Informed that the assembled masses at SEC Media Days had anointed South Carolina the choice to win the East, the famously genial Mark Richt could have shrugged and said, “Ah, well. Another day, another prediction.” Instead he made a pick of his own.
“I’d have us first,” he said. “We’ve got a very good team.”
Richt just became a grandfather. His granddaughter Jadyn Elise, born to daughter-in-law Anna and son Jon, is living under Richt’s roof, which makes for a blissful hearth-and-home setting. (As Bill Curry, himself a football man, has said: The one thing in life that isn’t overrated is grandchildren.) Richt has already made the questionable decision that he wants to be called Poo-Pa, but we can hope that Jadyn Elise is wise enough to countermand that order.
Apart from his obvious glee in discussing his granddaughter, nothing about Richt suggests he’s ready for the rocking chair. He’s 54, which isn’t ancient, and he appears to have dropped a goodly portion of the excess weight he was carrying in the spring. He’s about to begin his 14th season as Georgia’s coach, and he hasn’t lost his edge. If anything, that edge has sharpened. He surely knows that there mightn’t be many chances for his Bulldogs to win the one thing they haven’t — the national championship — and he truly believes he might just have the team to do it. This team, this year.
Asked about the methodology for the new four-team playoff, Richt said: “I really don’t know for sure how they’re going to go about their business. I’m just going to try to win as many games where they don’t have a choice but to put us there.”
The 2012 Bulldogs fell five excruciating yards short against Alabama in the SEC Championship game, which was a de facto national semifinal. Last year Georgia entered October having beaten South Carolina and LSU and looking as potent as any of Richt’s teams ever, whereupon they started getting hurt and losing. “I’m never going to say injuries cause us to lose,” Richt said Thursday, “but it would have been nice to see what happened if everybody had stayed healthy.”
Like every real SEC contender save Auburn — we won’t count Florida among the first rank, and we can’t count Ole Miss just yet — Georgia is replacing its quarterback. But Richt knows better than anyone that great things are possible when a longtime understudy finally gets his chance. D.J. Shockley waited for David Greene, who lifted the Bulldogs to Richt’s first SEC title in 2002, to complete his eligibility, and in 2005 Shockley, in his only season as a starter, steered Georgia to another conference championship. (The Bulldogs haven’t won one since, as we know.)
“We were picked fourth or fifth in the East (in 2005),” Richt said. “(Greene) left, so Georgia’s quarterback situation is probably going to drop off. (Aaron) Murray is leaving, so it’s probably going to drop off — that’s what people think. When D.J. came in, he played great. Our quarterback situation was SEC-championship caliber. I’m hoping for the same with Hutson (Mason).”
Mason doesn’t have to be as good as Murray to make Georgia’s offense sing. There’s enough talent elsewhere — Todd Gurley is the nation’s best tailback, and the receivers are very good — to score enough points. Again at issue is the Bulldogs’ defense. Three starting defensive backs left Georgia for other schools, which doesn’t help. Todd Grantham, the blustery coordinator, bolted for Louisville, which surely won’t hurt. His replacement is Jeremy Pruitt, whose one season as Florida State’s defensive coordinator yielded a national championship.
Richt missed no opportunity — either in his upstairs briefing with Georgia reporters on the podium in the big ballroom — to say how much he liked “the camaraderie of our staff,” which seemed a clear reference to Pruitt vis-a-vis Grantham. Richt also said: “I like the camaraderie of our team — they understand who’s in charge.”
The coach who embraced the concept of “The Energy Bus” in the turnaround season of 2011 tried a new motivational tack this offseason, bringing in former Navy SEALs to help the Bulldogs determine who’s a leader and who’s a follower. Not that there was much question about that. In his understated way, Richt has been the leader of this program since he arrived from Tallahassee in January 2001. No, he hasn’t won a national title, but he has won everything else. And the national title could be forthcoming.
“We need to win now,” said linebacker Ramik Wilson, named a first-team All-SEC choice by the media. “We’ve got the team to do it.”
He wasn’t the only Bulldog who declared as much Thursday. In the big ballroom, the head Bulldog said: “I’m not happy to be named No. 2. I’m not going to start cheering that we’re No. 2. I think in the end it’s going to be Georgia.”
I think so, too. No knock on the Evil Genius and his Gamecocks, but the East will be claimed by Poo-Pa’s Dawgs.
