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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2006 > January > 25
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Taking care of business
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Does Mark Richt deserve a hefty raise?
Hell, yeah.
Two SEC championships, three trips to the conference championship game, four straight Top 10 finishes, four straight seasons with at least 10 wins and a 52-12 record in five seasons. Certainly that kind of performance justifies him earning at least as much as any other SEC coach. Pay him what the market demands.
Does that mean I’ve changed my mind about wishing Richt would quit calling his own plays on the sideline?
Hell, no.
As good as Georgia has been under Richt, there have been games we could have and probably would have won had the head coach not had his attention divided by trying to do two jobs at once.
But I recognize that Richt loves calling his own signals and is bound and determined to continue doing it rather than becoming a CEO-style coach like Vince Dooley was. As long as Georgia continues being this successful, that probably won’t change.
Still, he could alleviate some of the problem by naming someone else on his staff to be in charge of the Dawgs’ sideline during games. Too many times, we’ve seen disarray in the form of wrong players on the field and clock management issues.
Worse, no one seems to be looking at the Big Picture. A perfect example was in the Sugar Bowl, when Georgia was caught napping by the West Virginia fake punt. I’m sure as play-caller Richt was busy worrying about what the Dawgs were going to do when they got the ball back rather than worrying about IF they got the ball back. All the coaches were concerned with their little piece of the team and there was no one considering the game as a whole.
If there had been, he probably would have concluded — like thousands of fans in the stands and watching at home had — that WVU wasn’t about to give Georgia the ball back if they could help it. There was no one to remind punt-team coordinator Jon Fabris, “Prepare for the fake!”
So naming a coach to stand back from the fray and take an overall view as sideline coordinator would be a big help.
Let’s also hope that in extending Richt’s contract Georgia looks to the future (and Bobby Bowden’s eventual retirement) by not only including a very hefty buy-out clause in the deal, but also backloading it with some incentives that Richt only gets if he stays the full term of his contract.
Let Florida State look elsewhere for their next coach.
