Mark Richt is no longer the dashing young man just in from Tallahassee with his mat drills and his preternatural calm and his championship pedigree. Fourteen years on a difficult job will have that effect, and time has chipped away at his famous affability. He smiles less, and when he does there’s a hint of weariness at the edges.
Richt turned 55 last month, and entering his 15th spring practice as Georgia’s coach he occupies a curious place in the football firmament. He’s one of the 20 best coaches in the land — his record tells us as much — but not many would count him among the top 10, not anymore. When we consider Richt today, what springs to mind aren’t his two SEC championships but how long it has been (nine years) since the last one.
In an unduly undulating 2014 season, Richt still proved he can lead the Bulldogs to 10 wins, which is no small feat. Neither is it what Bulldog Nation waits, breath bated, to behold.
Year 15 under Richt won’t be more of the same. There’s a new offensive coordinator, a new line coach, a new director of strength and conditioning. This isn’t a program in stasis. Salaries for assistants have been bumped up — line coach Rob Sale is making $400,000, roughly 6 1/2 times what he was earning at McNeese State — and the much-discussed indoor practice facility has been fast-tracked.
In sum, Richt is getting everything he wants (including a contract extension and a raise to $4 million per annum). Asked at a media session Wednesday if he felt gratified by the backing he has been given by his administration, he offered a remarkably unforthcoming response: “I think we’re moving in a really healthy direction in those areas, and I’m happy for that.”
One compound sentence. Seventeen words. Next question.
The trouble with getting everything you want is that, at some point, you’ll be expected to produce at an even higher level. As noted, Richt’s last SEC title came nearly when Urban Meyer was a Florida newbie and Steve Spurrier had just arrived in Columbia, S.C., and Nick Saban was coaching the Dolphins and Missouri was some basketball program in the Big 12. Only twice since has Georgia played for the conference championship; only once has it come close to playing for a national title.
If Richt were to leave Georgia having won no bigger than he has already, he’d be no worse than the second-best coach this proud program has known. If, however, he hopes to be reinstated as one of the absolute best in his business, he has to win the SEC again and lift the Bulldogs to the College Football Playoff.
The four-team tournament would seem built for a program like this, which is always competitive but has proved unlucky in the timing of some of its best seasons (2002 and 2007, most notably). Events of 2014, however, were sobering: A close loss at South Carolina could be written off as the cost of doing business in the SEC, but the Florida game will live long in Bulldogs infamy, and the final 18 seconds of regulation against Georgia Tech marked a strategic nadir.
Richt’s a coach who has won a slew of games and who recruits well as a matter of course and who seems to have gained in-house sway, not that he lacked much; he’s also the coach who ordered the squib kick at 0:18. Can we ever square that circle?
This year Richt will work with a new quarterback (TBA) under a new coordinator (Brian Schottenheimer, whom Richt called “Coach Schotty”). A demonstrably great back (Nick Chubb) will run behind a mostly holdover line working under different management. Georgia’s defense, mostly pretty good in Jeremy Pruitt’s first season, should be better. The schedule, while not unmanageable, is a bit more daunting: Alabama here, Tennessee there, Auburn there, Tech in Atlanta.
Even with the Volunteers’ rise under Butch Jones, Georgia figures to be the consensus choice to win the East. But we’ve heard that before, many times. Over 14 seasons, this has become the program of “almost.” For all the good this coach has done, we continue to await the moment of Mark Richt’s arrival.
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