To no one’s surprise, the dreaded Nick Saban and his Alabama Crimson Tide won the 2012 national college football championship. They went 14-0 and crushed No. 1-ranked Notre Dame, 42-14, in the title game. But in the Southeastern Conference championship game just previous, they had prevailed only by turning away Georgia from four yards out of the end zone on the last play of the game. It seems the real championship two years ago was played in Atlanta.
Following the game, King Saban all but scolded reporters that apparently they didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of UGA’s accomplishment. (You can look it up.) Saban knew how good his own team was, and he was visibly impressed that Georgia had just matched them eye-to-eye.
To understand the Fire Mark Richt movement, you have to understand that, to these fans, the above scenario is not an endorsement of UGA’s coach but his professional death warrant. That Richt coached a physically inferior Georgia team to within one play of beating unbeatable Alabama isn’t the point.
What is the point? Not just that Richt “lost the big one,” but that this Alabama game proved once and for all that he can never win the big one. It’s not possible, apparently. It’s simply not in the man. And what does Nick Saban know?
What’s got the Richt detractors running for their pitchforks again was Georgia’s humiliating loss to Florida last Saturday. The Dawgs were heavy favorites and instead got spanked and sent home. Now their national championship hopes are dashed – again.
In truth, it may have been Richt’s worst game at Georgia.
The university could certainly make national headlines by firing Richt, and not just on the sports pages. Consider it news when the guy with the highest winning percentage in school history gets the boot without at least having a losing season in the recent past. UGA would be openly ridiculed.
Missouri Coach Gary Pinkel, for one, would likely be startled were Richt to get canned. Just a few weeks ago Pinkel was quoted as saying that when most Missouri fans think of the program that most exemplifies what the SEC is about, they most often think of Georgia. You and I might have said Alabama, but hey, that’s what the man said. Maybe he was blowing smoke.
Days later, Georgia beat Missouri 34-0. But even though Missouri was the defending SEC East Division champion, this lopsided victory by UGA was not a “big one.” To the Fire Richt crowd, the only games that count are the losses.
There are 14 schools in the SEC. Aside from Vanderbilt and maybe Kentucky, all the other teams are expected by their fan bases to compete for championships. That’s 12 teams, just in this one league. Sorry, but there’s just not enough love to go around.
Take “The Genius,” Steve Spurrier at South Carolina. So far this year he has a losing record. He’s never won an SEC championship in 10 years at Carolina – never won the big one. Should he be fired?
And talk about nose-diving in a single game. Texas A & M draws 100,000-plus people for home games. They had been ranked high for most of this season to date. Then they lost 59-0. Surely another coach could do better.
Florida partisans are cheering this week, but just last week at a home game they were chanting to fire the coach. Let’s just say coaching is a fickle business and leave it at that.
Maybe there’s an available coach out there who could guarantee an improvement on Richt’s 9.7 wins per year. But that’s not the same thing as saying we know who that someone is. Whoever he is, his mandate at Georgia would be clear – win the national championship or we’ll fire you too.
Richt gets skewered for a perceived softness that supposedly comes from his Christian faith. He can’t “control” his players, say many Dawg fans. So he should do exactly…what? Say, “Hey guys, smoking pot is illegal? Better not slug your girlfriend?” Richt’s critics are dead-on: He really can’t “control” his players.
The coaches at Auburn and Florida State can’t control their players either, but they’re the toast of their towns. Both of their star quarterbacks have been accused of crimes – theft and sexual assault, respectively – but that didn’t stop them from facing each other in the 2013 national championship game. Should Richt operate as these coaches do?
Two men cast a shadow over Mark Richt. One is the mighty Saban, whose historic success at Alabama in recent years has set a new standard of excellence that no one in this age of parity in college football is likely to match. Richt is certainly no Saban. Who is?
The figure of Vince Dooley also looms. But this former UGA coach hadn’t won a national title after 14 years either. Plenty of fans wanted to fire him. The rap on him was that his teams ran the ball too much. “Pass, Dooley!” I can hear it now. (I was there, in Sanford Stadium, a kid, and mortified that anyone would shout this sacrilege about Coach Dooley.)
Then arguably the greatest runner in college football history showed up in Athens in the person of Herschel Walker. Suddenly running the ball was hunky-dory after all. Dooley’s overnight was transformed into the legend he still is today.
It would seem the line between good and great is a thin one.
