There’s no other way to say it: Mark Richt is in trouble at UGA
This was Mississippi State's first touchdown Saturday. It would add two more. (AP photo)
I wouldn’t have thought such a thing possible a month ago or a week ago or even 24 hours ago, but here it is:
Mark Richt is in trouble.
It was possible to write off Georgia’s first two losses as having come against superior opposition. It is not possible to write off losing in Starkville. It is not possible to square all those ballyhooed recruiting classes with being 0-3 in the conference. It is not possible to look on the Bulldogs as anything more than a middling SEC team.
Five years ago, how many other league schools would have gladly traded their coach for Richt? Nine? Ten? How many would today? Maybe three, and that’s depending on how Ole Miss feels about Houston Nutt this week. Too many SEC programs have caught and passed Georgia, and this has nothing to do with the superpowers in Tuscaloosa and Gainesville. Consider:
Last year Georgia lost to Tennessee in Year 1 of Lane Kiffin. Last week Georgia lost to Arkansas in Sanford Stadium in Year 3 of Bobby Petrino. Last night Georgia lost to Mississippi State in Year 2 under Dan Mullen.
No longer does an opponent tremble at the sight of Georgia approaching. On the contrary, this has become — three weeks running! — the team you want to play if you’re looking to establish your program.
The old Steve Spurrier critique of Ray Goff — “Georgia gets all these players … I don’t know what happens to them” — again applies. Georgia doesn’t lack talent. It simply cannot bring its talent to bear. Its new 3-4 defense mustered one sack against Arkansas and Ryan Mallett. Its touted offensive line was able to carve out 113 yards rushing against Manny Diaz’s Mississippi State defense. Its offense could not score a touchdown against South Carolina and needed 58-plus minutes to manage one in Starkville.
There has been no improvement week over week. There is only a weird stasis. The weeks and the opponents change, but Georgia looks no different. How does that happen?
Loading ...Granted, the season might look different had A.J. Green played these four games. But he didn’t because he broke a rule, and that’s the other reason Richt is in trouble. A coach can get away with having his players mess up off the field if the coach keeps winning big on it. But Richt is 10-9 dating back to Nov. 29, 2008, and guess what cheery news awaited him on his return from Mississippi?
You got it. Another player has been arrested.
When I say, “Richt is in trouble,” I don’t mean I expect him to be fired this week or even after this season. I think Greg McGarity, the new athletic director, will err on the side of patience with a coach of such distinguished pedigree. (And a strong finish to this season — winning the next eight and beating Auburn and Florida en route — would effectively get Richt out of trouble.) But the loss at State seems a tipping point. It seems the game in which the majority of Georgia fans stopped seeing Mark Richt as the answer and came to regard him as the problem.
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1,529 comments Add your comment
bobby
September 26th, 2010
5:29 pm
Get rid of Bobo first! Playing call hasnt been good in a long time.
JB
September 26th, 2010
5:29 pm
Charleston Jacket. I did not have to graduate-I got an athletic scholarship.
Davis
September 26th, 2010
5:29 pm
If Richt does any 1 of these 3 he wins 90% of his games:
1- Team scores 21 points
2- Defense hold to 18 or less
3- Gets a 100 yard rusher
The best easiest fix is get a 100 yard rusher. Give Ealey the ball 25 times, not in the red zone.
tell me again
September 26th, 2010
5:30 pm
Last night was embarrassing and hard to explain – the rest of this season will tell what kind of staff and team we have……we’ll have to watch it unfold. No one is going to get fired now. As for Baker ~ wrong move at the wrong time – boot him. Get that scholly to someone who is willing to be a team player and respect the opportunity he has been offered.
Charleston Jacket
September 26th, 2010
5:30 pm
I used to get beat up a lot in high school.
icedawg
September 26th, 2010
5:30 pm
Mark Richt is a great guy and man of great character. He will excel in most things that he undertakes. Overall he has led a successful program at UGA. You must not forget that early on he improved what was a mediocre program. He has not been able to elevate the program to the point of consistency especially in playing for the SEC championship. UGA has not been able to keep up with UF for a long, long time. But there is no guarantee that Richt’s replacement would be able to do what he has not done. For all the whining and vitriolic rhetoric from the blowhards who have all the answers much of the stuff you write on the blog is not really helpful to anyone. There are too many assumptions being made that are unwarranted. Last year’s team and this year’s team do not have the talent that everyone thought that they were. The performance speaks for itself. Surely there are coaching weaknesses, too, but coaches do not play the game and the skills and execution are the responsibility of the player. And the verdict is that last year and right now it at a low point in some years, very poor. Will a new coach change this? Maybe, but maybe not. Richt is definitely on the hot seat. The buck stops there. The future does not look bright at the current rate. Let’s hope that over the course of the season that somehow there is a glimmer of hope that things will eventually get better.
clipper
September 26th, 2010
5:30 pm
Bradley, no point in your trying to stir the fair weather fans. You have minimal influence.
Roll Tide
September 26th, 2010
5:30 pm
Hey PR, Agree with you 100% but why doesnt Richt do this every year and every day. You dont just wake up and start showing toughness, too late for that!
Charleston Jacket - "I'm Gay"
September 26th, 2010
5:30 pm
i like to dance, I like to sing, I like to play dress up with RL & TampaGaytor….. My BFF’s
MJB
September 26th, 2010
5:30 pm
No one takes issue with Richt being a great guy, and I want nothing more than for him to have success at UGA, but all external signs increasingly point to there being something rotten in the program from a football standpoint – lack of attention to detail, out-of-shapeness, injury proneness, penalties, too much depth in one place but none in another, guys not playing to their full potential – add in a bunch of bonehead arrests and at some point that all adds up to coaching when it’s spread out over a five-season run. They said last night on the braidcast that “the ball was bouncing Mississippi State’s way” – it seems like that has been the case more often than not since the turning point which someone else has already cited on here: the 2006 (2005 season) Sugar Bowl in ATL against Rich Rod et al. I remember being there and thinking the team looked completely unprepared. We had a shot over a two-year run with Stafford, MoMas, and Moreno, but it was always something (per above) against Tennessee, or Bama, or USC, and we were out of contention before we even got to Jacksonville. They bolted, then throw in the essentially wasted years with Joe T and Cox, and we wake up five years later looking like a dinosaur “nice guy’s finish last” program in the SEC.
Regardless of what folks have said on here, we have good players, always have had good players. We need some edge back internally. If that’s beyond Richt’s personality, he needs to get assistants to fill that role. It does not appear to be Bobo’s personality, either, but the rest of this season is a referendum on this coaching staff whether they like it or not. If they can’t get the players to execute for them better than they did last night, I hate to say it, but it’s time to go in another direction. And there are other good coaches out there – we would not necessarily need a big name, just need a “new sheriff in town” figure, preferably a defensive specialist who will hire an o-coordinator to run a 21st Century spread-like offsense (which Murray, who is gutsy and very good, would thrive in). Sometimes a change is all it takes. Look at Chizik at Auburn. Turberville was a good coach, but the situation had unfortunately gotten stale. I’m sad to say what we are really starting to remind me of is Clemson in the last days of Tommy Bowden – plenty of talent that used to be “just one win away” a few seasons ago and is now losing to teams that we have traditionally dominated based on embarassing miscues that are clearly coaching-related.
BIG TECH FAN
September 26th, 2010
5:31 pm
This just in….BoBo calls another run play up the middle!!!! LOL!!!!
Mr. Moral Ambiguity
September 26th, 2010
5:31 pm
Tampa Gator, I’m not surprised that your team’s lawlessness is a touchy subject. I’ve accepted UGA’s thuggish behavior and make no excuses for it. But hey, at least your guys are winning, right?
Grovetown Dawg
September 26th, 2010
5:32 pm
I say fire Bobo now, make Richt call offense for remainder of season and then decide on Richt based on the results. If he remains they should revise his contract to state that he must call the plays. The offense performed so much better under when Richt was calling the plays.
BIG TECH FAN - a.k.a. NERD
September 26th, 2010
5:32 pm
This just in – I just got my butt kicked by my little sister for playing with her dollies…..
Chris
September 26th, 2010
5:34 pm
TampaGator, Georgia won most of the games against Florida prior to 1950?????
What year were you born? Granted yaw have dominated us the last 20 years, but Georgia dominated and won most of its games against Florida prior to 1990…..not 1950.
Read up on your history dude.
JB
September 26th, 2010
5:35 pm
Don’t worry fans. UGA owns Colorado. Count on it!
SMITTYSTHEMAN
September 26th, 2010
5:35 pm
And will someone please tell Murray to get rid of that pretty boy haircut. That is disgusting and is an embarassment to all Dawg fans!
Tide Rising
September 26th, 2010
5:35 pm
Randy,
Saban did lose 6 games in 07. But that was with a talent depleted team whose jr and sr classes were very small because they were depleted from the recruiting sanctions handed down a few years earlier. Also, all 6 of those losses were competitive. UGA beat us in overtime and no one beat us by more than 7 pts. Transition years are rarely highly successful years to begin with and are even more difficult when you take over a program like Alabama that was in shambles due to earlier sanctions.
In Richt’s case he is 10 years into his program. With a superb recruiting base and all the tools necessary to be successful he shouldn’t be 03 in sec play against 2 good but not great teams and then lose a 3rd game by 2 scores to the traditional west division cellar dwellar.
drunkyard dogpoop
September 26th, 2010
5:35 pm
that poor uga freshman football player was forced to watch the game on tv and proceeded to go out and get drunk..couldn’t take it anymore ..the decision he made coming to uga in the first place because he wanted to win…
Ed
September 26th, 2010
5:35 pm
“Mark Richt is a great guy and man of great character.”
So everyone says. But I don’t really know him – do you? I can only go by what I see, and it appears to me that he has created a permissive atmosphere and tolerates a lot of shenanigans that many would not. To me that doesn’t say much about his character.
JB
September 26th, 2010
5:35 pm
We have one of the best offensive lines in the country.
Algonquin j. Calhoun
September 26th, 2010
5:36 pm
This fellow has fooled people a long time but he’s coming into sharper focus now. The beginning of the end for him was that inane end zone demonstration against the Gators. He initiated that and it showed a lack of class, discipline and etiquette on his part. He’s a bum but he’s all Georgia deserves!
drunkyard dogpoop
September 26th, 2010
5:36 pm
you still have a chance to beat Idaho or is it Idaho State? Even better, hope the game is in Athens or forget what I just said.
Great Weekend
September 26th, 2010
5:38 pm
Take heart Dawgs, you might actually beat lowly Colorado, but in case you haven’t notice they are not in the SEC, so who cares? Better schedule some more “Sisters of the Poor” opponents.
Who would have ever thought those red panties would be the iceberg to sink the SS UGA? All the rats are jumping off the sinking ship.
5150 P.O.A.D.
September 26th, 2010
5:38 pm
Itg is all Barbra Dooley’s Fault. She is wearing ORANGE and it sucked the life out of Athens.
TURN OUT THE LIGHTS
September 26th, 2010
5:38 pm
out of curiousity, why is the end zone celebration not okay now? It was perfectly fine with all of you the year it happened. Just wondering.
JB
September 26th, 2010
5:38 pm
Chris, those are the days in the distant past. UGA used to “own” USC, Ark, MissState, or at least that is what I have been reading on this site the last few weeks. I guess things are changing. Can UGA beat UK 1/3?
JB - dunce
September 26th, 2010
5:40 pm
Still own tech. Your right we have gone down hill
Ghost of Erk
September 26th, 2010
5:40 pm
Please take my name off of any thing to do with rat hole of program please.
BIG TECH FAN
September 26th, 2010
5:40 pm
lol drunkyard!!!! i just don’t see another win for these anti-SEC clowns before nor after Idaho State!!! This team gives the SEC a very bad name! If I were the rest of the SEC East teams, I would petition the conference to not schedule Georgia because it hurts their computer rankings! LOL!!!
Dave
September 26th, 2010
5:41 pm
Just an observation from the game.. I have always believed that a team takes the personality of it’s head coach. A laid back personality will give you a laid back team. I saw a MSU head coach who was animated and intense, and he had an intense team. I saw a MSU defensive coord.. who was intense. I saw a GA defensive coord who appeared to have been ready to pop, but was not being allowed to do so. There is no fire in the belly, and if there is it is being kept in..
Dumbo
September 26th, 2010
5:41 pm
After reading Richt’s quotes after the game…I wouldn’t be the least surprised if he calls it quits after the season.
Snoop Dawg
September 26th, 2010
5:42 pm
Ten Reasons to Fire Marked Wrecked.
1. He has no passion for the game, or for his team. Players are energized by the passion of their coach. Richt has none. A buddha on the sidelines would have more passion.
2. He instills no discipline. We lead the SEC in player arrests and penalties. This is a function of the coach. Did you notice Waushaun Ealey break dancing on the field against Ark last week while waiting during a TV timeout for a crucial third down conversion? No we did not convert. Who is responsible: Ealey or the coach?
3. He cannot coach, manage, or lead. The facts speak for themselves. Any amateur could win the SEC with the high school talent in Georgia. UGA now has the reputation as the team that can coach 5-star recruits up to 1-star status.
4. He cannot recruit. Our recruiting has consistently slipped, and our recruits cannot actually perform. Evidently, Richt is no judge of talent anymore. Let the stats speak for themselves. You could build an all-SEC team from Georgia high school stars now performing for other teams, not UGA.
5. He cannot build a coaching staff. Richt hand picked his staff. They are ineffective at best, and clowns by most objective standards.
6. He is not good value. We are paying him and the water girl over three million a year. For what?
7. He has no backbone. He cannot get rid of his friends that he hires on the staff who cannot perform, nor can he punish or enforce those players who violate team rules. The players obviously do not respect his rules or his power to punish or discipline.
8. He is not a beacon of character. A man with honor or character would step down if he could not get the job done and earn his pay. Richt will not step down for the good of the University; rather, we will have to fire him and pay him millions to leave. It will, however, be a bargain because
9. The UGA fan base is no longer motivated or proud enough of the Dawgs to continue buying fan apparel to bring millions each year into Athens’ coffers.
10. Richt may be a nice man. Someone once said that nice guys finish last. Richt is indeed last in the SEC and patsies are now routinely performing smackdowns of our team and our proud tradiition. If the current generation of Bulldogs want to protect UGA’s 7th best record in the NCAA or improve on it, they will stop calling people like me Haters and put pressure on the AD to fire Richt and get a real ball coach to Athens.
Allied Van Lines
September 26th, 2010
5:42 pm
Our trucks are heading to Athens now…time to clean house!
DawgFanForever
September 26th, 2010
5:42 pm
This is the dumbest article I have ever read and will be the LAST one of Mark Bradley’s I ever read. You cannot possibly expect to win every game every year. No team ever has or ever will. While I agree UGA ranks among the top in recruiting grades every year, maybe the quality of those grades needs to be eveluated. To fire Mark Richt would be a tremndous mistake. If he is capable of building and sustaining a winning program year after year once he is capable of doing it again.
Maybe Mark Bradley should coach the team if he thinks he can do a better job…
Pago Pago DAWG
September 26th, 2010
5:42 pm
I think we should put June Jones name on the list of coaches…..
I'm just saying
September 26th, 2010
5:43 pm
Perhaps your team would play better if they knew their fans were behind them, not leaving games early, using the campus as a landfill, using the campus as a porta-john, and literally giving them the finger during the game.
The fact is you know all of what I say is true.
This is Great
September 26th, 2010
5:43 pm
Mark can take his millions and his Ford trucks and drift off into the sunset.
JB
September 26th, 2010
5:43 pm
BIG TECH FAN. Maybe UGA should try Jacksonville State. Will they win?
Charleston Jacket
September 26th, 2010
5:43 pm
That is about right all you mutt heads are capable of is trying to impersonate nothing original about ya’ll. Your IQ is showing – but that is about what I would expect. Just empty headed nonsense.
Looking forward to the beatdowns comming – Colorado, Tennessee, Florida, Auburn and most of all GT
Sid
September 26th, 2010
5:43 pm
Richt isn’t going anywhere……………….
Go Falcons!!!
Dumbo
September 26th, 2010
5:43 pm
BIG TECH FAN…..you suck just like that Heisman Joke1111
HitaSingle
September 26th, 2010
5:43 pm
Talk about celebrations, what about the joke of a call on Green last year in the LSU game. I watched Ingram do the be quiet signal to Ark. fans and there was no flag. He did ten times what Green did.
HitaSingle
September 26th, 2010
5:44 pm
Oh yea the NCAA is scared of Saban!
JaxGator
September 26th, 2010
5:44 pm
I have a friend that said about Zook what many of you are saying about Richt; you can’t knock the coach because you are knocking the program. Zook was a panic hire who was in over his head; after his first year it was obvious that he wasn’t going to get the job done. We were in Starkville for the 2005 loss to State; that loss was embarassing. Right after that game my friend decided that it was quite proper to badmouth Zook. It did not take 24 hours for Foley to decide Zook had to go. I agree that Richt is no Zook; but he is rapidly approaching that status.
Richt is difficult for me to understand what he is all about; after your loss last night “he is going to reflect and meditate” about the loss. Urban Meyer would have identified the problem and said “we are going to fix it”, not reflect and meditate. It has also been difficult to understand why Richt has tried to use gimmicks, endzone celebration and black helmets, to motivate Georgia’s players for the Florida game. If either coach has to use gimmicks to motivate his players for the Florida-Georgia game, somthing is bad wrong with that coach.
If you think any Gators are impressed with Richt as a coach, you are wrong. We Gators like Richt and hope he stays on in Athens, because he is so easy. I would be surprised if Mc Garrity will tolerate him much longer as McGarrity is used to much better than Richt.
SEC Statistician
September 26th, 2010
5:45 pm
JB
September 26th, 2010
5:35 pm
“We have one of the best offensive lines in the country.”
Really? Has Georgia even had a 100 yard rusher through the first 4 games this year? What is the avg ypc for ealey and king so far? And what about Aaron Murray having to run for his life every game. How many times have we seen him tuck it under and run. Georgia’s rushing stats in the first 4 games and especially in the first 3 sec games are nothig short of abysmal.
G8TR
September 26th, 2010
5:45 pm
1980 may as well be 1890.
This is Great
September 26th, 2010
5:45 pm
Charleston:
You are right. Nothing original. Even the fightsong is a rip off out of the church hymnal. How pathetic.
Gubner Perdue
September 26th, 2010
5:45 pm
Well it was fun while it lasted Dawgs, but now I rooting for Georgia Tech and Georgia State!!!! You guys are just embarassing!
Dusty
September 26th, 2010
5:46 pm
Everyone loves to talk about what a great guy CMR is, and he is a great guy, but why did UGA hire him? Did they hire him to teach Sunday School or win ball games? If I’m not mistaken it was to win football games. Yes, he won a lot of games when he first came, with Jim Donnan’s recruits!
He is loved by everyone, even the opposing team. Do you think other teams love Nick Saban or Urban Meyer? No, because they kick their ass.
Decide UGA, do you want a Sunday School leader or a winning coach!!
PS- Some of his players aren’t even getting the Sunday School message!!!!!