Lack of BCS title doesn’t keep Dogs from decade’s Top 10

UGA fans have had a lot to celebrate in the past decade. (Brant Sanderlin / AJC)

We’ve heard a lot recently about how Georgia fans are disappointed with the way things have been going lately for Mark Richt’s program. But it’s worth noting that most of that disappointment is focused on the past two seasons and, in fact, is prompted in large measure by how consistently successful the Dogs have been since Richt came to Athens.

Richt raised the standards of what Georgia fans consider acceptable, and how he has to live up to those standards.

That point is driven home by some numbers crunching done by the CFB Data Warehouse (with a tip of the hat to Rivals’ Fanblogs.com for pointing this out).

Factoring in winning percentage, schedule, national championships won and Big 4 bowl appearances, the Data Warehouse folks have compiled a comprehensive college football ranking for the years 2000-2009, and UGA comes in No. 8 for the decade. (That covers Jim Donnan’s last season and all of Richt’s to date.)

Here’s how the Top 25 looks:

1. Southern Cal
 2. Florida
 3. LSU 
4. Ohio State 
5. Oklahoma 
6. Texas
 7. Miami
 8. Georgia 9. Oregon
 10. FSU 
11. Virginia Tech
 12. Alabama 
13. Oregon State
 14. Michigan
 15. Auburn 16. Notre Dame 
17. Tennessee
 18. Georgia Tech
 19. UCLA
 20. California 21. Penn State
 22. Iowa 
23. Wisconsin
 24. West Virginia
 25. Boston College

What’s especially notable is that all of the teams ranked ahead of Georgia won a national championship during that decade and the Dogs are the highest-ranked team that didn’t win one.

While it might be popular to judge things from a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately point of view, Richt’s most severe critics have to concede that when you look at the overall record, he’s done a remarkable job, even without winning a crystal football.

Whether you think he can keep it up in the next decade and eventually get UGA a BCS title is certainly something that’s hotly debated in Bulldog circles. You either see this past season and a half as a hiccup for a still successful program, or you see a program starting to decline.

I’m with the hiccup crowd. What about you?

While on the subject of the decade ranking, it’s also notable that using the same criteria, the SEC was the top-ranked conference for 2000-2009, followed by the Pac 10, Big 12, Big 10, ACC, Big East, Mountain West, Division 1-A independents, the WAC and Conference USA. Which might come as a surprise to a lot of Big 12 boosters.