Georgia Football: Vince Dooley would not have fired Mark Richt

In a recent interview, legendary Georgia football head coach and AD Vince Dooley revealed he would have given Mark Richt another year at Georgia.

It is inevitable that one might stick up for the man he hired as head coach. Back in 2001, finishing his career as Georgia’s athletic director, Vince Dooley brought in Florida State offensive coordinator Mark Richt to take over the Bulldogs. Speaking with DawgNation recently, Dooley spoke about why he would have given Richt another season in Athens.

One can look at this simply as the case of a company man supporting the guy he brought in. But beyond loyalty, it makes real sense as to why he would have kept the coach around another year. While he was also quick to praise current coach Kirby Smart, Dooley knows that Richt played a pivotal role in bringing Georgia to where it is today.

In 2002, his second year as coach, Richt brought Georgia its first SEC title in three decades. He repeated the feat in 2005 and won five SEC East titles with the Bulldogs. What Richt was never able to do, though, was bring another national title to Athens. Five SEC schools have won 10 of the past 19 BCS and College Football Playoff titles. Georgia never even earned the opportunity to play for a national championship.

The Bulldogs came close to reaching the BCS title game on several occasions. They finished third in the final 2002 BCS rankings, behind Miami and Ohio State. A decade later, a four-point loss to Alabama prevented Georgia from finally reaching the big game. In between, they were forced to watch rival Florida win two BCS titles amidst a seven-year SEC national championship streak.

A national championship is an exceedingly difficult thing to earn. Only a dozen teams have won the BCS or CFP titles over the past two decades. Before that, Nebraska won three out of four.

And often it has been the same rotating cast of characters who lose in the championship. Only five other teams have played in the BCS or were selected to the CFP semifinals who have not won a title over that span. The same insular club dominated the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance eras as well.

For all its tradition between the hedges, it must be noted that Georgia hasn’t historically punched the weight one might expect of a blueblood program. The Bulldogs can claim just two national titles in school history. One came in 1942 as college football programs were gutted by World War II. The other came under Vince Dooley when he was head coach in 1980.

So it isn’t as though Richt broke a glorious winning tradition in Athens. In actuality, he did something neither Ray Goff nor Jim Donnan could do at the program throughout the 1990s by winning the SEC.

It makes sense that Dooley would stick behind his hire. But beyond that, he is someone who understands the Georgia football culture as few can.

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Obviously, Dooley’s words have zero impact on what has already transpired. He also recognizes, as only someone who has been an athletic director really can, the tough decision that current Georgia AD Greg McGarity had to make in releasing Richt. It is nevertheless an interesting commentary on the state of loyalty and expectations in 21st-century college football.

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