There have been installments of the Mark Richt Victory Watch I have enjoyed more than this one, but there haven’t been many. Irrespective of their middling record, the Florida Gators are a fine football team, and, even if they aren’t, hell, they’re still the Florida Gators.
Given the alternating stretches of series dominance that have typified the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party since the founding of the SEC and the permanent relocation of the game to Jacksonville---Georgia owned the 1930s and ‘40s; Florida owned the 1950s and ‘60s; the Classic City Canines owned the 1970s and ‘80s; the Sunshine State Saurians owned the 1990s and 2000s---there is every reason to believe this win represents the swinging of the pendulum and the start of a 20-year period of Red and Black ascendance over the Orange and Blue in the 2010s and ‘20s. Even if it doesn’t, though, this win clearly ends the speculation on Mark Richt’s future in Athens; at this moment, Will Muschamp’s seat is a hell of a lot hotter than Mark Richt’s is.
Accordingly, I bring you this latest update to the Mark Richt Victory Watch more secure than I have been at any point in the last three years in the certainty that this countdown is bound for nothing short of the school record.
Mark Richt has now won 102 games as the head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs, putting him just 99 wins shy of tying Vince Dooley for the all-time Red and Black victories mark.
At 102-36 after 138 games, Mark Richt has more wins, fewer losses, and a better winning percentage (.739) than any of his predecessors at the same point in their respective careers. At the identical juncture, Wally Butts was 92-39-7 (.692) and Vince Dooley was 92-41-5 (.685).
Go ‘Dawgs!