Prince Avenue coach Jon Richt: His dad ‘definitely much calmer’ on sideline
Today’s Four Questions interviewee is first-year Prince Avenue Christian coach Jon Richt, whose team is 4-1 entering tonight’s Region 8-2A opener at Hart County. Richt — a former Prince Avenue, Clemson and Mars Hill quarterback — was Prince Avenue’s offensive coordinator for three seasons before being promoted this offseason to replace Greg Vandagriff, now head coach at Tennessee’s Lakeway Christian. Before that, Richt worked on Miami’s staff under his father, Mark Richt, who was Georgia’s coach from 2001 to 2015. He also was an offense assistant for one season with the Buffalo Bills.
1. What aspect of your coaching style most closely mirrors that of your father?
“I hope it mirrors the way that he handles kids as human beings. But also, he’s definitely much calmer than I am on the sideline. When I’m calling plays on offense, I’m pretty calm, but when the defense is out there and I get to yell at the referees a little bit, I do get a little animated more than he used to. So, there are things that you take from him and things that you’re just like ‘That’s just not me.’ So, you’ve got to go do your own thing. But hopefully the way that he develops human beings is something that my coaching style mirrors.”
2. Your quarterback, Ben Musser, is now the full-time starter after sharing the position on the 2024 state runner-up team. He’s thrown for 1,472 yards and 15 touchdowns and rushed for 768 yards and eight touchdowns. What have you seen from his development that gives you so much confidence in him?
“Ultimately, he got a year of playing quarterback. Before, he was probably the best athlete on the field every time he stepped on the field. So, he could get away with a lot of things, just being an athlete. Now he’s really developing into a quarterback, into a distributor, into somebody who can actually run the offense well. We worked really hard with him last year teaching him, ‘Hey man, you don’t have to make every play. You can make plays when they’re there, that’s what’s great about your ability.’ But the great thing about our system is if you play within it, it allows you to let other people help you. We’ve got a lot of great and productive players around him, and that’s what makes our offense special and really dynamic right now. He’s developed into a great leader and a great distributor to everybody else.”
3. How have the upperclassmen responded to the difference of entering a new year with a new head coach?
“The great thing was that I’ve been there for their whole high school career. So I’ve been there for the past three years. I was their strength coach. I was their offensive coordinator. So, it didn’t matter whether they were offense or defense, I worked with them, I trained them, I helped them in recruiting. I did a lot of stuff for them already, so our relationships were very strong with all those guys already. They loved Coach V (former coach Vandagriff). He was a great mentor to them and a great human being for them, but they knew who they were going to go to work for the next day, and that was helpful. They know who I am. They know how I like to coach, and all it was was us picking up where we left off the day before and getting back to work.”
4. What is the biggest difference between developing players from high school to college?
“In high school, they show up as a freshman, and they really don’t know anything. Their bodies aren’t developed. As far as football goes, they’re basically baby deer. You have to help them grow into a man and start to develop. Hopefully, by their senior year, they know a little something about football, because you’re teaching all those things. But it’s also a very impressionable time in their life. They’re trying to figure out who they are and build that foundation so that when they go to college … they’re secure in their beliefs and who they are as a man. That’s a big part of what we’re doing here in high school.
“But college, they walk in with a little bit of an idea of football. Some of them have more knowledge, some of them have a little bit less, you have to close that gap for them. Ultimately, the guys who have played the longest are the ones that are going to be able to walk in and do special things on the field. That’s why you see all these transfer quarterbacks, the older guys coming up, showing up and just making plays wherever they go. It’s because they’ve been there, they’ve seen it, and now they’re ready to go play a little bit faster than the young guys. You’re still developing them off the field, you’re not throwing that to the wayside, but they’re usually a little bit more grown up and mature at that age.”
