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Friday, July 27, 2007
Dogs flying under the radar
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Hoover, Ala. — Mark Richt had no problem making it to SEC media days Friday, except for the fact it was sort of like trailing the parade with a broom. You follow Steve Spurrier, Urban Meyer, Nick Saban — accompanied by clowns, elephants and a blur of Stepford boosters — it’s easy to blend into the scenery.
Sort of like the Georgia program right now.
“We’re definitely under the radar,” Richt said. “Whether we rise or not is the big question.”
He spoke with no hint of stress. He smiled and gave long answers, not preconditioned, processed, get-me-outta-here responses. After six seasons in the SEC, a coach either learns to deal with it or folds.
And there were times last season, you wondered with Richt. After five mostly blessed seasons, the Bulldogs smacked into the Netherworld. They lost four of five after a 5-0 start. They lost to Kentucky. And Vanderbilt. And allowed 51 points at home against Tennessee. Richt never put his fist through a wall, at least not that we know of. But the stress was visible.
“There’s a difference between pressure and stress,” he said. “There’s pressure in this job. There’s pressure when you lose four out of five. Stress is when you begin to react to it physiologically. I mean, I was getting close to — I don’t know if it was the breaking point, but I was feeling it.”
In the end, Georgia finished strong, with wins over Auburn, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech. “It might’ve been the most gratifying year for me,” Richt said.
But he knew something had to change. He handed play-calling duties over to Mike Bobo, but it might’ve had less to do with questionable play-calling than what work was doing to Richt. Hours melted into days, days melted into weeks — and weeks were melting down the head coach. Pressure had turned to stress. Personal time with kids Richt had recruited was non-existent. It wasn’t as much fun.
These are things a head coach with perspective thinks about. These are things that are hammered home the day after a basketball coach, seemingly in great health, drops dead of an apparent heart attack in North Carolina, moments after taking a jog.
“Some of us [coaches] are like a lot of people in life. It’s like, ‘Whatever happened to him is not going to happen to me,’ ” Richt said, alluding to the sudden death of Wake Forest basketball coach Skip Prosser. “But the job will take a toll on you. You have to learn to manage it. Some guys can do it all. And I’ve been doing it all, not that I’ve been doing it great. But I’ve been trying to do everything.”
Relinquishing play-calling duties, he said, “is going to be very beneficial to me, my health and the health of this program.
“If you’re game-planning and calling the game, you’re busy. Very busy. Then if you add all of the head coaching responsibilities to it, you get into such a grind physically and mentally that it can wear you slap out. It was wearing on me.”
And now?
“I feel more revived and more fresh right now than I have ever felt going into a season since I’ve been at Georgia,” he said. “If you’re a coordinator only, there is a true offseason for you. As a head coach there’s not much of an off-season. Not only are you grinding it in season, you’re grinding it out of season. There was no time to revive in between. This will help me. I imagine I’ll have a little more time to exercise and for myself mentally.”
It’s amazing the residue that one “off” season can leave. Richt won 13, 11, 10 and 10 games in four straight seasons, then dropped to 9-4 last year. Welcome to under the radar. Media polls here have the Dogs finishing third in the SEC East.
They received two of 80 first-place votes. The only schools that had fewer drew none — Kentucky, Vanderbilt and the dented bookends in Mississippi.
Eleven schools have players on the preseason all-SEC first team. One doesn’t: Georgia.
“Preseason all-SEC doesn’t mean much,” Richt said. “Postseason SEC means something.”
He didn’t seem to care that the parade seemed to have passed through town. In reality, he hasn’t started yet.
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