Mark Richt

As a Georgia Tech graduate I will admit a great personal bias against the University of Georgia and their sports teams. Every good Tech man’s favorite teams are Georgia Tech and whoever plays Georgia on any given week.

With that being said, for the last 10 years Mark Richt has been a man I would have loved to hate, but just couldn’t. Not only did I have to deal with the Christian idea of hate being a bad thing, Richt was such a nice guy. An outstanding Christian, open and sharing with his faith, telling everyone he tries to live by his life verse of Col 3:23. He has his kids in Christian school, is active in his church, overall Richt is just a great guy.

But I have seen a change in Richt over the last few years that is disturbing. While as a Tech man I welcome the fall of Georgia football this is still sad to see. It goes back to the 2006 loss to Tennessee. (here’s to you Tom) After losing to Tennessee, Vanderbuilt, and Kentucky in 2006 Richt made a noticeable change in his recruiting. Starting with his 2007 class it looked clear to me that Richt had adjusted his recruiting goals based on athletic ability alone sacrificing the personal character of his prospects.

Since that time I think we have seen a steady decline in the character and discipline at Georgia. In 2007 we had the unsportsmanlike rushing the field in Florida. Since then Richt’s team has always been among the most penalized in NCAA. Now we have NCAA investigations and arrests (23 of them documented by the Atlanta Journal/Constitution since 2008) http://www.ajc.com/sports/uga/uga-football-arrests-2008-601205.html

You might ask, “What’s the big deal? Don’t a lot of SEC and other conference teams have arrest and discipline problems?” Well yea, they do, but Richt didn’t used to. His teams used to be different.

Loosing 4 straight for the first time since Richt took over as coach should be a wake up call. Like I said earlier, as a Georgia Tech man I love to see Georgia loose, but I know Richt is a Christian and as my brother in Christ I hope he gets the chance to turn it around. Knowing the lack of patience Georgia fans are liable to have, he may have to start over somewhere else. That would be fine with me actually, I would like to be able to root for him.

 

Well that is the thing Tom, he is, he has as good or better athletes than anyone, but that does not translate to wins when they lack the character needed to play as a team.

Tennessee has its share of the same problems. You don't want to bring up their arrest records. Luckily your new coach has a law degree so he can bail them out in time for each game.:tongue3:

Seriously, I think Tennessee is dealing with the exact same problems and is moving the right direction.

 

I just don't think that is quite correct Tom, I think the change in Richt's recruiting and coaching style after 2006 has resulted in less dicipline and more penalties. I think he did this on purpose, scared because of the losses that year, but I think it was an unwise choice that has been building for years and is going to cost him his job this year. Now four years after his change his quality character players are all gone and he is left with a squad of talented goons.

I could only find statistics back to 2005 but here is what I found:

In 2005 Ga committed a total of 77 penalties for 697 yards.

In 2006 they committed 78 penalties for 611 yards.

In 2007 that jumped to 91 penalties for 760 yards.

In 2008 they committed 112 penalties for 938 yards.

In 2009 they committed 105 penalties for 878 yards.

They were 3rd in NCAA in 2008 and 6th in 2009, but Richt did not coach like that before 2007.

 

As far as having talent, Richt still has it. His 2010 class ranks way down at 21st in the nation, but recruitingscout.com ranks his 2009 class as 4th and his 2008 class as 5th in the nation. His recruits have talent, just no discipline.

At least that is mho and I am probably beating a dead horse at this point.

 

Well for starters it resulted in two 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalties forcing Georgia to kick off from the 8 (half the distance kicked in). Then Richt had to issue formal appologies to the SEC commissioner and to the University of Florida to avoid sanctions.

It was a planned deliberate effort to fire his team up, and it worked, uga went on to win, but it was also a clear violation of the rules and spirit of the game. I am sure many sorry uga fans celebrated with them but I wonder how many Florida fans did. It was a great example of the "win at all costs" lack of discipline and character that Richt has embraced since 2007 and the reason they are 1-4 now. That 2007 squad still had a lot of quality, high character players on it and they would have never rushed the field like that without Richt's ok and urging. But now his disciplined players have all moved on and all that is left are talented thugs.

Yes I am a GT fan, alum, and former player athough I don't know about the sour part. I will admit my opinion of that cesspool in athens may be biased, but I always had to like Richt anyway because of his testimony. I am a Christian first and a dawg hater second.:laugh:

 

Only in ignorance brother, but then again we are talking uga.