Well said.

Although everyone has been talking about this year as our first “real” shot at a national title, Kyle has been consistent in pointing out that the only difference between Georgia ‘02 and Florida ’06, in terms of making it to the Big Game, was that a previously undefeated team, assumed to be a lock to the BCSNCG, didn’t wet the bet against an underdog on the last week of regular season play and hand us the Championship game berth on a silver (crystal?) platter. UGA ‘02 and UF ’06 had identical records; it was USC’s slip-up that put UF in title game in 2006, while UGA had to contend with two major-conference unbeatens in 2002. In terms of things Richt could control, he did a national championship-caliber job that year. regardless of whether fate had a NCG berth waiting for us.

And again: in the twelve-game regular season, UGA ‘07 and LSU ’07 had identical records. Both lost to two SEC opponents; but while LSU’s biggest threat in the west was 5-3 (conf) Auburn, we had to deal with a Tennessee team with an identical 6-2 conference record and the tiebreaker. I’m not complaining, just pointing out that over the course of twelve games our record was identical to that of the eventual national champions. While people these days are complaining about the way the coaches have coached down a national title-contending team into a mediocre one, they seem to be forgetting that last year Coach Richt and co. coached an alright team into a national title-contending one. Right now, people are complaining about “never” getting a shot at the big one under Richt; yet they forgetting that there were plenty of people lobbying for us to get in the Big Game just last year, and those who weren’t still admitted that we were playing well enough to win the game if we did. Sure, it was mostly due to stuff out of our hands that we would even be considered for the title game (that is, every other major contender wetting the bed in a major way at some point during the season), but the fact remains that a seizable amount of fans and sports media thought, at the end of last season, that we were strong enough to play for a national championship.

My point is this: we’ve been “in the mix twice” already in the CMR administration. Not when we expected to be or were hoping to be, but the fact remains that we were. For CMR to put our team “in the mix” for two seasons out of eight, having taken over a team which hadn’t even sniffed an SEC championship for decades, in addition to sharing a conference with two teams who have won three MNCs during his tenure (not even counting the possibility of a Bama or UF championship this year) . . . that’s impressive in my book. There’s no doubt that this season is a disappointment, not so much for the fact that we aren’t in the Big Game but for the way we played ourselves out of contention, but we can’t let it ruin our perspective. The truth is in the numbers:

2 SEC Championships
5-2 Bowl Record (2-1 in the BCS)
Even including the Florida ledger, the indisputably best record against our traditional rivals of any Georgia coach over the course of his first seven seasons
A top 25 finish in at least one major poll for every single season, including five Top Ten rankings and the single highest final ranking of any UGA team since 1980 (AP #2, 2007).

. . . And, as I’ve argued above, being “in the mix” for the Crystal Football twice over that career.

If that isn’t a recipe for jubilation, let alone “reasonable” satisfaction, I don’t know what is.