. . . and you are quite right that Hoover has not been kind to the Diamond Dogs.

I thought that was an odd way of putting it, too, but, since his user name indicates that he is an Alabama fan, I suppose it is understandable that his ideas about Eastern Division teams other than Tennessee center around the few days every summer when the entire league gathers in the Yellowhammer State.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong.

For all the people like me who are tired of striving for silver, there are countless more that are willing to keep Richt around even if we never beat Florida again. If we went 10-2 every year, there are too many people at UGA who would be thrilled, even if one of the 2 was a loss to UF. Personally? I’d prefer the administration realize that 2nd is not what we strive for in academics OR in athletics.

Case in point: I think, and have discussed this with my circle of tailgating friends, the idea that if Richt cannot beat Florida in a year that, regardless of media posturing, we’re on a relatively even playing field, he may never even this series out. Florida AND Georgia are both replacing coordinators, QB’s and a good percentage of the impact players on defense. In fact, to my mind, we return more experience AND talent on the offensive side of the ball, so we should in some sense have a small advantage. If Richt can’t manage to beat Florida this year, I’m of the opinion that this will be the beginning of the end. He’ll have proven unable to best Meyer without gimmicks, which I’m tired of.

I think it’s fair to say that as things stand, Georgia is the second-place program in the East to Florida’s first. That’s a difficult thing to measure, but it’d be hard to argue differently. The only official measurement is season-by-season, and there have been seasons in which Georgia, not Florida, was first.

Since 2001 (Richt’s first season), Florida has represented the Eastern Division in the championship game three times. Georgia has represented the East three times. The perception of Georgia’s and Florida’s overall places in the division is skewed against Georgia due to (a) the head-to-head record; (b) the fact that all three of Florida’s title game appearances in the aforementioned period have been since Richt’s third appearance; and © MNCs. But the fact remains that in the last nine years, the programs are on equal footing with the number of division championships won (including title game appearances and tied championships that didn’t include a trip to Atlanta).

This is not to say that Florida’s not “ahead of” Georgia, over all. But to answer your question, “how many years can [Richt’s] program finish behind Florida?” About the same number of times as Florida’s program has finished behind Richt’s, based on what’s happened so far.

Florida possesses many institutional advantages which place it in an eminent position in intercollegiate athletics, including but not limited to football. Florida has excellent academics, top-notch facilities, a dedicated fan base, a moneyed alumni base, a great location, elite coaching, and a natural and fertile recruiting territory in its surrounding environs.

Few schools are able to offer what Florida offers, yet Georgia has all of these advantages. The only area in which there is a meaningful disparity (I’m not going to dwell on the fact that Florida has a few positions on Georgia in the U.S. News & World Report standings; both universities are quality academic institutions) is in recruiting, due to the significant population shift to the Sunshine State in recent decades. However, since the Bulldogs have always pulled their fair share of players out of the state to the south of us, this is not an insurmountable problem.

I agree with NCT that the Bulldogs have accomplished more in the last decade than they commonly are credited with having achieved, due primarily to the largely incidental fact that Georgia lacks a national championship in that period. (I characterize that fact as “largely incidental” because the only difference between what Georgia did in 2002 and what LSU did in 2003 or Florida did in 2006 is the fact that two BCS conference teams went undefeated in 2002, and because the only difference between Georgia’s and LSU’s 2007 regular seasons was the inability of any team to kick a field goal against Tennessee down the stretch.)

Nevertheless, the Bulldogs’ recent head-to-head record against the Gators is what it is, and there is no rationalizing it away. While the stretch from 2002 to 2007 (during which Georgia won twice in Jacksonville and never lost to Florida by more than a touchdown) gave us some cause to believe the playing field was being leveled, the last two series meetings were beatdowns akin to those to which we became accustomed in the 1990s.

In my assessment of Mark Richt’s tenure after the end of the 2009 season, I wrote:

His record against Florida is intolerable and inexcusable. The Sunshine State Saurians have multiple natural advantages—-money, facilities, climate, tradition, top-shelf coaching, a rich natural recruiting base—-but Georgia is among the few schools in the nation with the ability to match the Gators in these departments. While it is true that the Bulldogs were mired in lengthy losing stretches against the Orange and Blue under each of the two coaches who immediately preceded Coach Richt, he was hired to make up for their shortcomings, and, in this area, he has failed to do so.

The end of the Ron Zook era marked the end the days when Georgia could lose to Florida yet still win the East. For the ’Dawgs, the road from Athens to Atlanta (and beyond) runs through Jacksonville. That is the sense in which Georgia in the 2000s has been like Tennessee in the 1990s: being one of the top programs in the country while being unable to dominate its own division. (Yes, Georgia lost more division games in the 2000s than Tennessee did in the 1990s, but Kentucky, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt all have been tougher teams in the 2000s than they were in the 1990s.)

That has to change. I disagree with blackertai; I know a bunch of Georgia fans, and I literally do not know a single one who is “willing to keep Richt around even if we never beat Florida again.” Every denizen of Bulldog Nation desperately wants to reverse the trend against the Gators, secure in the knowledge that, before Florida went 17-3 against Georgia from 1990 to 2009, Georgia went 15-4 against Florida from 1971 to 1989. Winds shift. Worms turn. Trends end. Every ’Dawg has his day.

At some point, if the trend is not reversed (as it appeared in 2007 that it was about to be), Mark Richt runs the real risk of becoming Georgia’s John Cooper. If the Florida game becomes an automatic “L” in the 2010s the way it was in the 1990s (and the way it looked for the last two years, in a way it had not looked since 2001), the inability to get over that hump ultimately could overwhelm all the other good things Mark Richt has done.

Once again, I thank you for the question, and for the manner in which it was presented.

seem particularly charmed for us Gators. I will admit, that upon seeing that Florida got the nod to go to the title game and face the mighty tOSU, I was both ecstatic and pretty worried. The last thing I wanted to see was rerun of the 95 championship. That 2006 title game for me was one of the first times I remember sitting there thinking, “Man, the teams in the south really are that much better”…now obviously the back and forth on that can go on for days, but I sure do enjoy watching SEC football.

As for the question about UGS fans, and being satisfied with second, I’ve never seen it that way. I’ve always seen you guys to be an odd bunch, and by that I mean that it doesn’t seem to matter how good Florida is or isn’t, or how good UGA is or isn’t, the UGA fans seem to believe every year that they should beat Florida. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Simply saying, that I’ve never gotten the impression that UGS fans were comfortable being second fiddle. I realize that a case can be made for UGA being seen as potentially Florida’s equal over the last decade, but that’s a stretch. Regardless, I’m one who knows the history of football, and that history is full of ebbs and flows…I know that one day UGA will rattle off a few victories in a row, so I choose to enjoy this time…..

In my mind, there was just a dumb fumble, and then the abyss.