5 Things Revisited (And Your Monday Afternoon Dose of Danish Philosophy)

MD,
I think you are right on most of your points. One thing that scares me, is the DE situation. We are playing to fairly undersized guys that are nowhere near as good as the guys we have had for several years. I know we are fairly young at that position, but if these young(er) guys were really the studs they were supposed to be, wouldn't they be starting by now?
Unless, DeAngelo does sign and turn out to be a young Moses/Johnson/Pollack, I think we are still in a bit of a spot. As someone mentioned on PWD's site, you can sit back in a (soft) zone without getting pressure with the front 4- that's what worked back in the early days of the CMR era.
When you think about it, Bama had success running the ball for a while and then left it. If they had kept running it, who knows?

I am with you 100% on Stafford. I had expected to see some significant improvement by now.

While I really hate to lose Brown, I think kickoff return is the place where it hurts us the least. I know Brown has had some big returns in his career, but there were also plenty of times he struggled to get it back to the 20. I think Asher or Flowers or someone else can do what Brown was doing. But on offense and punt teams- yeah, that hurts.

Balitmore,
You asked MD, not me, but I will throw in my opinion. I am confident in MR and I think he is going to do great things in Athens, because he already has. I'll leave the wave of stats and records to Kyle, but outside of Florida, Richt's teams have solid records against just about everyone. Granted the away record  just took a hit, but he had a .833 winning percentage on other school's campuses. He has 2 SEC titles and has played for another. So based on that, I think he is a very good coach and should have success at UGA (although the rest of the field is catching up fast).
The better question is: Are you confident Richt can make the necessary changes to get this team back on track? That I am less sure of, but I believe it will happen.

Go Dogs! Beat Vandy!

. . . and good answer, Fotodog.

Mark Richt is 65-19, which gives him the best record in Georgia football history after 84 games. Coach Richt has won two S.E.C. titles and three Eastern Division championships. Under Coach Richt's leadership, Georgia has been the only team in the S.E.C. to have won nine or more games in each of the five seasons from 2002 to 2006.

There is no question that Coach Richt recruits well, wins games, and runs the program in the right way. His recent hires (Tony Ball and Stacy Searels) have been good ones. His calm demeanor instills confidence. All of these are positive traits which are not likely to be improved upon by another coach.

Several commentators have observed, and I agree, that we need the fire to complement Coach Richt's ice. Brian VanGorder was that at one time, just as Erk Russell was to the reserved Vince Dooley, but someone needs to step forward and assume that role or be brought in to fill that void.

Coach Richt took longer than he should have to turn over the play-calling duties to Mike Bobo, but, when he made the decision, he made it and stuck with it. That encourages me to believe that he is not so inflexible as to be incapable of making necessary changes. He can and will make them, albeit perhaps not as soon as many of us would like.

The question is whether Coach Richt's strong personal sense of loyalty---once again, another good trait that only becomes problematic if taken to extremes---would prevent him from making staff changes. Since cleaning house after being hired following the 2000 season, Coach Richt has not, if memory serves, fired any assistant coaches.

I am not prepared to go so far as to say that any assistant coaches should be fired, but I would like to believe Coach Richt could do that, without urging from the athletic administration, if a particular coach was not working out as a contributing member of the staff.

No coach is perfect. Vince Dooley stuck with some of his subordinates longer than he should have, too. That is the mark of a man who has confidence in his own leadership ability and in the correctness of his approach. That is a good thing, even a necessary attribute in a head football coach, but it can produce such unfortunate side effects as having George Haffner spending a decade as the Bulldogs' offensive coordinator.

Coach Richt is not entitled to be insulated from reasonable criticisms, but he has earned considerable benefit of the doubt. Fotodog is right that the question is whether he will make the requisite changes (I believe he will) and when.

. . . and I understand that a reasonable person can criticize someone for how he allows his religious faith to guide his decisionmaking in those parts of his life that are not explicitly matters of faith without criticizing that person's religious beliefs. (For instance, one can disagree with how George W. Bush's Christianity affects his policy decisions in the Middle East without condemning his religious faith; in fact, I believe Doug Gillett, a committed Roman Catholic, would do just that without in any way compromising his own faith.)

I believe the decision to turn over the play-calling duties to Mike Bobo gives cause for hope. To hear Mark Richt tell the story, he had decided in the summer of 2006 to hand over the offense to Coach Bobo, then he talked himself out of it for selfish reasons. It was only while praying following a devotional with his children that Coach Richt came to feel that he was being pulled toward the decision to promote Coach Bobo and that his own selfishness was getting in the way.

I don't think Coach Richt has indicated that he received a visitation from on high, just that he prayed about an important decision in his job---much as many people of many faiths pray about the significant decisions in their own lives---and heard "the still small voice of the Spirit" leading him in the correct direction.

Coach Bobo is young and is working to make his mark on the program, but his work developing David Greene and D.J. Shockley speaks well of him as a quarterbacks coach and he has not been as predictable as Coach Richt had become.

For instance, not every incomplete pass on first down is followed by an inside draw on second down, as became the norm when Coach Richt was calling the plays. Georgia's third-down conversion rate against Alabama was as good as it was because Coach Bobo was willing to call screens on every down. The decision to go for the home run ball on first down in overtime was brilliant play-calling. When facing very stout defenses, Coach Bobo also called fine games against Auburn and (particularly in the second half) against Virginia Tech last year.

Moreover, Coach Bobo's play-calling has made Coach Richt less conservative. The onside kicks against Virginia Tech in the bowl game and against Ole Miss this year were called by Coach Richt because of his faith in his offensive coordinator.

Finally, while I know we all are---and ought to be---exceedingly dissatisfied with the course of recent events, we should not be blind to events around us.

During the last 25 games, the 'Dawgs have gone 16-9 overall and 2-7 against the S.E.C. East . . . but, during that same span, Georgia has beaten L.S.U. by 20 points in the S.E.C. championship game, shut out South Carolina on the road, hammered Auburn by 22 points on the Plains, defeated the Hokies in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, won two hard-fought battles over Georgia Tech, handed Oklahoma State a 35-14 setback in the season opener, won in Tuscaloosa for just the second time in school history, and hung 45 points on an Ole Miss team that nearly upset Florida.

There are real problems that need to be solved and tough decisions that need to be made, but there are at least 90 Division I-A programs that would love to have the luxury of considering this a downcycle.

Permit me to take another stab at putting this into perspective. If Urban Meyer goes 39-13 in his next 52 games overall and posts a 23-11 record in his next 34 conference contests, will he be doing pretty well? Many would consider a .750 winning percentage overall and a .677 winning percentage in S.E.C. play doing all right, if not exceptionally well.

If Urban Meyer goes 39-13 in his next 52 games, he will have a record of 65-19 . . . identical to Mark Richt's.

If Urban Meyer goes 23-11 in his next 34 S.E.C. games, he will have a conference record of 38-17 . . . identical to Mark Richt's.

Two and a half years into his tenure in Gainesville, Coach Meyer is the toast of the town. He has gone 26-6 overall and 15-6 in S.E.C. play, posting a 13-1 record in his second season.

Two and a half years into his tenure in Athens, Coach Richt had gone 26-6 overall and 16-5 in S.E.C. play, posting a 13-1 record in his second season.

Yes, U.C.L.A. beat U.S.C. by a 14-9 margin in the Trojans' 2006 season-ender and Ohio State beat Michigan by a 14-9 margin in the Buckeyes' 2002 season-ender, as a result of which---and only as a result of which---Urban Meyer got to play for a national title and Mark Richt didn't.

Other than that, though, Urban Meyer is today right where Mark Richt was at the midpoint of the 2003 season. If Coach Meyer sticks around long enough to make it to the halfway mark of his seventh season with the Gators---a big "if" on which I would not be fool enough to place money---he would not be doing badly to be doing as well then as Mark Richt is doing right now.

There are issues that need addressing. Perhaps---perhaps---there are coaches that need replacing. Mark Richt, however, is the best thing to have happened to the Georgia program since Herschel Walker became a New Jersey General. We should take great care not to forget that fact.

Regarding a much more important subject than college football, Baltimore Dawg, I would welcome the opportunity to converse with you privately regarding your professed skepticism about God, if you are interested in such a discussion.

I don't want to go off on a tangent on Kyle's blog and I would encourage you to consider his offer, but God does change the plans he has for people.
In the New Testament (Acts), Paul says that he wanted to go to Asia Minor, but that the Holy Spirit prevented him from doing so. He later was led by God into Asia and had success sharing the Gospel.
So there is a precedent for God changing a direction of a person's life or redirecting him at a different time.