Many folks were giddy when Greg McGarity was named Georgia’s athletic director. He was an Athens native, a Georgia grad and a former Bulldogs coach (women’s tennis) and employee (everything from assistant sports information director to assistant AD). He was One Of Their Own.
Not quite 4 1/2 years later, some of those same folks have cast McGarity as the villain to Mark Richt’s hero. The AD has been characterized — mostly in whispers, which keep getting louder — as anti-Richt. Those whispers prompted this correspondent to sit down with McGarity on Dec. 17 and relate his answers in this space.
It would be wrong to say that I came away thinking the AD was wildly pro-Richt. Asked if he believed this coach would win a national championship, McGarity said, “Until I’m convinced he is not, then I believe he can” — which wasn’t the same as shouting, “Richt! Richt! He’s our man!” It would also be wrong to report that I regarded McGarity as someone eager to change coaches.
My take — and this is just me talking — is that McGarity, like many among us, is of two minds about this coach. On the one hand, Richt has a better career winning percentage than Wally Butts or Vince Dooley; then again, Butts and Dooley took national titles. With five SEC programs (four based in states that border Georgia) winning at least one championship over the past 16 years, the Bulldogs have won none and played for none.
The 2014 season made the case for why Richt is a really good coach but not quite a great one: He went 10-3 despite not having his best player for seven games; he also failed to win the SEC East when it was clear the Bulldogs, even without Todd Gurley, were the class of the division, and for the first time since 2008 he failed to beat Georgia Tech. Fair or not, a Georgia season has come to be judged not on the games it wins but on the ones it doesn’t.
If Georgia beats one of the worst Florida teams of the past half-century, it wins the East. (It lost 38-20, yielding 418 yards rushing.) If it then beats Georgia Tech, it’s 11-1. If it beats Alabama to win the SEC, it’s in the playoff. And now you’re saying, “There’s no way Georgia would have beaten Bama,” but didn’t Ohio State — playing behind its No. 3 quarterback — do that very thing? Didn’t the fourth-seeded Buckeyes prove that if you just get in, you can win? Why can’t Georgia ever just get in?
McGarity has a mantra: We want our teams to compete for championships. (He borrowed it from Jeremy Foley, his boss at Florida.) He says he asks coaches, “What can I do to help you?,” but that’s not an altogether altruistic question. There’s an implied quid pro quo: If I help you, will you win big for me?
McGarity has fired four Georgia coaches, gymnastics and baseball among them, because he didn’t believe they could compete for championships. But can an AD hold all coaches to that lofty standard if it’s not being met by the man steering the flagship?
The pro-Richt forces have sought to paint McGarity as unsupportive, insisting he didn’t fight to let Gurley keep playing (which is patently ridiculous, given that the university had clear evidence of compromised eligibility); that he won’t spring for an indoor practice facility and won’t pay the going rate on coaches’ salaries. Last week, in a letter to donors, McGarity complimented the coaches for the Belk Bowl victory and revealed he was working on an extension for Richt; Georgia then announced that coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, whose defense yielded those 418 yards in Jacksonville, had been given a raise to $1.3 million per annum.
This, I submit, is AD-speak for, “Back atcha.” Richt’s most recent extension had come after the 2012 season: He’d gone 18-8 since and still had three seasons remaining. But if you’re McGarity, isn’t the smartest course to give your football coach whatever he wants? (The indoor facility will happen soon.) If he wins a title, he’s happy and you’re happy and everybody’s happy. If he doesn’t, whose fault is that? Yours? The school president’s? Urban Meyer’s?
