I try to avoid posting on this blog for 24 hours or so after a game. I generally double that for a loss. But I feel compelled on this night to say a few things that I thought went without saying.
For one, it has come to my attention that some of us apparently fell out of the perspective tree and missed every branch on the way down. Those of you who have labeled this one of the worst losses in University of Georgia history must have missed out on some fun times in the not so distant past. I remember the 1996 home loss to Southern Miss. I remember the 1995 "half a hundred" game against Florida in Athens and the time we made Auburn's Ben Leard look like Peyton Manning. I also remember Peyton Manning making our defense look incredibly stupid on a recurrent basis. And I remember the fact that all of that happened in a very short period of time in the mid to late 90's. Believe me, on the whole Mark Richt's record in tough conference games in distinctly preferable to Jim Donnan's. Richt's teams can be counted on not to show up once a year. Donnan's failed to show up weekly.
I'm not saying some changes don't need to be made. A lot of changes need to be made, which was the reason I became so pessimistic after the Arizona State game. We have more changes to make than a team can accomplish during the middle of the season. At this point we have the team we have and will have to live with them for the next 6 games. I'm convinced that winning 4 of those 6 would be miraculous at this point. But that would put us at 7-5, which in the Goff/Donnan era would have been the rule, not the exception. That's the difference between the past and the present.
No author improves the persuasiveness of his message by insulting his audience. That being said (and this is where you should feel free to sling arrows at me in the comments section) those of you who truly believe that it's time for any sort of change at the top of our football program are 18 carat golden morons. Seriously. I almost hate to dignify such a sentiment by commenting on it. But as someone who suffered through the Goff and Donnan years, I'd like to let you know that it could get a lot worse than what you've "suffered" through in the past few years. Last season's "disappointing" season was on par with the single best year of the Donnan era. That's to say nothing of the SEC Championship in 2005 or a final #2 ranking in the AP in 2007. Mark Richt has orchestrated more success in the past four years than his two predecessors combined.
Some of you are just blowing off steam and I get that. Some of you think Willie Martinez is only barely competent to coordinate his own bodily functions, much less an SEC defense. I totally get that. And some of you wonder how the most experienced offensive line in the SEC can't block a simple halfback lead play to save its immortal soul. I get that, because I've been wondering the answer myself. I won't get it from Stacy Searels because he won't talk to anyone, but I still wonder.
Perhaps this is the loss that snaps this team and coaching staff back to reality. Perhaps not. But just try to remember that most football teams are not, in the aggregate, as good as their wins or as bad as their losses. And we've had far more crushing losses than this one. Believe me, the sun will come up tomorrow. It's still great to be a Georgia Bulldog.