A 53-yard field goal clears the crossbar by a foot and the vocational lives of two football men are changed. Seven days after Georgia Tech beat Georgia in an overtime forged by Harrison Butker’s tying kick, Tech coach Paul Johnson is granted a four-year contract extension. One day after that, Georgia’s Mark Richt gets the booby prize of postseason assignments — the Belk Bowl against Louisville and former Bulldogs defensive coordinator Todd Grantham.
Tech-Georgia isn’t always a zero-sum game, but this edition was. After the Jackets lost to Ole Miss in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30, 2013, some reasonable alums believed Johnson needed to exit. (I was on the receiving end of two such phone calls.) Today at least one of those men credits Johnson for a season well played. Winning — it’s a beautiful thing.
As for Richt: A man who knows the inner workings of Georgia football said he has never seen old-school Bulldogs — not to be confused with the flame-throwers on message boards — more upset with this coach. (And this coach presided over a 6-7 season that culminated with a loss to Central Florida only four years ago.) My informant reports that these long-timers have come to believe what many on the periphery have suggested: Relative to the talent on hand, Richt is an underachiever.
Would the mood along North Avenue and Lumpkin Street be different had Butker’s kick carried 52 yards? (Or had Richt ordered Georgia to kick deep with 18 seconds remaining?) In some ways, no. Win or lose against Georgia, the season had yielded a Tech turnaround that some among us weren’t sure would be forthcoming under Johnson, who over the past four years was 6-7, 8-5, 7-7 and 7-6. Win or lose against Tech, Georgia’s season would forever have been blotched by the loss to Florida.
But in the bigger picture: Yes, the outcome mattered. It made Tech fans feel good about their coach again, and that’s no small thing. It made Georgia fans wonder, not for the first time, if their coach really is overmatched in a tactical way, and I know, given Richt’s two SEC titles, how silly that might sound. But there it is.
Georgia under Richt came close to playing for a BCS championship in 2002, when undefeateds Miami and Ohio State were paired and the 12-1 Bulldogs were No. 3; in 2007, when the 9-2 Bulldogs saw 10-2 LSU jump them in the final rankings, and in 2012, when the No. 3 Bulldogs lost to No. 2 Alabama in a de facto semifinal. The “coming close” is what rankles Georgia fans. Four SEC schools — Alabama, Auburn, Florida and LSU — each played for at least two BCS titles from 2006 through 2013. Why, just once, never Georgia?
Tech under Johnson has had two 10-win seasons; after both of those, the Jackets drew invitations to the Orange Bowl. Georgia under Richt last graced a major bowl (the Sugar) in January 2008, and the opponent was overmatched Hawaii. It has been a very long time since Georgia fans felt excited about a bowl, and this year didn’t yield even the usual Florida-sunshine-as-consolation. The Bulldogs are bound for Charlotte.
Under Johnson, Tech has had no recruiting class ranked above 41st by Rivals. (The Jackets’ 2015 crop of commitments is rated 29th, which would constitute a breakthrough.) Under Richt, 10 of Georgia’s 14 recruiting classes have been ranked in the top 10. (The 2015 group is ranked No. 3.) Even as we acknowledge that the ACC Coastal isn’t as strong as the SEC East, which itself pales alongside the SEC West, we note that Georgia’s last SEC title came in 2005.
Tech fans don’t think so much in terms of national titles. The Jackets recruit on a different level, and their school is, after all, an institute of technology. A consistently good team that competes for the ACC title and upsets Georgia once every four or five years is about all Tech folks expect. It remains to be seen if this season’s excellence can be sustained, but it was revelatory that the Jackets beat Georgia, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Miami — all teams with presumably better personnel — in the same season for the first time under Johnson.
For Georgia, this season was more of the usual. The Bulldogs weren’t picked to win the SEC East, but the collapse of South Carolina cleared a path. Georgia was good enough to beat Missouri, the eventual winner, by 34 points but not good enough to beat a Florida team that would, 15 days later, fire its coach. Even with Todd Gurley reduced to a half-season, the Bulldogs had a chance.
Richt keeps saying that Georgia will, given enough chances, claim the ultimate prize. But only once this century has a coach won his first national championship having spent more than four years as head coach at the title-taking school. The exception was Mack Brown, who was in Year 8 at Texas. Next season will be Richt’s 15th at Georgia.
