I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1983. I am a Bulldog who bleeds red and black.
In contrast, my dad never had any sort of solid connection to any particular school or football program. Rocky didn’t go to college. He was what I refer to as a “fair-weather” fan, meaning that he’d ride the bandwagon when things were going well, but at the first signs of trouble he’d be ready to hang the captain from the main mast and jump ship .
While I was in school, a Bulldog banner usually welcomed me home every Thanksgiving and remained on display until the Christmas decorations went up. But those were the glory days of Herschel Walker, Erk Russell and the Junkyard Dawgs.
Georgia won just about every regular season game during those three years, so Rocky never had time to switch his allegiance to another team before the season was over.
However, once Vince Dooley retired, the football program went through a long period of decline under the leadership of Ray Goff and Jim Donnan. I still remember a small plane circling over Sanford Stadium at every home game, pulling a banner behind it that read, “Fire Ray Goof!” and wondering if Rocky had paid for it.
Being only a fair-weather fan, Rocky loved to aggravate me if UGA was struggling when my family and I visited for the holidays. Sometimes I would even find a Yellow Jacket banner flying over my parking space when we visited for Christmas, if Tech was having a better season than my Dawgs, or managed to beat us that year.
If Rocky hadn’t died in 1997, he probably have called this week to play “Rocky Top” to me over the phone, knowing just how irritated I would get.
The game we lost to Alabama was disappointing, but the loss at Tennessee was an exceptionally bitter pill to swallow, mainly because of the gleeful, celebratory reaction of a few immature and classless Volunteer fans to the injury suffered by star Georgia running back Nick Chubb.
Because Rocky most often repeated what drunk and disgruntled Bulldog fans were saying as they hung out together in one of his favorite bars, our conversation this week probably would have gone something like this:
He wouldn’t bother to say hello, knowing I recognized the phone number. He’d jump right into attack mode. “The Bulldogs suck They’re terrible. They’re never going to win another championship, as long as Richt is their coach.”
“Hey, Dad. Thanks for calling. Nice to hear from you. Is it still hot down there? (the question refers to Savannah, not Hell.) I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. The Bulldogs have already won two SEC championships since Mark Richt became coach.”
“Oh yeah? It’s been ten years,” Rocky would probably say.
“We were five yards away from winning the SEC and playing for the national championship only a couple of years ago, in spite of the fact our defensive coordinator was Todd Grantham.”
“Seriously, son…Georgia can’t win the big game anymore. Alabama crushed them in Athens. This past weekend they blew a three touchdown lead to Tennessee and lost in Knoxville. They lost their best player. This season’s over. I’m telling you, Mark Richt is the problem. He’s gotten too soft.”
coach Mark Richt
“Are you out of your mind? You didn’t see him throw his headset at the end of the Tennessee game, when we were called for a false start, and he thought the clock would be run off? Good thing you don’t know how to read lips. I know what he said, too. Coach showed plenty of emotion on the sideline just this past Saturday…Okay, for the sake of argument, I’ll play along. Who would you hire to replace him? You can forget about guys like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer — neither of them would take the pay cut. As far as losing Nick Chubb is concerned, I admit that was a terrible and unfortunate injury. The season isn’t over by a long shot though, and the future actually looks bright.”
“What if UGA hired the TCU coach, Gary Patterson?”
My eyebrows would naturally arch in surprise at the suggestion. “What about him? Patterson does win a lot of regular season games, I’ll give you that much. But when he stepped up in competition from the Mountain West to the Big 12, the first two seasons his teams went 7-6 and 4-8.”
“TCU is ranked in the top three this year.”
“True fact. Patterson’s teams have won a lot of games, to be sure. And you want to know exactly how many? His record at TCU is 132-45, a win percentage of .746, good enough for seventh place on the list of active coaches with the highest win percentage. Guess who’s right behind him in eighth place, with a record of 136-48 (four more wins) and a percentage of .739? Georgia head coach Mark Richt. They’ve won the same number of national titles — zero thus far. My point is, Coach Richt has won more total games playing a much tougher schedule in a tougher conference than Gary Patterson. Don’t get me wrong — Patterson is an excellent coach. But he wouldn’t be a significant improvement over Mark Richt. Georgia would regress, if Greg McGarity lost his mind and fired Coach Richt.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Two words: recruiting momentum. You don’t pay attention to what’s coming down the road, and I do. One kid won’t turn a team into national champions by himself, but Jacob Eason can make the difference between getting close and getting there. His talent is attracting other talented players to Georgia — this year’s recruiting class is shaping up to be something special. We’ll find out how special this team can become starting October 23rd, when #5 ranked wide receiver Kyle Davis announces his commitment. Tight end Isaac Nauta, athletes Mecole Hardman and Demetris Robertson, DL Derrick Brown, and several other highly rated prospects have expressed serious interest in committing to the program between now and February. If we fired Richt and his staff this year, there’s a good chance we won’t get most of them, and we would probably lose Eason. He’s coming to UGA from Washington to play for Mark Richt.”
Rocky never gave up easily.He would counter, “What about Kirby Smart?”
“Seriously? What about him?” I would reply. “Two more words for you: Will Muschamp. What does Muschamp have in common with Kirby Smart? He was the defensive coordinator under Saban before Smart, before he went to Texas to work for Mack Brown. Hiring an unproven defensive coordinator as your next head coach strikes me as a pretty risky move. Besides, are you giving up on Jeremy Pruitt only one full year after giving him the DC job?”
Sooner or later, my resolve to defend Mark Richt against criticism would begin to annoy Rocky. “Well, you can still forget about the rest of this season,” he’d say. “Georgia will finish with a mediocre record and play in a meaningless bowl.”
“If we beat Missouri and Florida loses to LSU in Baton Rouge, which becomes more likely now the Gator quarterback is out for the year, we could give them their second SEC loss in Jacksonville and be tied for the SEC East. We’d own the tiebreaker. A national title is probably now out of reach for this year. We’ll need to run the table and win our remaining games, but Georgia may be able to control their own destiny, at least in the East. And you’ll be right back on the bandwagon. Now let me ask you a question — before the season started, what exactly were your expectations?”
My logic and his inability to persuade me would be grating on Rocky, so he probably wouldn’t answer that question.
Instead, he’d change the subject and say something sort of random, like: “Georgia needs a special teams coach.”
To which I would reply, “That’s sort of random, isn’t it? Are you reduced to nitpicking already? Alabama blocks one punt for a touchdown, and suddenly our coaches don’t know how to coach special teams? I like Lilly, Sherrer and Ekeler. If there was a letup where our blocker eased off instead of missing the assignment, you don’t think maybe the fact that a kid from Southern University named Devon Gales was paralyzed on a special teams play the previous week might have affected our guys? They are human beings, you know. By the way — remember what you taught me: be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Rocky would naturally ask.
“Do you remember how Georgia came to hire Jim Donnan? It was in desperation. Glen Mason quit a week after accepting the job and decided to stay at Kansas. There’s no guarantee you’re going to find a better coach to replace Richt. It’s far more likely Georgia would get worse, not better, by getting rid of the coach. Stay the course.”
That might keep him quiet for the rest of the week, perhaps even until Georgia loses another game.
This post sounds just like my Daddy who left this earth at 49 years of age in 1969….He loved the Dawgs but always said they could do better and was a true armchair coach….He would kid me unmercifully if they lost and Tech won…..I have some great memories of us riding around in the pick up truck listening to Munson broadcasting the Georgia game on the radio …..Thanks for jogging my memory.
UGA is above average. Most teams would kill to be above average. Are you satisfied with AA? I was. Now I’m not. I’m ready to aim for great knowing we risk being merely average on the journey to get there. I believe less than average is unlikely just based on the number of kids in the state that have dreamed of playing for UGA their whole lives.
Look at the UT game a little closer. We were up 24-3. Two of those td’s were a little flukey. A punt return where a flag was thrown that replays showed should probably not have been and a 98 yard fumble return that was earned, but still, out of the ordinary. We were DESTROYED by at best an average team and it happens every single year. Defend away.
You could only judge Tennessee as “average” based on their record — which was more a product of poor coaching than lack of talent. They had Florida beaten — 4th and 14 and they give up a TD with not much time left. Butch blew the game, just like Oklahoma.
Conversely, UGA blew the Tennessee game mostly due to poor play on defense and an untimely fumble on special teams. Giving up 14 points right before the half was hardly Richt’s fault. Sony Michel took full responsibility for the fumble in the post-game, said he wasn’t carrying the ball securely, like he’d been coached to do.
It would be flat out stupid to pull the plug on Richt with the recruiting class being put together. You don’t follow that stuff, and I do. The Dawgs are killing it.
Give him two years to get Eason in school and coach him up. If we can’t win the SEC East with him behind center by the time he’s been at UGA two full years, then I’ll probably feel differently than I do today. Wait until next year only works for so many years, I agree.
When Chubb got hurt like he did the first play, I never expected us to get up by three scores. In the past, we’d get blown out in a game like that. I’m still seeing improvement on defense, albeit in flashes rather than consistent thus far.
Well said Sparky.
I am a Dawg through and through, but I don’t attach my significance in life to whether or not UGA wins the SEC or Natty. There are some things that are just more important than football. For people to say that one of the top ten active coaches in college football is a liability is ridiculous. Of course he is not perfect, but he is a great leader of men who is not willing to compromise in order to win.
CMR is not going to look the other way when a kid beats his girlfriend or steals from his teammates or gets caught breaking the rules because he realizes these kids are more than just a commodity and they need to be prepared to succeed in life, not just football. Therefore, half of the kids that should be our starting defense are now starting for other (mostly SEC) programs. He is also not going to look the other way when a kid gets hurt and is no longer “profitable” to the team, like the Illustrious Ball Coach did to an uber talented young man that I know personally.
Win at all costs! Really?
The Dawgs came up 5 yards short in 2012 and would have won in 07 if not locked out by two undefeated teams that played much lesser schedules. To his credit, Richt has owned every mistake and has made the tough choices needed to punch through to the elite level. He has now gathered around himself a championship coaching staff that may or may not pull our young team together this year to win the SEC, but if disgruntled “fans” are not successful in scaring off the likes of Jacob Eason, Kyle Davis and a host of other premier talent, the hard work of this staff will soon pay off.
When he does win it, he will have done it with integrity and class. Go Dawgs!
I always thought I was the only one that remembered that Cessna with the “Fire Ray Goof” banner attached to it lol!