Mark Richt has a display case in the lounge adjacent to his Butts-Mehre office filled with memorabilia from his coaching career, including two SEC championship rings. The rings rarely leave the case and seldom are slipped on his fingers.
“If we go to the SEC championship game or something, I might bring them out for motivation,” he said Tuesday. “But it doesn’t make sense to do something like that now. So much can happen.”
Georgia will win the SEC and go to college football’s first playoff.
Georgia will belly-flop in the East, lose to Clemson, South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri and Georgia Tech, and slink to the Liberty Bowl.
Pick a side.
There’s a case to be made for either.
Richt isn’t guessing. He has been here before. He likes his players, his coaches, the tone of the preseason. Georgia has the nation’s best running back (Todd Gurley) on one side of the ball and a defensive coordinator (Jeremy Pruitt) who actually knows what he’s doing on the other.
But there have been years when the Georgia coach believed his team’s ceiling was high, only to see things go horribly sideways. (Injuries became so dizzying after last season’s 4-1 start that Richt said after one game, “I don’t know what the carnage is yet.”) There have been times when his team probably played better than expected (2011: 10 consecutive wins after a 0-2 start) and years when an afterthought opponent became unexpected kings of the SEC.
“Look at Auburn last year,” Richt said. “They had at least three or four close games, but they won them all. They won the SEC. They went to the national championship game and almost won the whole thing. But if they don’t win those close games, they’re a five-loss team.”
There have been a lot of ifs in Athens the past few years. Georgia needs to get past the ifs, past the almosts, past the could’ve-beens.
Richt needs something really good to happen this season. He doesn’t need it for job security, but a case could be made he needs it for his legacy.
It has been nine years since the Bulldogs’ last conference championship. That’s not nearly the 20-year lapse between Vince Dooley’s last title (1982) and Richt’s first (2002), but the magnifying glass is bigger now.
Richt raised the expectation level winning two conference championships in his first five seasons. If Georgia can’t win another soon, the coach’s resume is going to have a noticeable tilt to it.
There were significant questions about Georgia’s direction a few years ago. The Bulldogs went 7-9 in the SEC over two seasons (2009-10), finished 6-7 overall in 2010 and opened 2011 with losses to Boise State and South Carolina. But then came 10 consecutive wins to close the regular season and a 12-1 pre-bowl record in 2012, including a narrow defeat to eventual BCS champion Alabama in the SEC title game.
With that turnaround, Richt regained the trust of doubting fans and media and affirmed he could still lead a major program. It’s fair to wonder what might have unfolded last season (8-4 pre-bowl) if not for suspensions and injuries that contributed to last season’s 38-35 loss at Clemson and midseason losses to Missouri and Vanderbilt. The loss to eventual SEC champion Auburn: 43-38 on a deflected 73-yard touchdown pass in the final seconds.
But at one point do things break the other way? History doesn’t celebrate coaches for close losses and unfortunate circumstances, particularly in the SEC.
Richt needs another highlight.
If Gurley stays healthy, Pruitt nurtures a young secondary and quarterback Hutson Mason channels the cool that D.J. Shockley showed in his lone season as starter in 2005, this can be a special season in Athens. Georgia is better than Clemson (Tajh Boyd and Sammy Watkins are gone). South Carolina, the second opponent, is good but not great. The rest of the schedule doesn’t scare you.
“What I think is what I always say: We’re going to go into every game expecting to win and thinking we can win,” Richt said. “If we do that over and over again, we have a chance to be a champion.
“I don’t know if there’s ever been a year across the board where it was like, ‘We’re experienced. We’ve got depth.’ The issue is the secondary. You just don’t know how they’re going to play or how they’re going to respond.”
They’re due for a season without regrets.
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