his will. It looks like he was forced to run the program in a different way than he would have preferred, especially in hindsight.
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I’m curious what the source is for this story b/c I’ve never heard that CMR was putting in too much time w/ boosters and appearances. As I recall, CMR was a tee-totaller and NOT a glad hander with the letterman’s club, boosters, etc.
I have heard of Kirby “out to dinner with boosters” stories twice in the past month…one at Bones in ATL and one at a new place in Athens called The Falls. It’s my understanding, however, that Kirby does this to get NEW money for his projects. Not like the old days where you went to the local Bulldog Club and went over the depth chart.
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There are people here that know and may explain, the only confirmation of this that I remember is the fact that cmr never signed his last contract, and from what I’ve read here and other blogs, the sticking point was assigned duties away from contact time with the day to day team business.
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I’d say judging by the scaled back access to Kirby and staff compared to Richt, it certainly looks like Kirby spends less time glad-handing. Who drove/drives that is an open question, I guess.
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CMR should have departed after the loss to Bama in the SEC Championship. I still have a lot of respect for the guy but I’m glad he’s moved on. I think its been good for him and certainly good for the Dawgs.
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What a ludicrous thing to post publicly, or even to think
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yes….ludicrous. Would you say the same thing with Smart after losing last second to Bama in championship game?
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I knew we were screwed with Shotty the moment I saw Kirk Herbstreit tweet that CMR deserved credit for thinking outside the box with that hire. Also the comments from his pro teams (that guy knows 300 ways to complete a two yard pass) were daunting.
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Who knows how true it was, but there were strong rumors that Schotty was hired for him….no choice in the matter. Again, who knows……really don’t believe it, but that would have been a shitty thing if so.
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I don’t believe that because it was almost public knowledge that Schotty was like choice #8. We were turned down by quite a few coaches who saw the situation in Athens as a sinking ship.
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This isn’t true. We weren’t UT. There was a lot of interest, including Lincoln Riley.
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That simply does not mesh with the result which was hiring Brian Schottenheimer. There is no way in hell you can make a compelling argument that he was the top candidate, or even among the top candidates.
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Better than Goff and Donnan. Better recruiter than Vince.
I’m never gonna hate on CMR. The best football we played as an adult was with CMR as coach. I was 11 when we beat ND in NOLA.
And CMR did things the right way. Made me proud to be a bulldog more than once. I think we do a disservice to people by suggesting anything short of perfect is disaster.
It does appear we’ve got a better coaching/recruiting combo than we ever have had. Doesn’t mean we should shit on people who did what they thought was best just because things didn’t go the way we’d like.
As far as any of us know, the second choice behind Brian was worse. We can dream that the guy we turned down was some offensive genius who would have magically grown Greyson’s balls for the Alabama game.
I get that everyone hates on the guy and maybe he was terrible. My perspective is as a fan watching he games. As I recall we were undefeated and Greyson had thrown 1 or 2 incompletions in the two games going into the Bama game.
The first play call had 26 2 yards ahead of the nearest defender. Greyson missed him….badly. All went south from there.
If 11 hits 26 in stride for 6, who knows what happens, other than all of you guys I mean?
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^^^ See? ^^^
This isn’t that hard to do.
There’s nothing more annoying than hindsight “Well I was ready to let him go in 2004 after the UT home loss….” guy
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+1
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Don’t get the hate, he was one of the best we ever had imo. If he was as terrible as some say, most all the coaches (or all) before him were also terrible. I think some feel that Richt cheated them out of a MNC.
Nonetheless, glad we are where we are & have moved on. Smart and the team could not have been in the position they were in this past season if it were not for Richt…bet Smart would be the first to admit it.
Been following the dawgs for a long time now….the program is probably in the best shape it ever has been.
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Say what you want about who said what to whom and who got pissed off about what–that happens all the time on coaching staffs and teams–CMR’s downfall was the 2012 SECCG. I’m not sure if it was CMR or Bobo who made the decision but not spiking the ball in that situation and getting everybody on O on the same page was a screw-up of epic proportions. What we witnessed at the end of that game is textbook for why you spike it in that situation. Going straight to the LOS and calling an audible pass play is what you do when you have a timeout left–not what you do if you are out of timeouts because it opens the door to exactly what happened. If Georgia scores the winning TD and plays in the BCSBCG against ND it is highly likely the Dawgs win the national championship that year and there is a line around the block of OCs wanting to take over the OC job when Bobo leaves. All of the foregoing said, CMR was a great (not perfect) football coach for the Dawgs who suffered by comparison to Saban. I don’t get the hate against him either. 14 winning seasons out of 15 years and 15 straight bowl teams. 75% winning percentage. The guy can coach, particularly offensive football.
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Not spiking was fine. Bama was out of sorts and on their heels. No problem with going for the kill; their guy just made a great play.
(Bill Connelly’s always agreed on that one.)
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And “their guy” should have been in coverage and not in the backfield at the time, even Saban admitted it at the end of the game. If he would have played in coverage as he should have, chances are that would have been a TD.
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That was just a great play by Alabama.
My wife worked at Valdosta High while Malcolm was there and stayed in touch with him while he was at Georgia. He told her that play was a touchdown if that pass doesn’t get tipped. He had his man beat and the ball was on line, we just caught a bad break.
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Agree 100%. Fine with the non-spike. All comments after the game pointed to the coaches and players being on the same page. What more can you ask? Had Bama on their heels, we are all on same page, and chance at an extra play into the end zone. What ensued was just a freak combination of events.
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Puffy, being on the same page in that situation means: “Do NOT catch the ball if you are out of the end zone—the pass is either completed for a TD or incomplete and we do it again next down.” That is what the coaches had to say to the backs and receivers and never got the chance to say because of the non-spike. Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
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Is there going to be a part 3?
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Thursday according to the comments.
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Yeah tomorrow. Hopefully it will be primarily about that week post Florida.
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I went back and read the post you wrote after the UT game, the one you linked in this post. I was just turning on to the blog around then and that may have been one of the first posts I read. It was a good read then and is a good read now, especially for long suffering Dawg fans. That and Legge’s current series should put any romanticist revisional history to bed about UGA football from, oh say, late 2008 through the end of the ’15 season. Damn, I remember seeing Prince take that kickoff and it pisses me off to this day.
I’m glad we are where we are, and ’17 made a lot of the suffering worthwhile. In fact, the suffering made ’17 that much sweeter. Go back and check it out, Dawgs. It’ll help you appreciate what we got to see last season and what we are likely to see this season.
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It’s not about the fact that he was better than who came before. Of course Richt was better than Goff and Donnan, but that has no bearing on what he actually did with the job when he had it, particularly his last 10 seasons (2006-2015) in which he didn’t win an SEC Title, or the East in the years he should’ve.
When you look at the amount of players he put into the NFL, Mark Richt is the single-most underachieving coach in modern CFB history. During his 15 years at Georgia, he put the 4th most players into the NFL. More than anyone in the SEC not named LSU. The only schools above him were USC, LSU, and Miami. On that top-10 list of schools with the most talent, UGA is the only school to not have even played for a BCS title or in the Playoff. Think about that. Even VATech who was 11th at the time of Richt’s firing over that 15 year period played for one BCS title. But UGA? None.
And as the Senator has said, it’s all because of mistakes Richt made that go above and beyond the more glaring on-field mistakes, like not spiking the ball at the end of the 2012 SEC Title Game.
It’s not getting the team prepared to play in big time rivalry games, especially no taking advantage of lesser Florida teams and continuing to allow the Zook and McElwain Gators to beat us. Should never have lost to any of those particular Gator teams (2002, 2003, 2014) or the 2005 Meyer team or the 2013 Muschamp team. All of those games the Dawgs were the better team but Richt couldn’t get it done.
The blowouts in prove-it nationally televised games against top-10 competition over his last 10 years, particularly against Bama and Florida. It was like clockwork.
Losing to bad teams like Sakerlina in 2007, AT HOME, which cost us a BCS Title that year, or getting blown out by a mediocre Tennessee team that same year which really cost us the title.
How many times over the years did Richt drop games against teams we should never lose to? He’s doing it at Miami, too! Lost to a bad Pitt team last year AND got blown out in a prove-it game in which his team was completely unprepared. THIS IS WHO HE IS.
The 2002, 2007, and 2012 Bulldogs were good enough to win the SEC and BCS titles those years. 2002 is unfortunate in that even if we had beaten Florida, OSU had all the ESPN support and were going to play Miami no matter what. But 2007 when LSU won as a two-loss team? Or 2012 when we had Bama at the end of the game but couldn’t close?
Mark Richt and the way he runs a program cost UGA two for sure titles. This is a fact. You beat a terrible Sakerlina team at home in 2007 and you win the BCS. You spike the ball and have two shots at the endzone with the best SEC QB since Tebow against worn-out Bama defense, and you win the BCS.
Attention to detail ALWAYS cost Mark Richt. He doesn’t have it. He’s never had it. It’s why his teams often look unprepared to play. It’s why they get into stupid pre-game fights. It’s why he will never win a National Title.
And yes, he deserves our anger for costing us two titles. He had the talent. He had the stars aligned. He just couldn’t stop tripping over his own lack of preparedness and poor attention to detail long enough to grab the brass ring.
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“This is a fact. You beat a terrible Sakerlina team at home in 2007 and you win the BCS”
“But 2007 when LSU won as a two-loss team?”
Do you see what you did there? GOD I hate the 2007 argument too. EVERYONE lost two games that year. We just lost the wrong two.
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“Mark Richt and the way he runs a program cost UGA two for sure titles. This is a fact.”
You lost me right there. Just because you believe it to be true doesn’t make it a fact.
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I really like some of these ideas floating that Richt should have taken over as OC after Bobo left. Hilarious. In case you guys didn’t notice, the man looked half asleep on the sidelines for the last 2-3 years he was there. He would just stand there quietly for much of the game holding his headset mic close to his mouth in one hand with his other hand on his hip. He didn’t look to be coaching jack shit, much less coordinating. I was so relieved to see Kirby on our sidelines grabbing guys here and there and coaching them up. The last time I noticed Richt try to do that is when he scolded Murray about running after the man has just busted one for a TD early his Freshman year.
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I know Legge knows people, but generally I find him to be a well meaning stooge so I’ll spare myself the disappointment of paying to read what he writes. Having said that, with regard to Schott, and Richt’s slow reactions to fire underachieving assistants. Let’s recall that Bobo had the offense performing abysmally in 2010 but to his credit he was given the chance to stay on and improve it, which he did. Also, Bobo is the one who left the program with Brice Ramsey as the heir apparent. A qb that failed to perform across both the CKS and CMR regimes. As such why are we so dismissive of Schott as a failure given what he was left to work with during his very brief time in Athens? It’s not like the guy has never succeeded as a coach. Who’s to say he couldn’t have turned it around on the field? Again, off the field issues aside.
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Spend the buck. it’s worth reading.
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FIRE BOBO
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It’s worth the $1 to read. Typos and grammatical errors and all.
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Are there seriously typos and grammatical errors??
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Lol yes, a few. It’s not severe or anything, but personally I think a publication that charges to read it’s content should have an editor. Doesn’t seem like it’d be that difficult to have someone proof-read articles.
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I think proof reading is just a suggestion at most publications these man. I saw South Carolina misspelled (Souith Carolina) on the front cover of a major regional age periodical this month.
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I think it’s just standards based on readership, unfortunately. To be blunt, they probably figure the majority of their demographic probably doesn’t notice the errors or doesn’t care. You’d never see those kind of errors in a publication like the Washington Post, but I’m betting the “Athlon SEC preview” writers figure Bubba and Earl don’t care about no stinkin’ grammar.
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Noticed that, too. The free (teaser) article seemed well-edited, but the pay one had some errors. Still a good read and worth the buck.
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Exactly, if the content is solid I guess that should be all that matters, but a typo behind a paywall is worse than a typo on a resume imo. Should never happen. I personally get embarrassed when I have a typo in the comment section lol. Now I think I’m going to pay the $1 just to see for myself.
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And yet we managed to win 10 games for the umpteenth time. I won’t fault CMR too much. Going the extra mile, as Kirby has, just isn’t in CMR’s DNA.
CMR is the reason CMR doesn’t have a natty to show for his time at UGA, not Schotty, not Pruitt, not Martinez, not Greg Mediocrity, etc., etc. Acceptance is part of the recovery process.
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Let’s be clear that the CKS extra mile includes offering scholarships to 150 players despite having only 25 openings. Also, placing harsh restrictions on transfers. That was the biggest downfall of Richt, he was honest and upfront with recruits/players and didn’t try to hinder their opportunities if they left the program. I can’t fault him for either. He had a lot of success despite refusing to get down in the mud. Although I do hold him responsible for clinging to bad assistants for too long.
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We won 10 games because our schedule was easy as hell and the Eastern division was the weakest it had been since I’ve been alive. It was the softest 10 wins we’ve ever had.
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We’ve been over this, no? We won 10 games, and the best team we beat was in all seriousness GA Southern. Winning is better than losing, but when you win 10 games and finish I ranked, that tells you all you need to know about those 10 teams.
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I love Richt. But he really is the Charlie Brown of football.
Hope he keeps his evil goatee and smashes Clemson next time he plays them instead of getting embarrassed.
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First off, I love Coach Richt and all the work he did to bring UGA out of mediocrity and raise the expectations of UGA football. However, the two parties hung on too long and both paid the price for it. Kirby Smart was the guy in 2014 I’m just glad we got him a year too late.
What I’d like to know is where all the Kirby Haters that were so loud on here in 2016 are now. My favorite was “we won 10 games under Richt last year, Kirby is a knuckle dragging Boom2.0 that almost lost to Nicholls!!!!!!!” Or “he’s doesn’t know anything and is just trying to be like daddy saban”.
Im too lazy to go back but I’d assume a lot of the screen names of the Richtilians that roamed the blog then since have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
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He wasn’t my 1st choice when he was hired as I was in the camp of no coaches without head coach experience, UGA is not a learning on the job position. I did defend him in ’16. He is off to a great start, hope he keeps it up.
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I absolutely believed Kirby Smart was Boom 2.0 at the end of 2016. Was that really an unreasonable position to take given how Year 1 went?
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I think it could have been a reasonable position to take when he was first hired – after the 2016 season though? I think it would have been unfair to judge him too harshly for that. Anyone who watched the program over the several years proceeding that knew there were deep-rooted issues in the program that needed more than a year to change. It was tough to watch at times, but probably understood by most that it was growing pains.
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After all, we always had “Nick Saban’s first year at Alabama” to fall back on as a reference point.
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“Nick Saban’s first year at Alabama” was his 14th year as a head coach, 12 of them at the college level with a national title and two SECC’s to boot on his resume. I hope you’re being a little sarcastic, but comparing Kirby’s first year at Georgia to Saban’s first year at Alabama was a benefit of the doubt that Saban had earned and, frankly, Kirby had not.
Again – glad to have been wrong, but I’m not going to apologize for believing he was a bad hire after his first season. 2016 was the worst Georgia team (68th overall) since Bill C. started tracking teams with S&P+. It was a pretty damn mediocre team. I know that we live in a time where everything is “I’m right, fuck you – you’re wrong” as evidenced by several people saying my position was dumb, but things weren’t looking great from an onfield perspective going into 2017.
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I think you’re missing my point. Alabama was 7-6 in his first season at Alabama. Despite the fact that he’d been a head coach for 13 years, having won a national title. The takeaway I intended there was – we knew that even Nick Saban struggled in his first season at Alabama when he was rebuilding that program. So when Kirby came here to implement the same process, it would have been unrealistic to think 8-5 spelled doom.
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I get the point just fine and it appears Kirby is going to be the second Saban assistant (Jimbo first) that has successfully implemented the rebuilding. I feel like a lot of y’all want to cling to “Year 1 at Bama = Year 1 at UGA” conveniently gloss over Saban’s credentials that earned him a benefit of the doubt about the rebuilding that Kirby hadn’t earned (not because Kirby was guaranteed to be a bad coach, but he had ZERO history as a head coach to support he was capable of making it happen). Hell – it still took Jimbo about 3 / 4 years to get FSU up and revving and he’s been the most successful of the former Saban assistants.
Either way – this is a dumb thing that keeps getting re-litigated, but then again I don’t appreciate people insulting others that took a reasonable position at the time just because 2017 happened (data that wasn’t available at the end of the 2016 season).
There’s a portion of the fanbase that is gonna hold this “I told you so” grudge just because people had doubts about Kirby after his first year and that’s what is fucking stupid. If I still thought Kirby was Boom 2.0, it’d be fair to call me dumb, but that’s not where I am.
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Thinking it was a possibility was not unreasonable. Absolutely believing it, yes, I think that was.
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Yes, it was a pretty dumb position to take. You don’t see that even now?
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Nah – there was nothing accomplished to that point that was any different than Boom’s first season at Florida. I’ll absolutely admit I was wrong in hindsight, but at the time it felt very fair.
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I agree with Hardcore. It was a dumb position, but at least you man up to it. Most on here have not.
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It wasn’t dumb at the time. If I still felt that way, that would be dumb.
But ya’ll can keep on re-litigating this to keep telling people that had reasonable doubts based on observable inputs that they were wrong if it makes you feel good.
Either way – am glad to have been wrong.
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I thought he’d Florida Ron Zook it and leave the next guy a loaded team to win a title with.
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I don’t think 2017 is going to define Kirby’s tenure here. It was ridiculously fortunate the way Fromm took the reigns in the first game. So, my point is, Kirby will need to show it on the field. I don’t think most people are so quick to anoint Kirby as the next Saban. He has the battleship turned though, really proud of what he has accomplished so far.
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He does seem to have the battleship moving in the right direction. It also amazes me how quickly people were to jump on the conclusion he was Boom 2.0 after 1 year and now after year 2 he is Saban 2.0.
We shall see what he turns into. I am as hopeful as I have been since ’07 and likely more so now than then.
He was lucky but he also made some luck by having a full roster and the energy he and his staff bring the game.
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“Fortunate?”
That’s one way of looking at it. Do you think Richt recruits Jake Fromm to Georgia when he’s got Eason as a freshman who just arrived? If anything, the fact that we had Jake Fromm on the bench when Eason got hurt the week prior is a testament to Kirby’s preparedness and roster management. Not many coaches would stack 5* QB’s in three successive classes.
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I’ve never been shy about criticizing the previous regime’s QB recruiting.
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Schott mucked up Fromm’s recruitment. It would not have surprised me to see Fromm in Athens if Bobo stayed or Richt promoted McClendon (which is starting to look like an idea that could have saved Richt’s job) .
Mett and Murray were Elite 11 QBs. Stafford was signed after Cox who may not have been the greatest on the field but was an Elite11 QB, Bauta was Elite 11 too. Ramsey was #7 pro style QB.
Point is according to the recruiting services, CMR signed some talent at QB in back to back years. CMR likely had more routinely has as much or more talent at QB than Bama had during Saban’s early tenure with John Parker, McElroy and McCarron.
Smart is a great recruiter but he was lucky to have Fromm in state as a life long UGA fan and was at the school that he flipped him from. Fields is another lucky scenario being in state which isn’t to say Smart is not a great recruiter.
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Luck has nothing to do with it.
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“Smart is a great recruiter but he was lucky to have Fromm in state as a life long UGA fan and was at the school that he flipped him from. Fields is another lucky scenario being in state which isn’t to say Smart is not a great recruiter.”
What the fuck are you even talking about? Fields wasn’t even a UGA commit this time last year. Fromm was originally headed to Bama. Deshaun Watson was a Georgia kid, too. How did that work out?
You still have to recruit lights out and convince these kids commit to your program, in-state ties or not.
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I’m right here. I was calling Kirby “Boom 2.0” in 2016 because he looked like him. The comment in the main article from the O lineman talking about how Shott and Sale wanted to run right at people like Bama and how stupid it was to try it, was just as valid in 2016 when we tried then. Thankfully, Kirby and Pittman got the right talent in there and Pittman coached them up for 2017.
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Smart clearly want to move in the direction of a power run but did not have the personnel or players with the mentality to do it. I remained convinced Nichols was an act of breaking the team down to build them up in a hard nosed way. Did it nearly back fire? Yes
The question I had in ’16 was, will it pay off in ’17? and was it best in ’16 to push the kids in the direction of being a hard nosed trenches team? I’ll take the pain was of ’16 for the pay off in ’17. Could ’16 have been better with the same results in ’17? Who knows and at this point I don’t care.
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If we had lost the game to Nicholls, one of the worst teams to ever appear in Sanford, I’ll admit I would have been done.
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I think it’s amusing that so many around here are using recency bias to validate a position they held because they were just sick of the previous guy moreso than anything the new guy had proven at the end of his first season.
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He wasn’t my first choice for the same reason as others … primarily I didn’t want someone who needed to learn on the job. He proved that in 2016. Some of his coaching decisions were head-scratching at best. I thought we had the worst of Boom 2.0 and Goff 2.0 at Oxford. That was downright embarrassing to watch. The $#!+show that was the Vandy game made me think he was in over his head. The blown tech game almost ruined my Thanksgiving weekend … thank goodness I was in California with my family instead of Sanford.
I’ve been happy with the way things appear to be turning out. His relentless focus on talent is fun to watch. He has grown up on the sideline. I’m still not sold on Chaney other than the fact he brought Pittman. He has put a human face on the Process.
I’m much happier with Kirby than I would have been with McGarity’s rumored first choice, Dan Mullen.
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Chaney should get at least some of the credit for the offense’s dramatic turnaround in year 2.
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He gets some. He did an excellent job of having Fromm ready (although that may be as much about Fromm than Chaney). Pittman transformed that offensive line. Did he do a better job this year? Yes. Hopefully, it’s a trend.
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Not to brag, but I had petitioned on here for Kirby going back quite a while. I remember one instance after a bad loss I asked the Senator if we could converse about replacement coaches and that my vote was for Kirby. His response was along the lines of “Sure, but a lot of good that will do you.” I wanted Richt gone years ago and let it be known here and I supported Kirby here through thick and thin in 2016. Now that my chest is puffed out, I might go strut outside for a while. Damn it feels good to be right.
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Well one of the biggest ones has commented several times in this thread. He held on to the 10 wins-a-year mantra pretty hard until about midway through last season. The 180 he’s done will give you whiplash. Hell, he even got called out above over a comment about Richt.
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Lol….Greg
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I was looking back through some of the old post’s comments and found this gem:
Pumpdawg
October 12, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Who are we overlooking here? He seems to be doing a great job at Alabama.He was a Dawg.It’s time to get out the checkbook and tell Kirby Smart to come home.
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Senator Blutarsky
October 12, 2009 at 11:58 AM
I’ve never understood the fascination with Saban’s DCs. For all intents and purposes, it’s his defense. Is there any evidence that Smart is anything more to Saban than Callaway was to Richt?
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Pumpdawg
October 12, 2009 at 12:34 PM
Just sayin he’s a homer.He fields good defenses.And he looks a helluva lot better than what we got.
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Texas_Dawg
October 12, 2009 at 8:10 PM
What a horrible idea.
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In 2009, Smart probably wasn’t ready to be a head coach, so I’m not sure what point you’re making.
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Yeah, I’m with you. We wouldn’t have hired him in 2009, not many power five programs would have.
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Likely correct, However I would never put it past B-M and the UGA faithful.
But then again I grew up at the end of Dooley and hardly missed a home game under Goff. Goff might have made a good coach if he spent more time under more coaches. Needless to say he wasn’t ready when he was hired and ran out of time to learn.
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No point, and I agree he would not have been ready. I was just strolling down memory lane and it seemed a little prophetic.
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I believe Pumpdawg was floating the thought of replacing Martinez with Kirby as DC, not Richt as HC. A reasonable idea nine years ago it seems to me.
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Schottenheimer has always been the beneficiary of nepotism from the time he graduated from Florida & went straight to an NFL job at age 23. His offenses were outside the top 20 all 3 years with Rams yet he gets hired to be UGA OC? It was an awful hire from day 1
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I still like Richt & appreciate all he did over 15 years but it was past time for him to go. Kirby is on the fast track to a national title soon so all these other fans with 1980 jokes use them while u still can!!
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Part II reinforces my opinion of Richt: in the latter years of his tenure, he did not give a tinker’s damn whether UGA won or lost a football game. A head coach has to have enough circulating testosterone to take command of any situation, to include B-M. As long as he got paid, he was OK with what happened. I’d like to see how long Richt would have lasted as a company or battalion commander in the Army. Brigade command would be out of the question.
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I want my dollar back. Seems like Legge went out to research a story but already had a predetermined conclusion. That’s all I could make out through the typos and misspelled names. Senator, it’s your blog and you can do what you want, but I recommend steering clear of Legge. He’s a hack journalist. It got me so fired up I knocked the dust off my blog because my response was way too long for the comment section. Feel free to read if you care. I won’t charge you a dollar and I’m pretty sure I spelled Schottenheimer’s name right (unlike Legge).
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Nice blog post! I’m glad I didn’t fork over a dollar to read Legge’s weak attempt at an important sports piece. All you have to do is listen to him talk football a bit on his YouTube channel and you quickly understand he’s no David Halberstam.
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Thank man. I’m glad somebody else agrees with me ab Legge. For some reason a lot of the people I know hold him in high regard. I can’t figure out why. He must be a nice guy or something.
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Thanks*
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1 September 1997: Michael F. Adams appointed President of the University of Georgia
In a 1998-’99 Letter to Donors, UGA states: “The Athletic Association will complete an Indoor Practice Facility behind Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, which will enable football, track and other outdoor sports to practice year-round in a climate-controlled facility. Architectural drawings and schematics are being drawn up now and we have begun securing the necessary funds to begin this project. The initial estimate of the facility is $12 million. Projections for completion have yet to be determined but we are hoping to break ground on this project immediately.”
Richt’s team chaplain, Kevin “Chappy” Hynes, criticizes Don Leebern, Jr. and Suzanne Yoculan’s relationship (where they had been living together since 2000 even though Don was still legally married to another woman). As a result, Leebern wanted Richt to fire Chappy, but Mark refused. Thus the program was squeezed of the support it needed going forward until Richt’s eventual ouster
30 June 2004: President Adams forces AD Vince Dooley’s retirement despite the athletics program ranking #1 in the SEC and #5 in the nation for the 2003-’04 season
18 September 2004: Coach Richt says an IPF is his #1 priority, but AD Damon Evans says UGA can’t afford one at this time
16 April 2006: UGA’s Athletic’s Department declared “national financial champs” after earning a $24M profit the preceding year
26 April 2006: Kathryn Richt diagnosed w/ cervical cancer
May-June 2006: Coach Richt “shuts down” for 2 months, decides that game-planning/play calling is too much of a “grind”
July 2006: President Adams & AD Evans convince UGA Athletics Association’s Board of Directors to start transferring athletics profits ($81.7M over 10 years) to the university rather than reinvesting the money in the the athletics program
19 November 2006: Coach Richt transfers OC responsibilities to Mike Bobo and becomes the program’s “CEO”
6 November 2009: former NFL All-Pro Randy OL Cross criticizes UGA Football S&C: “There’s no excuse for not being a very tough football team. There’s no excuse for looking weak and I mean weak. They don’t look very strong.” Note that UGA Football Director of S&C Dave Van Halanger was often absent from workouts, ostensibly recovering from multiple heart attacks suffered over the last two decades and UGA Football was staffed w/ less than the maximum allowable 5 full-time S&C personnel; moreover, UGA’s S&C assistants were the lowest paid in the SEC avg. $39,405.25/yr. each
29 December 2009: UGA refuses to pay its football assistant coaches traditional bowl bonuses citing “difficult economic conditions being experienced by the university”, despite UGA Athletic Association Board of Directors transferring $16M over the previous 4 years to the university
2 July 2010: AD Damon Evans arrested for DUI/failure to maintain lane; despite being married w/ 2 children, he was hanging out w/ 28-yr. old Courtney Fuhrmann and holding her red panties between his legs; Evans was fired 2 days later
1 December 2010: UGA AD Greg McGarity hires former video coordinator Joe Tereshinski II as its new Director of Football S&C despite the latter lacking experience and credentials as a Master Strength & Conditioning Coach. Note that Tereshinski is the SEC’s lowest paid Director of S&C at $150K/yr.
20 December 2011: Coach Richt, his football assistants, & several staffers receive a Letter of Admonition from AD McGarity b/c Richt paid them $63,556.50 in bonuses or other compensation out of his own pocket after UGA refused to pay them after the 2009 season
13 January 2014: UGA DC Todd Grantham accepts Louisville DC position (leaving UGA w/ the #78-ranked FBS scoring defense, 29 ppg, second worst in program history)
14 January 2014: UGA hires FSU DC Jeremy Pruitt (based on OL Coach Will Friend’s recommendation) following the Seminoles’ BCS National Championship and #1 ranked scoring defense; Pruitt received an $850K/yr. salary (a $310K increase from what he received in Tallahassee)
18 November 2014: DC Jeremy Pruitt publicly urges UGA’s Athletic Department leadership to build the program a full-sized IPF by the beginning of the 2015 season; AD McGarity says that would be an impossibility
30 November 2014: Coach Richt seeks pay raise for OC Mike Bobo who earned $575,000/yr. and set a program record avg. 44.4 ppg this season, but is rebuffed by AD Greg McGarity (who wants to fire Richt and replace him w/ Mississippi State HC Dan Mullen)
1 December 2014: UGA Director of Football S&C Joe Tereshinski II resigns; UGA seeks replacement w/ a minimum of 5 years experience as a Division I Director of S&C; on 21 December UGA hires Alabama Assistant S&C Coach Mark Hocke as its Director of S&C despite his lacking the requisite experience and certification as a Master Strength & Conditioning Coach (MSCC))
22 December 2014: UGA OC Mike Bobo accepts Colorado State HC position; 2 days later UGA OL Coach Will Friend accepts Colorado State OC position (note that Bobo, Friend, and Pruitt were drinking buddies leaving only DL Coach Tracy Rocker and OLB Coach Kevin Sherrer as allies on the coaching staff)
30 December 2014: UGA defeats Louisville 37-14 in Belk Bowl; President Jere Morehead prevents AD McGarity from ousting Coach Richt
1 January 2015: Coach Richt’s $3.2M/yr. salary ranks 12th out of 14 SEC Head Football Coaches (note that Richt never signed his $4M/yr contract)
7 January 2015: Coach Richt hired St. Louis Rams OC Brian Schottenheimer to replace Mike Bobo
10 January 2015: Coach Richt hired former FCS McNeese State OL Coach Rob Sale to replace Will Friend. Richt asserts that “I firmly believe he’s going to be the perfect fit for Georgia.”
1 July 2014 – 30 June 2015 (Fiscal Year 2015): UGA Football earned $86,719,115 in revenue and realized $26,154,335 in expenses (which ranked 7th in the SEC; note that the amount was $24,889,957 less than Alabama spent on their football program over the same timeframe)
29 November 2015: AD Greg McGarity fires Mark Richt after a 9-3 regular season (and an overall 145-51 record w/ 2 SEC Championships); UGA’s 2016 recruiting class is ranked #1 in the nation by the 247Sports Composite
7 December 2015: AD Greg McGarity (under the direction of Don Leebern, Jr., Michael Kahn, et al.) hires Alabama DC Kirby Smart to replace Richt at a salary of $3.75M/yr.
11 December 2015: Alabama HC Nick Saban hires Pruitt to replace Kirby Smart; Pruitt left UGA w/ the #8-ranked FBS scoring defense and #7-ranked total defense (if it weren’t for the 27 points that UGA’s offense and special teams surrendered, the Dawgs would have had the #2-ranked FBS scoring defense in 2015)
January 2016: UGA demolishes its 20-yard long by 60-yard wide Nalley Multipurpose Room and begins construction on its new, full-sized IPF
July 2016: Per Dawg Post’s Dean Legge, AD Greg McGarity refused HC Kirby Smart’s request for $300K for his football camps; instead, Smart was given $100K and had to raise $200K on his own to make up the differential (despite the football program generating a $60.5M+ profit over the last year)
14 February 2017: UGA Athletic Association Board of Directors approved $63M Sanford Stadium West End Zone project; UGA also dedicated its new, full-sized IPF (the last program in the SEC to build one)
1 July 2016 – 30 June 2017 (Fiscal Year 2017): UGA Football earned $93,335,288 in revenue (i.e., $6,616,173 more than in Fiscal Year 2015) and realized $36,387,975 in expenses (i.e., $10,233,640 more than in Fiscal Year 2015)
3 May 2018: Head Coach Kirby Smart receives a 7-year, $49M contract
30 June 2018: UGA Athletics program ranks #2 in the SEC and #8 in the nation for the 2017-’18 season, its best finish since the 2004-’05 season
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Excellent post AFD. I really appreciate laying out some of the history I forgot (or chose to forget)… really puts some of the revisionist history into perspective.
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