Richt’s two main rivals are Urban Meyer and himself
Mark Richt must deal with the what-have-you-done-lately attitude prevalent in college football today. (Brant Sanderlin / AJC)
We don’t need to get into any of that silly “hot seat” talk about Mark Richt, a man who has averaged 10 wins a year in his nine years at UGA. I think it’s instructive that those stories usually emanate from writers in Alabama, Florida and Tennessee. Some of these folks cite “widespread” concern about the state of the program within the Bulldog Nation, but from what I’ve observed more often than not the talk about the need for a new coach at Georgia is mainly confined to a handful of anonymous Internet trolls.
It is a fair statement, though, that just about nobody at UGA or in Dogs fandom found last year’s 8-5 record satisfying, and that includes Richt himself. In fact, he was so unsatisfied that he fired three of his staff members, including one of his closest friends.
But what faces Richt is more than just coming back from one relatively disappointing season. As the Chattanooga Times-Free Press pointed out recently, while Richt got off to a very fast start in Athens, his two SEC championship trophies “are beginning to gather dust in a league now dominated by Alabama and Florida.”
It’s particularly the situation with Florida, our main SEC East rival, that rankles. A couple of particularly disheartening losses in the past couple of years dramatically increased the frustration already there from the Gators’ domination of the series over the past two decades and Urban Meyer bringing two BCS national championship trophies to Gainesville.
But Richt is competing not just with Meyer, but also with the Mark Richt of 2001-2005.
Vince Dooley summed it up nicely in the Times-Free Press when he said Richt set a high standard of success for himself. “Once the bar is set that high, then the expectations go right along with that, and anything less than that is judged by what happened last year or the year before. It’s about expectations, and expectations are built on success.”
Back in Dooley’s day, a couple of conference championships was more than enough to tide a coach over through a down cycle. Nowadays, you go four years without winning the conference or underachieve compared with expectations, even if you have winning seasons, and media types start speculating about how warm your seat is.
I don’t think most UGA supporters believe Richt needs to be on the hot seat. As for those folks who would entertain the idea of dumping the third-most-successful active coach among major programs at the prospect of maybe getting the latest fast-rising assistant to have created a buzz, well, they are talking about taking a big gamble.
Richt has been a consistent winner at Georgia, and he’s done it with class.
It’s all about perception, though, and the toughest challenge facing Richt is matching that guy in Gainesville and the younger version of himself.
I don’t have any doubt he’s up to the task.
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262 comments Add your comment
ESPN
May 18th, 2010
12:59 pm
“yeah whatever” posts as kborden8746 on the espn sec blog”
Nope, he is jawjadawg12 and Second2noneUGA
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:01 pm
ESPN……….and many many more
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:03 pm
now back to Richt.
.
thanks BuLLdawg for the updated numbers. The ones I was using was from ESPN of the week prior to the ALA game in 2008 when they compared Saban to Richt. Here is the link
.
So not lying just didnt properly extrapolate the numbers from then. Now go argue with the world wide leader in sports. Moron
http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/467/nick-saban-vs-mark-richt
Alabama: 3-1
Auburn: 6-3
Arkansas: 5-0
Florida: 2-7
South Carolina: 7-2
Tennessee: 5-4
Kentucky: 7-2
Vanderbilt: 8-1
Ole Miss: 4-0
Mississippi St: 2-0
LSU: 3-3
UNDER Richt
Vs. SEC foes: 52-23
.
Vs. Top 25 foes: 29-18
.
Vs. Top 25 foes away from home: 18-12
.
Vs. Top 10 foes: 8-6
.
In postseason games (bowls and championships): 9-3
.
In games decided by a touchdown or less: 34-14
.
Record at home: 46-11
.
Record on the road: 42-6 (including bowl games)
.
Losses to unranked teams: 6
.
Top 25 finishes: 8
.
Top 10 finishes: 6
.
Fact:………UGA was 12-1 in 2002 (prior to bowl selections)
.
Fact ………Fla was 12-1 in 2006 (prior to bowl selections)
.
Fact ………Not UGAs fault there were 2 unbeatens that year. “unlucky”
.
Fact……….Not Flas credit that there was only one unbeaten in 2006. “Lucky”
.
Fact:………Luck (not merit) had more to do with Fla getting an invite to the BCS not that Fla was more deserving to go to a NC than UGA with identical records.
.
Fact:………No SEC team has ever lost a BCSNC game and if UGA would have been invited nothing indicates that it would have been different
.
Fact……….UGA has 2 SEC titles..same as Fla in last 9 years and equal amount of total wins (90) over all.
.
Fact……….UGA has been ranked more times top ten in last 9 years than any SEC team at 6. Fla has only been ranked top ten 3 times in 9 years (real impressive).
.
Fact……….In 9 years under Richt the only SEC team with more wins is LSU
Fact………..UGA has won 4 str8 bowls….more than any other SEC team.
.
Fact……..UGA has won 11 of last 13 bowls…Thats more than any team (tied with LSU and more than FLA)
.
Fact…… UGA has won 8 or more games in last 13 years…more than any other team in the nation including Fla.
.
Fact…….UGA is clearly as good or better than any SEC team over last 9 years. Only a fool or a fan of the mythical BCSNC selection process (non playoff) would think otherwise.
.
Fact…….UGA had same record when they won the SEC title in 2002 as Fla did in 2006/8 when they won the SEC title. But UGA had the misfortune (luck) to have that record in a year that had 2 other teams with undefeated records.
Hardly an indictment on UGA but rather on the NC selection process.
6 times finished in the top 10
2 times finished in the top 3
3 SEC Championship Appearances
2 SEC Titles
3 BCS Bowls
2 Sugar Bowl wins
90-27 record over 8 seasons – 79% winning percentage (one of only 7 in the history of college ball to have ever accomplished this)
4 str8 bowl wins
7-2 in bowls (big games)
Mark Richt coached QB coach for Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke = 2 Heismans; Head Coach for David Greene = all time winningest college QB until Colt McCoy this year); and coached Matthew Stafford = very rich #1 draft pick)
No Probations
He has my respect.
Period.
1eyedJack
May 18th, 2010
1:04 pm
If the team fails to improve from last year, then yeah, the seat should get warm.
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:04 pm
now back to Richt:
Ere anyone attempts to argue that Coach Richt’s superb out-of-conference ledger is the product of schedules stacked with the likes of
Northwestern State,
Western Kentucky,
Tennessee Tech, and
Hawaii in the 2008 Sugar Bowl,
I should hasten to point out that he is 21-4 against
Arizona State,
Boise State,
Boston College,
Clemson,
Colorado,
Florida State,
Georgia Tech,
Michigan State,
Oklahoma State,
Purdue,
Texas A&M,
Virginia Tech,
West Virginia, and
Wisconsin.
Even if we factor out Division I-AA teams, Sun Belt squads, and similar schedule fodder, Coach Richt is .840 against teams from automatic BCS-qualifying conferences other than the SEC. (Yes, I’m going ahead and counting the Broncos in that category because the Mountain West will get a guaranteed bid as soon as Boise State is invited to join.)
guy
May 18th, 2010
1:06 pm
patrick, 63 points in the last two games. thats the difference. beat UF (at least somewhat regularly) and then you can talk, until then youre just flapping your gums.
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:06 pm
Diamond dog
.
please educate yourself prior to writing your propaganda. Richt has finished in the top 10 six out of his nine seasons at Georgia (yes he finished #10 in the USA Today Coaches Poll in 2008, the same poll that hands out the BCS Natl Championship trophy). You have to be very lucky to win a Natl Championship – Florida would not have been in the Natl Champ game in 2006 without USC inexplicably losing its final game to Karl Dorrell and UCLA. Look at LSU in 2007 and the circumstances in which that two loss team made the championship game. Richt simply has not had that kind of luck bestowed on him yet – matter of fact he should have been playing for the Natl Championship in 2002 and 2007 if not for some luck of the opposite kind.
ESPN
May 18th, 2010
1:07 pm
How bout’ that lost to Vandy?
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:11 pm
guy
May 18th, 2010
1:06 pm
patrick, 63 points in the last two games. thats the difference. beat UF (at least somewhat regularly) and then you can talk, until then youre just flapping your gums.
——————————————–
Yeah I agree with you. Fla has been a problem…but UGA does not dress out to play Fla only..their main and traditional rivals (Fla only recently became one) is Auburn and GT. He is 14-4 against them. They dress out to win the SEC…Richt has as many SEC titles as Fla does in the last 9 years (his tenure)
guy
May 18th, 2010
1:13 pm
who are you arguing with patrick? no one is really disagreeing with you. everyone knows it takes some luck to get into the title game. regularly finishing seasons with only one loss, and winning your conference certainly make it more likely that youll get in though. uga has failed to do that (aside from 2002). losing to KY, vandy, etc., struggling every year against mid level teams like usc, and getting blown out by the UFs and bamas of the world is not going to impress the pollsters enough to get you in very often. losing to a divisional rival 85% of the time makes it hard to win the division/conference. until uga can start beating florida somewhat consistently (or manage to keep it within 3 or 4 TDs), florida, and meyer as long as he’s there, will be viewed as the better coach/team. i actually like richt and think uga would be stupid to let him go, but im not sure he has the ‘it’ factor to get uga to the level of bama/florida. it would be a huge gamble to try to dump him to find someone that could though.
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:14 pm
oops last post will not get past the grammar police Diamond dog.
.
“their main rivals ARE Auburn and GT”
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:16 pm
guy
said “winning your conference certainly make it more likely that youll get in though. uga has failed to do that (aside from 2002)”.
.
UGA won the SEC in 2005 as well.
.
In fact UGA under Richt has 2 and in the EXACT same time frame (nine years) Fla has how many??? You guessed it…two
RedPantsDawg
May 18th, 2010
1:16 pm
Would we even be having the “hot seat” discussions if Richt had fired Willie and Fabris after the 2008 season? To me, Richt used up a lot of the goodwill he built since he got here by keeping them another year.
Jimmy
May 18th, 2010
1:16 pm
Wow, between all of the blog hopping, it’s difficult to catch up w/ you, Patrick. LOL
This was from a previous post on one of Tucker’s blogs addressed to you, Sir Patrick;
You are a narcissist if there ever was one on these blogs. I bet you a democrat, aren’t you?? Only dems use the facts and statisitcs they want to back their point, while “conveinatly” leaving out others that prove them wrong.
As in your case that Richt is on level w/ Myer or Saban. He’s a fine coach no doubt, but his program is heading downward while Myer and Saban have their respective programs on the upswing.
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
1:17 pm
GUY….Did you just say the bammers of the world? Richt is 3-1 against ALA. ALA is Richts biiitch using your perameters about Meyer and UGA
Dawg 3/20
May 18th, 2010
1:22 pm
The incoming freshmen class for UGA is really lame, unlike the Gators who have 16 All Americans coming in as freshmen. Looks like rival Meyer got the best of him there.
Jimmy
May 18th, 2010
1:23 pm
Just another example of Patrick’s dem idealogy when using stats to back his point of view.
Richt is 2 – 0 versus Shula’s Bama team. He’s only 1 – 1 against Saban’s. The victory was three years ago in OT. The loss was two years ago in a blowout.
Add in his 2 – 7 record versus Myer and the fact that those two coaches have a combined four NC’s, two apeice, to Richt’s ZERO and there really is no doubt who the better coaches are.
It’s apparent to all but delusional dawg fans like Patrick. LOL
Bull Gator
May 18th, 2010
1:23 pm
Who would the dawgs go after? It all goes in cycles. UF will not be dominate year in and year out. All schools have schlorships and coaches that recruit and work hard, so some years are better than others, that’s just the way it is.
SEC EAST SPOKESMAN
May 18th, 2010
1:30 pm
Please, please, please, PLEASE DO NOT EVER FIRE COACH RICHT WE LOVE HIM.
Vanderbilt Spokesman
May 18th, 2010
1:31 pm
Don’t fire Mark, UGA is the only visiting stadium in the East we have won in.
I am the dog
May 18th, 2010
1:32 pm
if we ever get past Florida
Ron Zook
May 18th, 2010
1:33 pm
I hope he gets fired at Georgia and is hired by Ohio State.
AceDawg
May 18th, 2010
1:33 pm
I think Richt deserves to be on the hot seat for refusing to revamp especially the defensive coaching staff a couple or few years ago rather than watching them struggle in 2009 when it was largely assumed Martinez was ineffective by a majority of UGA’s fanbase.
That said, I think it is better to say that very few people “want” Richt to be on the hot seat. They, and I, hope he makes it through and are cheering him on.
Count me as one who says he should be on the hot seat for putting off a tough coaching decison and seeing the Dawgs fall on account of poor execution (penalties, turnovers, tackling, coverage), but I do believe he’s done great things this Spring, and I hope he rises to the top and stomps the SEC this year and for years to come.
Dawg observer
May 18th, 2010
1:36 pm
He didn’t fire Martinez because he was passionate about winning; if that was the case he would have fired bobo the clown also or would have fired Martinez the year before. He did it for one reason; his suntanned butt was on the line.
Dawg Fud
May 18th, 2010
1:40 pm
2-7 against Florida says it all. The losses to Zook just add insult to injury.
You’d think a Miami grad and FSU asst would make that game a priority, thus garnering better results.
Beat those epsky Gators two years in a row.
Also, would like to see us beat Tenn, Fla and Auburn in the same season again before I leave this earth.
Gator Bull
May 18th, 2010
1:41 pm
Blah, blah, blah. That’s how it is. Work ‘em, Silly Gators. Mr. Two Bits is a gay.
SEC EAST SPOKESMAN
May 18th, 2010
1:42 pm
These stats are just for Patrick because the rest of the Dawg Nation gets it:
Meyer 80% winning record in SEC
Richt 69% winning record in SEC
Anymore questions lame brain?
Lindsey
May 18th, 2010
1:43 pm
I think Coach Richt is great coach and a good guy! GO DAWGS!! Beat Florida!!
Gator Bull is Patrick
May 18th, 2010
1:43 pm
Enter your comments here
Gator Bull
May 18th, 2010
1:44 pm
80% of the time the Gators win every time.
Diamond Dog's Parole Officer
May 18th, 2010
1:44 pm
oops last post will not get past the grammar police Diamond dog.
Or the basic rules of punctuation, Patrick.
chazzo
May 18th, 2010
1:45 pm
If the Dawgs were to only win three games next year, it had better be USC, UT, and UF. End of story. That’s the trifecta. Anything else is gravy. It would be nice to take down Auburn, too, but they are in the west. Tech’s in the ACC. Put everything on USC, UT, and UF. Don’t worry about any other game or goal and dang sure not bowls and polls. Just take out those three teams, and set a course for history.
Dave Dawg
May 18th, 2010
1:46 pm
Well, he needs to keep “bringin’ it” or whatever his younger self was doing. There’s no way we’re going to settle for a Bowden-FSU cruise control decade. Life is short.
Diamond Dog's Parole Officer
May 18th, 2010
1:46 pm
No way that guy is a UGA graduate…
Gator Bull is Patrick
May 18th, 2010
1:47 pm
This is what gayboy does when he cant win a debate: 80% of the time the Gators win every time.
Gator Bull is Patrick
May 18th, 2010
1:48 pm
Diamond dog, he isnt. He got booted out of the marines for sleeping with his chihuahua
itpdude
May 18th, 2010
2:02 pm
There is a character issue with Richt. His acceptance of penalties and the sort has been disappointing.
We beat Vandy-- yeah!
May 18th, 2010
2:03 pm
Hey Yeah whatever– Saban has 2 NCs. CMR has ZERO. Please stop with your useless data…
Me
May 18th, 2010
2:05 pm
I can see “yeah whatever!” aka Patrick is well on his way to another 94 posts. That’s an awful lot of time and effort during a working day for someone who supposedly owns a company. Droid or no droid. Or is that all just a made up fantasy, like the things he posts daily??
Me
May 18th, 2010
2:23 pm
What did Patrick say when his mother told him to go wash the semi truck?? Same thing he says everyday…yeah, whatever!
Hunt
May 18th, 2010
2:24 pm
Richt repeats mistakes–penalties, turnovers, losing to Florida. He can’t figure out what’s causing them, and how to stop them.
Me
May 18th, 2010
2:25 pm
If I were “Snap” “Crackle” or “Pop”, I don’t think I’d want to get too close to Patrick.
Gator Bull
May 18th, 2010
2:26 pm
Diamond Dog, you want to tickle my undercarriage?
Scott
May 18th, 2010
2:26 pm
I don’t buy this “Richt’s failing by trying to live up to his own expectations” theory. He hasn’t won a National Championship, so it’s not like he’s trying to reach that level again. What happened was, he did better when Meyer and Saban wern’t in the SEC, now that the competition level has increased, Richt hasn’t won an SEC Championship since.
Mr. Two Bits
May 18th, 2010
2:29 pm
You KNOW I do, Gator Bull!
Flat Tire on I-95 in Jacksonville
May 18th, 2010
2:30 pm
If Richt cant beat FL Bill then unfortunatley we do need a new coach
or
Richt needs to have a serious pay cut because in my opinion 3 million a year is a lot of money wasted on someone who cant beat the team he needs to beat
Hunt
May 18th, 2010
2:30 pm
Why does Richt keep losing to Florida? Because he can’t figure out what’s causing him to lose to Florida and can’t teach his players how to fix it.
coachdawg 2000
May 18th, 2010
2:36 pm
all you “lunatic-fringe” morons need to get a grip. And if you missed it in 2004 and 2007 we beat Floriduh but still didn’t make the SEC Championship game. So the issue isn’t just beating floriduh it is putting it ALL together in one year. We were a couple of plays away in ‘02,’04,’07 from possibly playing for it all. So go back to your IT job and leave evaluating coaches to an AD. We’ve got to beat UT on our strong years. Va Tech stuck by Frank Beamer when they were putrid and now the are perennial powerhouse. So don’t go to Jax and take up following the gymdogs or something else!
Georgia Tim
May 18th, 2010
2:37 pm
Georgia keeps losing to Florida because Richt can’t put a plan together that his players believe in, that has an almost zero chance of failing if executed, and a plan that his coaches and players can actually execute. Meyer has taken Richt to the woodshed on putting together gameplans that have a real high chance of working, that his team can easily and realisitically execute.
yeah whatever!
May 18th, 2010
2:39 pm
SEC EAST SPOKESMAN
May 18th, 2010
1:42 pm
These stats are just for Patrick because the rest of the Dawg Nation gets it:
Meyer 80% winning record in SEC
Richt 69% winning record in SEC
Anymore questions lame brain?
========================
As a HC in D1A football
.
Richt averages 10 wins a year (90 wins in 9 years)
.
As a HC in D1A football Meyer averages 9.7 wins a year…(97 wins in 10 years)
.
Half were against Akron and Northern Ill. All of Richts were against the SEC and the like
.
10 wins a year against the likes of the SEC is better than 9.7 wins a years against Akron.
.
and you call me “Lame brain”