I spoke Wednesday at Alabama’s football alumni luncheon and was pelted with questions about the University of Georgia. They all wondered whether head coach Mark Richt would survive this season and what his future is in Athens. They were tough questions to answer. But here are my feelings about what is going on with the Bulldogs.
The SEC is not just the best conference in football, it is light years ahead of every other. On top of that, it has the best two programs in the country in Alabama and Florida, teams that could dominate Division I football for years as long as their coaches remain there. It also has become a conference of sharks. Here is what I mean:
Regardless of whether you like Urban Meyer or Nick Saban, or even Lane Kiffin or Houston Nutt, these coaches think only about winning football games. This includes running an airtight program, and they have full control of their football players, both on and off the field. Think about it as if each player on Alabama and Florida had a microchip embedded into their neck, with every move monitored. These two programs, and to some extent others in the SEC, have made football a business. Nothing else. They outwork other coaching staffs, they are more intense than other teams, their recruiting efforts are streamlined and they cast a wide net. In other words, they are the best of the best in the new, business-like age of college football.
Now back to Richt. There is no doubt that he is a good football coach; you don’t win two SEC Championships flying by the seat of your pants. On the other hand, Richt is not a shark and never will be.
Take, for instance, his current situation at Georgia. The team is 4-4 and may not even finish with a .500 record. But he continues to stick with senior quarterback Joe Cox, who is not very good. The season, for the most part, is over for the Bulldogs, but after the loss to Florida, Richt came out and said, “It was unanimous among our staff that Joe gives us the best chance to win, and that’s where our focus needs to be. There’s still a lot of football left this season. We tell our players to finish the drill, and we are committed to doing that this week and each week the remainder of the season. We have faith in Joe that he gives us the best opportunity to do that.’’
That sounds great, and having a son that plays quarterback on the high school level, I would love for him to play for Richt, whether he was at Georgia or Bowling Green. But in this cutthroat, win-at-all-costs time, such an attitude doesn’t sit well at schools like Georgia. Like it or not, schools want to win and they want to win big. Richt’s two conference titles came when Meyer and Saban were elsewhere. For Georgia to get back to that level, Richt will need to change, and that means making personal changes to become a different kind coach. His intensity will have to turn up, he will have to become more of a disciplinarian, run a much tighter ship with his players and, most importantly, become less concerned with loyalty and focus more on putting together a staff that can put the program on the level of an Alabama and Florida.
Read the comments from a few paragraphs ago. Richt is sticking behind his senior quarterback and perhaps he does give the team the best chance to win. But, at the same time, this is an opportunity to get one of his young quarterbacks ready for next year instead of just throwing one of them into the fire when the 2010 season starts.
Again, I have been impressed with what Richt has done at Georgia, though I’m quite surprised he didn’t have an above-average quarterback to replace Matt Stafford and that he hasn’t been able to do much with recruiting classes that have been rated very highly over the last few years. That usually means something is wrong with the coaching, and whether it is his assistants that are the problem or Richt himself, the buck stops in the head coach’s office.
So what happens? Can Richt change, adapt to a new style to be able to compete in this conference?
Again, this would mean a huge philosophy change and many times coaches, or for that matter people everywhere, have a tough time making these kinds of adjustments. There is no better example than IBM. It owned the personal computer market for years, but when Dell and Apple came in with new and innovative technologies and ways to sell computers, IBM wouldn’t adjust. Fortunately for IBM, it was smart enough to get into other businesses and survive, but still has a very small share of the personal computer market.
Perhaps Richt would be better off elsewhere, where the pressure to win isn’t so great, where he can be successful on his own terms. In my opinion, Florida State would be a perfect rebuilding job for him. He could do wonders in Tallahassee.
I certainly can’t tell you what is going to happen in Athens, but status quo isn’t an option. Either Richt becomes more of a shark or, one way or another, he’s going to get eaten up in this conference.
Rosenberg can be heard this Sunday from 1-4 p.m. on 790 The Zone on Score Atlanta Sports Sunday. Rosenberg can be reached at ijrosenberg@scoreatl.com and 404-256-1572.
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