I gather some of you have read Seth Emerson’s Kirby Smart/Mark Richt comparison here ($$). I’m not going through it now, but I did want to highlight a Loran Smith quote I find interesting for a couple of reasons: “After losing VanGorder, it trended down,” Smith said. “Or it would go in a direction in which you could count on them winning 10 games, but it was hard for them to win a championship.”
You’ve gotta love counting on winning ten games as a downward trend, but tell me how what Smith said there is essentially any different from this Richt postmortem.
If Kirby doesn’t win a national championship, I wonder what the updated version of Smith’s quote will look like.
The other thing about that Smith quote? I wonder if Smith would be honest enough to admit one could say the same thing about the trend line after Dooley lost Erk.
Get The Picture 
Kirby will always have Jeff Dantzler to tell the masses that the curren5byear is the placeholder year befor3 that sweet, sweet national championship the year after.
The math formula is current year + 1 = NC.
Hell, he has made a career out of raising expectations. I remember listening to him as I was driving away from Grant Field in 1997 telling us that 1998 would be the season we have been waiting for since 1980.
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Who can forget the amazing Heisman season of Kregg Lumpkin, another great Dantzler prediction.
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With Florida State and Miami starting over, Mullen was given the best recruiting opportunity a Florida coach has had in decades.
And he’s blowing it.
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Wrong thread but it’s worth repeating. 😉
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#ftmf
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It’s not winning about National Championships. It’s winning the Conference Championship, which Richt quit doing, or even coming close. Kirby doesn’t even have to win the SEC every year. But he needs to consistently be in the picture and occasionally win one. The Richt quote in the tweet makes it sound like it’s Natty or bust which it clearly isn’t. If Kirby has us in the hunt like he’s been doing, he’s all good to me.
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2012 wasn’t coming close?
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Don’t confuse people with facts, Senator.
Richt wasn’t fired due to not winning championships the last few years. He was fired due to the losses to Florida 2014 and 2015 and Alabama 2015.
Richt’s quote is right and should be the standard. If we don’t play in Atlanta the first weekend in December, it should be miserable to be the UGA head coach because we probably didn’t do the main thing … beat the Big 3 plus Tennessee.
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I’m pretty close to this view.
I was always a “Disney Dawg/Saint Richt” apologist until all of a sudden I wasn’t. UF 2014 hurt but Alabama 2015 was the nail in the coffin for me to admit that he wasn’t going to get it done ever and it was time to pull that big band aid off.
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Losing to florida will get you fired at UGA.
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True….too bad they were not inviting 4 teams back then, as that was a damn good team. The Bama/ND matchup was not even a game, but we lost our chance. A little bit tougher for Richt to reach the MNCG back then.
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I disagree. It is all about the national title. Granted, win the SEC and you’re in the playoff. But it’s about the CFP and the National Title.
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To you, but not to me. Win the SEC. Crush your enemies. Listen to the lamentations…Sure a nattie would be AWESOME, but the before mentioned stuff is pretty sweet too.
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I didn’t say it was to me, either.
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Oh no. It IS about winning National Championships. Look, mediocrity is why Richt was fired. Expectations are HIGH. UGA fandom, including myself, were tired of mismanagement, excuses and 10 wins with nothing to show. It is a win everything or bust time for UGA football. We’ve got a $50MM head coach, the premier IPF in the country, #1 recruiting classes and a committed admin & fan base. Settling for anything less than a Natl Championship(s) is a disservice to this program.
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While I agree UGA should be winning nationals title at the rate Florida did in the 90s and 2000s, it wasn’t what Richt was fired for.
Richt was perceived as not being able to regularly beat Florida, losing ground to Bama, and random losses which should never happen in most years. You can bring up the improving record to Florida but just as you think it is turning around the team craps the bed in Jax.
It annoys me to no end that some UGA fans would be over the moon happy with a couple of SEC titles a decade. Auburn is happy with that, Bama and UF are not.
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Otto, I think a LOT changed with the firing of Mark Richt. Kirby was given resources Richt couldn’t dream of. Money, facilities, coaches. The expectations are now WAY different. I think if Kirby doesn’t have a National Championship after five years on the job people will start talking. I don’t think that’s fair, but I think it will happen.
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I agree that Smart will be judged with a higher standard. The first 2 paragraphs and third was it annoys me that Richt wasn’t judged with that higher standard and many fans still think that way.
Richt was overly passive for many years and lost the leverage needed to get the money for the program Smart is getting. Many UGA fans think Smart is a lifer but if he isn’t getting the funds he believes is needed to win and the Bama job opens, I would not be surprised if he took the Bama job. The head coach position at any SEC title contending program is a very cut throat job, just the nature of the beast.
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Richt wanted to find and requested the funds. He paid out of his own wallet to improve the program. They would not give him what they have given Kirby.
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It is a condition of Kirby’s employment, Richt doesn’t have the personality to do that. The passive perception may also be why his recruits were flipped by other programs.
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How long do you give him until you determine the results are mediocre? You have stated national championship or bust. When / what circumstances do you believe we have hit bust and it’s time to rinse and repeat?
I respect your honesty.
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One big difference for me is that Richt never ran the table in the East. Kirby has already done that twice. I know a loss in either division counts the same in the standings (and there were a couple of years we won the division despite UF or SC running the table in the east, but lost their west games), but there’s something to be said for convincingly winning your division title, rather than backing into it. Kirby’s running the table twice already is also notable in that he has to play one more division game than Richt did for most of his time here.
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We’ve also been undefeated ‘Tween the Hedges for two years now which goes hand-in-hand with running the East.
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In some ways I do wonder what happens after several years and no MNC.
But Richt is UGA’s Tommy Tuberville. Decent recruiter who can get his team up to win big games, then inexplicably drop a sure bet.
I suspect ADs & Trustees tire of hearing why they ran on cruise control at times.
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Since 1996, no team has won the SEC East more than twice in a row.
Georgia can do it the year.
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Very well said. And to think, our closest win over that 2 year span is 14 points. 14 points! We have utterly dominated the competition, and now rivals are wondering when they’ll ever beat us again. USCe was beating us most years at the end of CMR’s helm, which is pathetic; now they have thrown in the towel and have resorted to baseless cheating accusations against us as to why their program is so far behind us. Even sane UF fans are acting like UGA fans in the 90’s these days.
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Well I don’t think it’s miserable around here. Hell we won the Rose Bowl and and Played in the National Championship Game so don’t damn you say we’re miserable program. You don’t know what the fuck u talking bout
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Nobody was miserable after Richt’s first few seasons, either.
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Yeah we got that those two SEC Championship in 2002 and 2005 those was some good times back with Coach Richt
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Also, man, VanGorder……..One of the best I’ve ever seen at stopping traditional pro style offenses to one of the worst since the spread/RPO concepts were introduced to the game. I think he’s at Bowling Green now? Can’t imagine he will fare very well in the “MACtion” arena either.
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This was an eye opening quote.
Pollack said. “Thomas Davis, we beat out Grambling. Odell Thurman, we beat out Middle Tennessee State. … We beat out South Carolina State for Tim Jennings.”
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Yeah I knew that about Davis and Jennings (we literally took Jennings the day before signing dad because we found out some of our more highly rated targets were going elsewhere), but I didn’t know that about Odell – is that right? I thought he was pretty highly recruited, didn’t he come in with a lot of expectations?
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I was in my early teens at the time and recruiting just wasn’t all that big. Suffice it to say I had no clue. Were we fighting off major programs for Pollack? Bruce Thornton? Kentrell Curry? Boss Bailey?
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As I recall, the recruiting ink mostly focused on skill positions: the big talk was on WR’s Reggie Brown, Durrell Robinson, RB’s Jasper Sanks, Jabari Davis, Bruce Thornton
Pollack signed as a FB or DL
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I think Odell was a 3 star or so but not highly recruited. He also got arrested his freshman year for traffic stuff, which is why he left for GMC. Interestingly, I remember seeing his name in the R&B police blotter section but there was not accompanying internet mania. He redshirtted or did not play his freshman year so it was just overlooked.
As good as those guys were, just imagine if Aaron Scranton and his katana were on that defense!
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He hit a guy from New Mexico State harder than I have ever seen anyone hit in person. It was an early start game against a paycheck team so you could hear it in the stands like you were on the sidelines. It was so loud and vicious.
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We beat out Ga Southern for Tae Crowder. I have posted a few time that I am pulling for him.
However, it goes to show Richt did pull in some great talent but also had some major misses which opened the door for 2nd choices, further Richt always seem to have holes in the roster with plenty of walk ons filling the roster to the limit.
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That’s because Richt didn’t offer 250 kids when he only had 25 scholarships available. As such he didn’t even offer second choices because he knew he didn’t have spaces and that would essentially be dishonest. Which is why he relied on walkons so often.
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Right’s roster management practices were downright negligent. There’s no use in defending or even trying to rationalize them.
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Agreed and that was the point of my post under a typo’d name
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Heard, ott … Otto. I’m pulling for Crowder too and I’m amazed at the player he’s become under this staff.
But yea, you’re right, Richt’s rosters always had glaring holes. Not just “thin” or “uncertain” positions, but talent that was one-deep or totally reliant on a freshman or counting on a distant hope. And we certainly never had an offensive line that even faintly resembles what we see today.
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That wasn’t a defense or rationalization, that is exactly what happened. One could certainly criticize Richt for not adjusting, but he could also be commended for his commitment to honesty. Depends on mileage.
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I hear you. I’m just not convinced that commitment to honesty was the only flaw in Richt’s approach to roster management.
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Perhaps not, but we saw a distinct shift in recruiting when Pruitt arrived with tenants of “the process.” That 2015 recruiting class was the foundation for the 2017 and 2018 defenses.
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I think Crowder will always be in the rotation, but will have a tough tome fending off the talent behind him.
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The post wasn’t to knock Crowder. Crowder maybe my favorite on this team as he was a signing day commit after another higher rated RB flipped (Richt seemed to have more late flips away than for), he stuck with the team after a coaching change, and further agreed to change to LB. He could have decided to transfer to a smaller program to play RB but he elected to stay and work for playing time. I respect Crowder for that. He is an example needed on the team, especially today.
He was another example of Rich signing a player that was being pursued but smaller programs.
I hope Crowder does everything someone like Roquan did, but I don’t expect he will. He will be fighting playing time, and I hope he excels and earns it.
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There were two SEC championships and a pretty nice Cotton Bowl win the three seasons after Erk.
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And UGA won the SEC in 2005.
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And we won in 2002 with David Greene as QB that was a good team that year
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Wasn’t just that Richt wasn’t winning a Mary but kept finding creative ways to lose the division (see his last 3 seasons). As long as Snart keeps winning the division, it seems to risky to replace him. It should also be pointed out Richt had an easy instate recruiting base. 10 wins at UGA ought to be a floor
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This is it. UGA would have mind numbing losses to Vandy or UK or SC on a damn near consistent basis. That was what was infuriating about Richt. You can’t win the SEC if you lose to bottom dwellers on a regular basis.
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Kirby is recruiting at a completely different level than Richt did his first few years. This holds true for where we sit in the recruiting rankings compared to the east and compared to the conference. Jimmy and joes league. Richt inherited SEC offensive and defensive lines, Kirby didn’t. The conference was evenly distributed with talent when Richt took over, now Bama is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room.
Losing Vangorder took away an edge the defense played with. I don’t think we are going to have that issue under Kirby with any DC on staff. I think Coley will be a good OC here but that coordinator change is the one I want to watch this season.
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Winning recruiting titles is great and all, but UGA football clearly has a new bottom line for achievement
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This horse has already been beaten quite a few times, and I’m as guilty as anyone of doing my fair share. But CMR’s quote above and his defenders showed just how delusional they were about, well, pretty much everything. The pressure being applied to CMR did NOT have to do with not winning championships (though it did play a small part), it was due to just how badly the program was being run, any anything with any glimpse into the program during those years fully understand what an incompetent mess everything was.
From discipline problems, horrid roster management, weak leadership at the top in which the assistants and even players essentially ran the show, haphazard recruiting efforts, and so forth, internally the program was on a gradual slide downward since ’07, with a few fleeting moments of rebound here and there. And as for CMR’s overall record, perhaps the best stat to illuminate this is UGA pathetic record against ranked opponents over CMR’s final NINE years at UGA, which was something like 13-29 during those years. THAT, IMO, is what did him in; not to mention failing to take advantage of a horrid SEC east at the time, along with even South Carolina ascending ahead us as a program to boot (USCe beat CMR 4 of 5 years at the end of his run, which should never, ever happen).
I can go on and on to the point that even Tolstoy would tell me to wrap things up, but you get the picture. Getting trucked by USCe, only winning 30% of games against ranked opponents, averaging only 9.1 wins yearly with a 13 game schedule (including bowl games) since ’07, a slew of ongoing and repetitive internal issues that was driving everyone mad, and finally a general malaise that persisted in the final years where the program was, simply put, in a state of drift at best, all combined to finally make the much needed change happen.
And if CKS dosn’t win a natty, I think the pressure will increase some, but the fact that UGA just feels like a well-run program these days, along with us dominating our rivals while constantly being in the hunt, will give him plenty of cushion moving forward.
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Exactly, the inexplicable losses to lesser talented teams and the horrid record against ranked teams were the most maddening thing. The internal issues and recruiting ineptitude were blatant symptoms of serious problems.
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Right. In CKS’s last two years alone, he has 8 wins against ranked opponents. Richt, meanwhile, only had 13 wins against ranked opponents during his final 9 years at the helm at UGA. Next we could look at recruiting, in which Smart is trouncing any recruiting class CMR ever signed.
The one argument I don’t hear as much any more but used to ad nauseam is that UGA fired CMR after winning 10 games in ’15. What makes this a total mirage is all those wins came against crappy teams, in which UGA didn’t beat ONE P5 team with a winning record that year. And, no surprise, they went 0-3 against ranked teams.
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Richt’s roster management issues ultimately boiled down to his unwillingness to offer 250 high schoolers per class, 225 of which he didn’t actually have space for. I agree that Georgia should never lose to USCe on a consistent basis, but I think it’s important to note that those teams were chock full of NFL talent (including a #1 overall pick), they had a hall of fame coach (love him or hate him) and they also beat Saban’s Alabama team after he won his first title in T-Town.
If I had one complaint about Richt, it would be his unwillingness to move on from sub par coordinators. Say what you will about Bobo from 2011-2014 (against a consistently awful schedule) I don’t believe he would have survived 2010 at any other major program. Martinez was fired two years too late, and Louisville did us a solid with Grantham (although he was allegedly told to find another job).
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I have pinch me I’am dreaming moments of the 2019 schedule. I know, I know our talent base is suppose to be top 3 but I have looked at the Barns schedule as well as USCjr.
I was there during Richt’s building up and slow fall to 10 wins. I was hesitant to pull the bandaid as some were but I think it’s was more of we don’t get Kirb’s now moment that someone else will that moved the needle plus the Florida and Alabama games.
At Vandy in the heat has always or could be a thorn, I know we have more depth, talent, etc. then the Dawgs can sleep walk the next week and get ready for the trip to Knotsville and Urange Country. They’ll be better I think and they won’t be looking ahead to all those tasks in November. The the Cats and Tigers before A and Mer’s in Sanford on Dooley Field. Then a Murray day in Athens before the Doamers come in. In the next 3 weeks there is USCjr, UFer’s and the Barn and they each have a week off to plan, plot and scheme. Then HECT and their new offense.
I don’t wanna wish my life away but I am hoping Kirb’s don’t do even keel crap, injuries don’t apply and heavy screws and bolts to tighten everything down cause even the early Richt years might not survive this one.
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When I look at some of the great coaches of the past, they would not have been given the time to become what they became. Coach Tom Osborne coached the greatest college team I have ever seen play, the 1995 Nebraska team. He became head coach at Nebraska in 1973 and won it all in 1994.
That’s 19 years later. Coach Bowden started at FSU in 1976 and won the title in 1993 and again in 1999. He had an amazing run in the 1990s but it took him over 15 years to get there. No way those guys get 15 to 20 years in today’s environment. Some coaches have said “Coaches and players win games. Administrations win championships.” I think they are correct. UGA hamstrung Coach Richt till they burned him out. Who knows what he could have done with full support. He overacheived, IMO, with what he had to work with. Kirby would not come under the same cloud of management that CMR was willing to coach under and he was smart about that.
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FSU was a homecoming team when Bowden arrived.
Richt was compared to Osborne. However Osborne had shares of 2 conf championships in the 70s, 5 more in the 80s, Osborne’s worst year was 9-3-1 and he never went more than 3 years without a share of the Conference title. The Richt fans who use Osborne late run of dominance never seem to include the other details. Smart’s first few years maybe a more accurate comparison as Smart his winning at a very good clip but is on a collision course for the conference crown with an iconic program who is hitting on all cylinders.
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CMR never had the administrative support that Osborne, Bowden, or Kirby have enjoyed. It’s not even close when compared to Kirby.
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One of CMR’s flaws as a HC. He didn’t get it at Miami as well. See my other post about Smart and the Bama position. I don’t believe CMR has an aggressive enough personality to be a HC at a title contending SEC program.
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…and again Richt didn’t have the consistent record Osborne had. He didn’t build the program from the ground up like Bowden.
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Wait a minute – don’t you think CMR deserves at least some of the blame for being so passive and letting the admins walk all over him? You said yourself that CKS was smart about ensuring various support structures would be in place, yet somehow CMR, a man with many years of experience his senior, gets a pass? I don’t get it.
The fact is CMR was never all that motivated to make the changes needed, and he typically was rarely proactive with anything, but instead reactive to all the fires that kept popping up. This was one of his main problems. On top of that, the admins asked for CMR to devote more time to fundraising instead of running the program, yet instead of telling them to F off, he went along with it and lost total focus. CMR himself admitted he made a mistake getting so wrapped up in fundraising during his exit press conference and wished he would have said ‘no’ more often. That’s CMR’s fault – not the admins.
I can go on and on, but trust me, CMR was far too passive and lacked true leadership capabilities. The admins could have given him the same support they now are offering CKS, and he still would have found a way to not take advantage of it and/or would have squandered it somehow.
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This, all day. Part of the HC job is to work with administration to get what your program needs. And to be proactive about it.
Richt did neither.
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Good post. I concur. Richt was running UGA as a second tier program. Kirby is running hot like a first tier program. The talent base in Georgia disguised just how negligently Richt was running the program.
Richt’s comment — made as he was banking millions of dollars a year in salary — came across as a bit petty back then. Today, it sounds downright ridiculous. No, Mark, the problem was your mediocrity. That’s what made things miserable. I’d have gotten fired from any of my last several jobs for performance like his.
Did Richt get have a miserable time at Miami because of not winning championships too? Lol, give me a break.
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F it. Fire Kirby. Corch is available. Our vet school can cure that ass’s headaches and we can provide better food than Papa John’s pizza.
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McGarity said Richt didn’t get the things Kirby has gotten because he didn’t ask for them. Richts primary interest was couch time at home with Katherine. I will never forget him saying he loved thanksgiving because he didn’t have to worry about anything except relaxing for a week.
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Right. That would totally explain why Richt funded assistant bonuses out his own pocket and why Pruitt went public about the IPF, which Richt had been asking for for years.
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While I don’t buy the above narrative either, I also think it’s part of the HC job to work with administration to secure resources needed for the success of the program.
For whatever reason, Richt failed to do that.
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Which SEC program with a SEC title in the past 40 years would have kept Richt longer?
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w/r/t financial investment in the program and RIcht. It seems like some folks want to believe that CMR asked for something once in passing and then let it go. He was on that IPF from the day he stepped on campus and talked about it all the time. He wanted bigger longer contracts for assistants and talked about that openly. He always gets painted as so passive in some folks version.
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Anybody who buys this passive crap forgets about the public power play Richt pulled after McGarity tried to get him canned before the Belk Bowl.
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No we didn’t.
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His record on the Saturday after Thanksgiving would seem to undercut that quote (which I can find no record of) tremendously…
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Pretty much everyone on this thread (and the Dooley thread(s) below), massively fail to appreciate how much the game and environment have changed in the past 10 years, 20 years, 30 years or (gulp) 40 years. Applying today’s standard to Dooley or Richt or trying to evaluate them by today’s standards is how you end up with so many for being so ungrateful and dismissive of Dooley and Richt’s achievements… Both of them did a tremendous amount of good for the University and our football program and the people who are associated with them, notwithstanding their faults and failings!
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Well said.
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I think that Richt did great up until Meyer and Saban took the league over and at that point in his career, it was too difficult to turn the course and compete with what they were doing. A fresh perspective was needed but that does not guarantee Bama results. After coming off of the malaise of the late 90s, I certainly felt like UGA would be a national contender following the second SEC championship in 2005 even if there were some issues that were apparent even during that great 4 year period. The most galling to me was not recruiting rankings or the like but rather the Florida game in 2005. That result really made me nervous about Corch and beginning in 2006 it was apparent that UGA still had a big Florida problem one that is still unresolved if you are a person who became a fan under the early days of Goff and has only recently seen the series become competitive in terms of results on the filed.
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Entering year 4 of Smart’s tenure.
If he doesnt win the national championship this year or next doesnt he sort of half to be getting some second thoughts?
I dont know that its fair or makes sense, but not a lot of coaches dont get it done in 5 years and then suddenly figure it out.
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To your point – the two best coaches in the game right now (Saban and Dabo) won their first national titles in their ninth and eighth years as a college HC, respectively. If you don’t count Dabo’s interim year – then he won his first in year seven. They are certainly the outliers in that model where they figured it out after five years.
There’s obviously this expectation around Kirby that because he spent so much time at Alabama and because Georgia was not THAT far away from an elite program when he was hired that the situation was just supposed to be an immediate plug and play (results from 2017 certainly accelerated the expectations timeline).
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The 2005 Florida game? The one where our 5th year QB who had been playing lights out all season was out with an injury and we had to play with a legacy (DGD btw) at QB? That game??? Sure it sucked, but to put that 100% at Richt’s feet and proclaim it to have been the beginning of the end is a real headscratcher…
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I don’t know about the beginning of the end but having to rely on a legacy QB and getting beat by a Corch/ Florida team that was less/ or equally talented did become a thing around here after 2005.
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As long as Saban is at Bama, Smart has his hands full for sure.
That said, I see us being in contention most every year we tee it up with the talent that Smart is bringing in.
In reality, we are much closer to having a National Championship two years ago and being in the playoffs again last year than anything else. Not sure you can ask for much more at this point.
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2004, 2008, 2013, and 2014 were disappointments.
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2008 and 2014 really sucked.
In hindsight, that 2004 Auburn team was damn good, and I’m not sure we beat them in a rematch. That 10rc game still sticks in my craw. I would have liked a shot at the Barn for sure.
2013 is the ultimate season of “what if.” That team played 3 really good opponents right out of the gate and was a missed field goal away from a chance to beat all 3. Lose Gurley for multiple games vs. LSU. Lose the entire WR corps and Marshall at Kneeland. Get screwed by the officials at Vandy (still no excuse for losing that game). JHC and Trigga give up the P@JH. Lose Murray in his last home game vs UK. Team falls flat to Nebraska in the rain in Jacksonville.
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I’ve always thought the biggest mistake Georgia made after Dooley retired was not getting Erk Russell as the head coach.
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