Mark Richt column- By Julien Benjamin, Staff Writer
Imagine a football head coach who has a career 140-50 record. In nine of his 14-full seasons, he has lead his team to double digit wins and has a chance to do so yet again this season. Over his tenure, the program he runs has had only one year with a record near or under .500.
He’s done this job while playing an average top five schedule every year, consistently beating the school’s major rivals, and running a respectable and honest program. His football team is 9-5 in post-season action. Despite the fact that almost every major university would be lucky to have him as their head coach, the fans of this program seem ungrateful and consistently want to kick him out of the door after every loss.
UGA’s Mark Richt is arguably the second best coach in the SEC, behind Nick Saban, but the best coach in the state of Georgia.
While many argue that winning championships are all that really matter, more important is being consistently good enough to be in a position to win. As shown in most major sports, especially baseball, post-season play is strictly a crap shoot. The best team doesn’t always win, and some times a team just gets lucky enough to win. Unfortunately for Richt and the Bulldogs, they have been yet to get lucky.
UGA has only won two SEC championships, with the last title coming over a decade ago. However, Richt’s Bulldogs have been in contention for the SEC crown three times since then. Even last season, with a pretty average quarterback, Richt was just one win short of making the conference’s title game.
After taking the reins of a program that hadn’t won a title in over 20 years, Richt is easily the best thing that has happened to the school. No other UGA football coach has recorded a higher winning percentage than his 74 percent mark. Historically, Coach Richt shares some pretty elite company as well; he’s one of four coaches to record over 132 wins in their first 14 seasons alongside names like Bob Stoops and Gary Patterson.
Georgia’s football teams are always very talented, as Richt and his staff consistently recruit top ten classes every year. Fans argue that these players end up under-achieving at UGA and that the staff is failing at coaching these players to play SEC football. Yet, Richt’s 80-35 SEC record is third best by win percentage, and he currently leads the conference in overall wins at one program.
To date, Mark Richt’s only big failure is losing an SEC championship by four points in 2012, and can you really fault him for that?
In the state of Georgia itself, Richt is king. After taking over for Jim Donnan, who lost three straight games to the Yellow Jackets, Richt has gone 12-2 against Tech, with the two losses by a combined nine points.
Think about that, Georgia fans. Despite his perceived shortcomings, Coach Mark Richt is the best coach in the state of Georgia. Could he be better? Yes, but it could also be worse for UGA fans. You might have Paul Johnson as your coach.
Paul Johnson column, By Tyler Duke, Staff Writer
With the recent struggles of both head coaches of the two largest college football programs in the state of Georgia, it’s no guarantee that either coach has much time left with their programs.
There is one guarantee: Paul Johnson is a better head football coach than Mark Richt.
Richt has one of the coziest jobs in all of college football. He has one of the richest contracts. He has one of the largest fan bases. He gets some of the best talent.
Despite all of that, Richt has delivered mediocre seasons nearly every year in Athens without much of the blame falling on him.
For years, Bulldog fans found other scapegoats for the program. For the longest time, the blame was put upon defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. Grantham was fired two years ago, and while the defense has shown glimpses of improvement, there’s still nothing there to suggest it would change the team into a championship contender.
The next scapegoat was offensive coordinator Mike Bobo. Fans seemed to think Bobo made obvious play calls even though he was recognized as one of the best coordinators in the country. Now without his services, the Georgia offense looks even more predictable than it used to be.
Outside of coaches, fans loved to blame the quarterback for not coming up big. Even though Aaron Murray had one of the best careers in Georgia history, some seemed to think he couldn’t come up in the big moment and that he was the sole reason the team didn’t go further.
Through all of the years, the only constant has been Mark Richt. Richt is a nice guy. He leads the team the correct way. He has a nice overall record of 140-50 at UGA. The problem – Richt hasn’t won anything. In fact, Richt hasn’t even led the Bulldogs to a major bowl game since 2007.
All of this has occurred with Georgia annually bringing in some of the best talent in the nation. According to ESPN.com, since 2006, Georgia has had a top 10 recruiting class every year except one. On the contrary, Georgia Tech has had just one top 25 class in that timeframe.
Without all of the top-line talent that Richt coaches at Georgia, people would expect Paul Johnson to struggle at Georgia Tech. While he’s had some rough seasons, including the current one, Johnson has led the Yellow Jackets to two major bowl games since Georgia has been to one.
Johnson has managed two 11-win seasons since 2009, while Richt has led UGA to just one. You would think a roster with undeniably more talent every single season would outperform a team that’s talent rivals that of a mid-major school, but it doesn’t.
Paul Johnson’s resume speaks for itself – he does more with less. He won two FCS National Championships with Georgia Southern. He led Navy to four consecutive 8-win seasons, including a 10-win season in 2004 that saw the Midshipmen ranked in the top 25 for the first time since 1963.
He’s now led Georgia Tech to two Orange Bowl appearances and two top-10 rankings with one of the most prolific offenses in the nation most seasons. In fact, Johnson’s 2014 offense was ranked as the best in the nation according to almost all advanced metrics.
In terms of importance to the team, Johnson is assuredly on top. He handles all play-calling duties offensively, and he basically handpicks players in the recruiting process. On the other side, Richt has no influence on play calling, and he has one of the deepest recruiting staffs in the nation behind him to bring in ultra-talented classes every season.
All of the numbers and records back up that Paul Johnson has managed success at multiple levels despite being behind the 8-ball in talent. His scheme and strategy find a way to win games. If roles were reversed, Johnson could be extremely dangerous with some of the best athletes in the nation that Georgia possesses every year.
Richt, on the other hand, has been unable to do anything significant with one of the best teams in the nation every year … how do you think he’d do with one of the strictest academic guidelines in the country and a team that can’t win 8 games a year based on sheer talent with little help from coaching?
