Bulldog Nation is a happier place this morning: Sunday Morning Quarterback has taken a look at Georgia.
When Mark Richt’s quality as a coach was called into question in the comments, SMQ offered this retort:
That 2002 season
The same result would have ended with Georgia in the championship game five or six other years since the BCS was formed, including the last two. Part of my conclusion was that the same season might get them there this year.
To me, to say "I’ll believe it when I see it" is a little odd. Nobody’s a winner until he wins. It took Bowden, Osborne, Paterno et al years to win a championship, and they all carried the tag, "can’t win the big one." Obviously they could, and did. Richt hasn’t been around long enough to get stuck with that label, especially since, when he was hired, Georgia was always the ‘third wheel’ in the division behind Tennessee and Florida. SEC championships weren’t even the table, much less national championships. Now UGA is the winningest program in the SEC in his tenure. Again, the championship teams from Florida in 06 and LSU in 03 and 07 didn’t do anything the 2002 UGA team didn’t do – LSU lost to an inferior Florida team, too, in 2003, and two more inferior teams last year. They just got the breaks that they needed from other teams, and Georgia didn’t. Of those Greene/Pollack teams, only 2004 was disappointing, mainly because of the loss to Tennessee.
I think Richt has been great for Georgia, he’s built an elite program and his time should come at some point.
This is what I’ve been saying!
Go ‘Dawgs!