The Georgia Bulldogs lost to another SEC team and watched their title hopes crushed for another straight year — so is it time to fire Mark Richt?
When the Georgia Bulldogs were just yards away from upsetting Alabama in the SEC Championship game in 2012, it looked like we might have been watching Mark Richt finally arrive in the SEC and develop a powerhouse program. Georgia is still a massive program in college football, but two and a half years after that title game, fans are calling for Richt’s head.
Compounding the frustrations of not returning to the SEC title game since that season is the fact that Georgia’s season this year is already over before it even reaches the halfway point. The Bulldogs dropped a heartbreaker to Tennessee on Saturday, a week after getting blown out of the water against Alabama.
Everything that could have possibly went wrong for Georgia indeed went wrong, right down to Nick Chubb suffering one of the most brutal injuries we’ve ever seen.
Fans on Twitter — who, you know, are always reliable to lean on after a loss — weren’t so sold on Richt being the coach of the future after another brutal SEC loss.
Can they fire richt now
— Branch Morley (@treeboy_65) October 10, 2015
Fire Mark Richt. #sorrynotsorry
— Cole Bradshaw (@cbradshaw9teen) October 10, 2015
Fire Mark Richt. Effective immediately. https://t.co/e2Xayzf3Td
— Stephanie Kunkel (@StefKunkel) October 10, 2015
Looking forward to another week of "Fire Richt" crowd vs "He's the best coach we've ever had" crowd. FYI, "Fire Richt crowd" is growing.
— David Johnston (@djohnstonuga) October 10, 2015
It’s a painfully valid argument for Bulldogs fans to be having, as Richt is one of the best coaches the school has had but he’s also not winning much confidence with the seasons he’s had as of late. This season isn’t the worst season in Georgia history, but it’s a continuation of a troubling trend in Athens that Georgia fans are growing very tired of dealing with.
Since that infamous SEC Championship game in 2012, the Bulldogs have gone 11-5 in the SEC and 18-8 overall — which isn’t that bad. But the team has gone 6-6 against Top 25 teams in the last two and a half years and they’ve had key losses against unranked Nebraska, Vanderbilt, Florida and now Tennessee.
That’s something that works against Richt in a big way, but it’s not the complete picture of his body of work in Athens. Richt is one of the more successful coaches in college football and still draws top talent with his recruiting classes. That hasn’t changed in the two years since the SEC title game, and it’s not looking to change anytime soon.
Georgia’s rough season looks bad, but Richt isn’t going to get fired because of it — nor should he. Fans calling for his replacement in Athens need to first offer up a coach who is better suited to run the team, which is the first problem in firing Richt. Say you can him and move on, who out there is qualified to take this Georgia team as it is right now and not miss a beat?
Outside of a home run candidate who isn’t present at the moment or an extreme wild card like Chip Kelly or Jon Gruden — two coaches who are moronic pipe dreams at best — there is no one who can be hired and not have the program set back. It can be argued that the team has been set back with his rough season, but you don’t burn down the house to kill a mouse.
Fans may be upset with Richt after back-to-back losses and losses that sink the Bulldogs season, but there isn’t enough track history of failure with Richt to warrant a firing, absent a home run candidate who isn’t going to present themselves no matter how much Richt haters want to shout.
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