The Mark Richt Victory Watch
by T Kyle King
on Sep 2, 2007 2:04 AM EDT
in Football
Naturally, we'll be looking at Georgia's 35-14 victory over Oklahoma State in greater detail tomorrow---er, later today, I mean---but, for now, we begin the season with my favorite part of every week . . . the Mark Richt Victory Watch.
Mark Richt was 40 years old when he was hired to coach the 'Dawgs and he studied under Bobby Bowden, who continues to coach well past the conventional retirement age. As soon as Coach Richt arrived in Athens, I did the math and realized that, if he averaged eight wins a year through age 65, he'd get to 200 wins . . . so I began counting down the victories en route to Coach Richt's eventual and inevitable overtaking of Vince Dooley on the all-time school wins list.
The Mark Richt Victory Watch now stands at 62. Coach Richt needs just 139 more victories to match Coach Dooley's school record of 201 wins.
At 62-17, Coach Richt has the best won-lost record of any coach in Georgia history after 79 games on the job. At the same point in their respective careers, Harry Mehre (49-27-3), Wally Butts (56-21-2), Vince Dooley (52-23-4), and Ray Goff (45-33-1) all had fewer wins and more losses.
Interestingly enough, Coach Butts's 79th game at the Bulldog helm also was a win over the Pokes between the hedges. At that time, Oklahoma State was known as Oklahoma A&M, but the Cowboys came to the Classic City on October 19, 1946, and the Red and Black sent them home to Stillwater smarting from a 33-13 setback.
For the record, the Bulldogs ended the 1946 season with an unbeaten record, an S.E.C. title, and a bowl win in New Orleans to claim a share of the national championship. I'm just saying.
Go 'Dawgs!
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Like I said before!
I thought the Tennessee-CAL game was epic, although the defenses for both teams were nowhere to be found at times, but I think that was mainly due to the first game and the inability to adjust to game speed.
Like I've also said before, this is a new era of college football where on any given day, any thing can happen due to the 85 scholarship rule. I watched the Michigan - APPY St game in its entirety and it was no fluke - they flat out outplayed the Wolverines the whole game. I also think Tennessee will bounce back. Auburn, Georgia and Kentucky looked solid, but S. Carolina looked sluggish (similar to last year against Wofford), I wonder if that is by design?
Other BCSBuster A+ performances go to Wyoming 23-3 over Virginia, Bowling Green 32-31 OT winners over Minnesota and ECU was solid in Blacksburg, a close loss to Virginia Tech. We will get a better reading of both LSU and VTech next weekend. All in all a great weekend for the SEC and PAC-10, while the Big-12 and Big-10 struggled. It's hard to get a reading on the Big-East because they didn't play anyone.
Oregon State sputtered, Oregon still can't tackle and even though CAL was impressive - they are suspect on defense and could get beat if they don't improve. The jury is still out for me regarding UCLA (considering its Stanford) similar to Florida (considering its W. Carolina). Can't wait for next week. Great job Dawgs - As you can tell, coach Richt is one of my favorites, not only due to his ability on the field, but character off of it!
USC looked unmotivated and most likely played with the same intensity they would have played with in their spring game. I may drop em in next weeks poll because the poll should be based on last weeks performance and not how we project or speculate they will do?
My Top-25 looks somewhat like this, although this is a pretty rough draft as we have games Sunday and Monday, while Hawai'i is still playing.
- West Virginia
- LSU
- USC
- Louisville
- Oklahoma
- California
- Florida
- Georgia
- Wisconsin
- Auburn
- Boise St
- Texas
- Ohio State
- UCLA
- Penn State
- Boston College
- Georgia Tech
- Oregon State
- Nebraska
- Arkansas
- Tennessee
- Arizona State
- Rutgers
- TCU
- Texas A&M
- Miami
Let me know what you folks from the SEC are thinking. My poll changes a lot the first 6 weeks as I vote based on the weekends performance so if you don't play well (like USC, Ohio State, or Texas) I drop you.
Who's on the hot-seat?
Lloyd Carr
Mike Stoops
Mike Groh
by bcsbusters on Sep 2, 2007 3:02 AM EDT 0 recs
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