FanPost

The Georgia Way

Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
You know, somebody asked me the other day if he was competitive, 'cause I guess they see him on the sidelines. I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" You don't become the head coach at the University of Georgia if you're not competitive. Don't take meekness for weakness. Don't take humility for passivity or good sportsmanship for not being competitive. And please don't take not cheating or not selling out for football as not being competitive or crossing all your T's and dotting all your I's for not being competitive.

Kevin "Chappy" Hynes on Mark Richt

By now, there’s a very good chance that you’ve read vineyarddawg’s thoughtful examination of Mark Richt’s record, and (judging by the Facebook comments) there’s perhaps half of a marginally decent chance that you’ve read at least the headline of my argument for firing a Georgia head football coach after 14 years on the job. A great deal of attention has been paid to the Bulldogs’ recent lack of success, relative to such other SEC programs as Alabama, Auburn, Florida, and LSU, but I believe we are overlooking an equally important factor, as well as what that factor has to say not just about what the University of Georgia is as an institution, but who we Georgians are as a people.

It is true that Georgia’s success rate, while impressive, has not been as high as that of some of our conference coevals. However, there is another metric by which we are not keeping up with our league brethren, and that is in the category of failure. Our highs may not be as high, but our lows are not as low, either.

Let’s look at the 14 teams currently comprising the Southeastern Conference, as well as the Red and Black’s longtime ACC rivals, Clemson and Georgia Tech. Six of those 16 teams have suffered through a season of eight or more losses within the last four years: Ole Miss in 2011, Auburn in 2012, Arkansas in 2013, Florida in 2013, Kentucky in 2013, and Vanderbilt in 2014. More than one-third of our peer programs have lost eight games in a campaign during the college careers of this year’s seniors, including 21st-century national title winners Auburn and Florida.

Eight of those 16 teams have lost at least eight outings in a single autumn since 2007: the six programs named above, plus Mississippi State and Texas A&M (both in 2008). Since Georgia clobbered Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl, half of our peer programs have endured an eight-loss season. Extend the survey period back 17 years, and the tally jumps to 13 out of 16, made up of the foregoing eight, along with Clemson in 1998, South Carolina in 1999, Missouri in 2000, and Alabama in 2003. Since the start of the BCS era, more than four-fifths of Georgia’s peer programs have lost eight or more games in a season, including modern national champions Alabama, Auburn, Florida, and LSU. Run that line back to 1994, and you can add Georgia Tech to that list. If you’re old enough to buy a beer legally, you have seen 14 of Georgia’s peer programs lose at least eight contests in an individual fall in your lifetime.

Those 14 teams include six programs that have claimed at least a share of a national championship since the Bulldogs last finished a season with the No. 1 ranking in 1980, yet they all have endured busts worse than any the Red and Black have experienced during that same span. How long, then, has it been since Georgia last lost eight games in a season? We know it was prior to 1994, but by how much? Was it in 1993? No? Well, then, 1983? 1973? Surely, then, it was 1963, right?

No. Georgia has not lost as many as eight games in a single season since 1953. Despite having fired three head coaches in the interim, the Bulldogs have gone more than 60 years without hitting rock bottom, and the Classic City Canines have done so during a period that has seen 14 of 15 comparable programs do so within the last 21 seasons. The lone exception is Tennessee, which has never endured the indignity of an eight-loss autumn . . . yet the Volunteers, who fired a national championship-winning head coach, just this season completed their seventh consecutive campaign of either six or seven setbacks. We have been so focused on our nearby foes’ seemingly frequent trips to the penthouse that we have failed adequately to account for the fact that we also aren’t joining them on their regular forays to the basement.

Our stability on the sideline obviously has been a strength in this respect; in the last three-quarters of a century, the Bulldogs have been led by just six head coaches, among whom are to be found the three longest-serving (and also the winningest) skippers in our history. Meanwhile, the Gators’ mountaintop experience under Urban Meyer was bookended by the valleys represented by Ron Zook and Will Muschamp; the Bayou Bengals’ 21st-century run of success was prefaced by more than a decade of doldrums under the likes of Mike Archer, Curley Hallman, and Gerry DiNardo; and there was much suffering for the Crimson Tide under the guidance of three random guys named Mike ere Nick Saban came to call the Capstone home. It must not be forgotten that the most likely result of taking a home run cut is a strikeout.

The comparative lack of volatility of our flagship university’s football program is reflective of our steadfastness as a polity. Such unswerving consistency as Georgia’s is typical of a people who abide by the motto "Wisdom, Justice, Moderation"; while the extremes of poverty bound Alabamans more closely with their football teams and the extremes of politics are interwoven with Mississippians’ gridiron glory, it was the Peach State that saw its flagship university integrated relatively more peacefully than other Southern institutions, and it was the Empire State of the South that led in median household income all states that contained SEC institutions as of 2011. That latter category included seven of the bottom nine states nationally, incidentally, so it is no wonder such institutions as the originally Birmingham-based SEC Championship Game and the initially South Bend-housed College Football Hall of Fame have relocated to the hub of regional stability that is our state’s capital city.

The arguments are familiar, but the facts are undisputed, and these are they: in 22 years as a college head football coach, Wally Butts averaged 3.9 losses per season; in 14 years as a college head football coach, Les Miles has averaged 3.5 losses per season; in 25 years as a college head football coach, Steve Spurrier has averaged 3.4 losses per season; in 14 years as a college head football coach, Mark Richt has averaged 3.4 losses per season; in 25 years as a college head football coach, Vince Dooley averaged 3.1 losses per season; in 19 years as a college football head coach, Nick Saban has averaged 3.1 losses per season; and, in three years as a college head football coach, Gus Malzahn has averaged 3.0 losses per season. It’s pretty tight at the top, and Coach Richt is right there in the mix.

We are a steady people. Mark Richt is a steady coach. To change the culture of our program is to change our culture, period, which is a certainly difficult and probably dubious undertaking. We are who we are. We are led by precisely the coach by whom we ought to be led. The fault, if fault there be, is not in our skipper, but in ourselves.

Go ‘Dawgs!

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