What, pray tell, is “The Mark Richt Contradiction?”
It lies at the heart of the latest renewal of The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party… and it leads Georgia Bulldog fans to drink heavily.
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Here’s a larger scenario involving two different programs:
Program A watches an iconic coach (who just retired earlier this season after losing to Program B by a huge margin) depart for the NFL. Program A’s iconic coach owned Program B in a nasty backyard rivalry with very few exceptions — one, to be specific. Therefore, Program B had every right to expect that once Program A’s iconic coach left, it would be able to take over the rivalry.
Over the past 13 seasons — not including this one — Program A fielded three different coaches. One lasted only three seasons, the other only four. Those two coaches sandwiched the tenure of a coach who stayed at Program A for only six seasons… but won two national championships and three SEC East championships in that span of time.
Program B, over the past 13 seasons, has regularly been in the hunt for division and conference championships, and during the tenure of Program A’s failed coach, Program B did win the SEC title for the first time in 20 years. Program B won an SEC East a year later, and when Program A’s six-year coach was still getting settled into his new digs, Program B’s coach won a second SEC championship.
However, over the past nine seasons, Program B hasn’t won another SEC title. It has captured the East only twice in that stretch.
Despite the fact that Program B has had the same coach for the past 13 years — pointing to stability and consistency in what has been a generally good run (not great, but certainly not average) — that coach has gone 5-8 against Program A and its revolving door of three different coaches.
You know what’s going on here, and the pretense of anonymity can cease.
Program A is Florida, and Program B is Georgia.
Program A’s iconic coach is Steve Spurrier, who lost only once to the Dawgs while wearing his visor for the Gators, in 1997. When he stepped down and athletic director Jeremy Foley blundered into the Ron Zook hire, Georgia encountered a moment of hope, one it did cash in to a certain extent. Yet, as bad as Zook was in Gainesville, he still went 2-1 in three meetings with Mark Richt’s Bulldogs. Can you say “Terrence Edwards dropped pass?” I knew you could.
The four-year coach at Florida was, of course, Will Muschamp. This was the one coach Richt managed to outflank in most instances (3-1). Yet, a blowout loss to Muschamp and the Gators in 2014 deprived Georgia of the chance to wrest the SEC East from Missouri’s grasp. The loss represented a profound missed opportunity for Richt in a tenure which has simultaneously succeeded and exasperated.
That last phrase — “simultaneously succeeded and exasperated” — is The Mark Richt Contradiction. Georgia’s one coach has a losing record against three coaches from a not-very-stable Florida program, one in which Urban Meyer did the heavy lifting over the course of his six seasons, but was preceded and succeeded by poor hires (Zook and Muschamp).
Now, as Florida moves to a fourth coach in the past 14 seasons, and the fifth Gator coach of Richt’s tenure in Athens (he coached against Spurrier in 2001), the folks in Orange and Blue appear poised to make life hell for Richt once again.
Vegas has the line at only three or three and a half points, but Florida would seem to own a substantial advantage over Georgia in this game. True, the Gators don’t have Will Grier at quarterback, but Treon Harris looked a lot better than in previous years (under Muschamp’s deficient coaching) against LSU a few weeks ago. Georgia does have Sony Michel to hand the rock to in the backfield, but not having Nick Chubb certainly robs the Bulldogs of an important piece. Most alarming of all is the reality that Greyson Lambert has not made the grade as the team’s quarterback. His statistically brilliant outing against South Carolina — it can be safely said — was far more a product of his opponent’s weaknesses than his own strengths as a signal caller. Florida’s defense did buckle in the second quarter against LSU, but that side of the ball has normally stood tall for first-year head coach Jim McElwain.
Georgia faces the taller, longer odds in this matchup. History, the present moment, and an evaluation of positional confrontations all point to a Florida win. If the Gators do prevail, Richt will lose to a fifth Florida coach, and he’ll have a losing record against four of the five he’s faced since 2001.
Everything seems bleak for Georgia entering this game. Yet, 1997 (under Jim Donnan) and 2007 (under Richt) represent occasions when the Bulldogs were able to abruptly change the prevailing narrative in the Cocktail Party ever since Spurrier changed the balance of power in this rivalry with his arrival in 1990. Georgia usually falls short on the banks of the St. John’s River, but the Bulldogs — over the past 20 years — have forged a few particularly memorable moments.
If Richt can make that kind of magic this Saturday, he would just need to beat Kentucky at home and Auburn on the road to win back the East. Richt, with one quality coaching performance on Halloween, could chase away a lot of demons and put his team in position to steal both his division and the headlines from Florida and McElwain, the Gators’ impressive first-year coach.
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Will The Mark Richt Contradiction live on, as most people expect, or will Georgia’s longtime leader remind SEC observers why he’s remained on the job for so long?
It’s a compelling drama, to be sure. The Dawgs hope it won’t turn into a horror show on October 31.
