The next 2 years...

I'm sorry that I just can't keep taking it one game at a time, but what you have to understand is that these next 2 seasons coming up, with the core that we have in Stafford, Moreno, and King and the off-the-charts recruiting classes that we have coming in, puts UGA football in a position that it hasn't been in since the Herschel Walker era. Dooley is rightly seen as a legend, but he also had many failures that prevented this program from rising to what it could have become. He lost most of his bowl games. He lost 3 times with the national championship on the line. After him, the program went on a downward spiral and did not show signs of recoverey until the Donnan era, when we went 10-2 and beat Florida in 1997. That era was tumultuous at best, but the win over Florida, Donnan's coach of the year award, and the streak of bowl victories at least marked Georgia's slow, painful, but hopeful emergence from the seemingly endless dulldrums of the Ray Goff era. Enter Mark Richt. Richt was the best offensive coach in the game at Florida State, coaching up the likes of Charlie Ward and Chris Winke into Heisman winners. His first season at Georgia was shaky, and the subsequent bowl loss to Boston College wasn't much of an improvement over the Donnan era and didn't inspire confidence, but in his season year here he left no doubt. An SEC championship for the first time since 1983 and a Sugar Bowl victory over FSU. With those two accomplishments, Richt brought back to Georgia something it hadn't had since Georgia won the 1980 national championship: a conference title and a victory in a major postseason game. So far, he hasn't looked back, coaching the winningest college football quarterback of all time in David Greene, the best defensive player in Georgia history in David Pollock, leading us to yet another conference title, 2 more BCS bowl appearances, and another Sugar Bowl victory. There is absolutely no reason to doubt that there are anything but great things ahead for UGA football and, as looks right now, we stand on the brink of doing things that have never been done before. We look to write the wrongs of the past quarter-century, beginning with Dooley's 2 major bowl losses after the 1980 title game and continuing through the Jan Kemp affair and the Goff and Donnan eras, and we look to write them in a big way. Simply put, these next two years could be the best two years in the history of Georgia football.

So I see nothing wrong with making bold statements and demanding that high expectations be met. We have suffered long enough, and I think we deserve it. We deserve to be able to think and dream big because of what we have had to endure to get here. And we deserve to talk of great expectations and be bold going into the future, not because of some arrogant sense of entitlement or dellusion of grandure, but because we have a coach and a leader in Mark Richt who we can, without reservation, put our confidence in to do the job and make this team rise and live up to its destiny and be everything that it can possibly be.

So when I say to you that I would like to see us do the following before the decade is out:

1.) Win back-to-back national championships
2.) Produce at least 1 Heisman winner
3.) Even up the Auburn series
4.) Surpass Tennessee for second most SEC championships
6.) Beat Alabama's SEC record 28 game winning streak

it is not because I am being unrealistic like any fan is at the beginning of their team's season, but because I can put my faith in our leadership that everything will be done that can be done to make it happen. And it is not a blind, wishful-thinking faith, but a respect-based faith cultivated by examining the evidence and seeing that I have reason to believe, simply because CMR has never given me any reason to doubt.

AMEN

UGAchemdawg, I generally consider myself one of the \"one-game-at-a-timers\", but it's hard not to look ahead and get excited. The recruiting and coaching that Coach Richt has done is incredible. I think even Coach Martinez has found the missing ingredient in putting together a monster defense. I believe we have the talent, and with a little luck, all of the goals you listed are attainable.

No harm in setting the bar high. We will need a little luck and a lot of help from God. Go Dawgs!

i'm with you on this one. another thing is majority of the team is going to have a chip on their shoulder and something to prove next season because of how they felt about this season. notice the turn around with the attitude of the whole team. i think CMR has us going in the right direction. UT will get slaughtered next year, the guys will laugh at UF and blow tiny tebows doors off a 2nd season. he may have inherited a curse. and when we go to baton rouge i think the fire will be lit and will not go out until we have some slow roasted tiger!!!!!!! the team as a whole had this attitude for the later part of the season, and with only losing 17 seniors that attitude will be back in full force.

Next TWO years?....I was thinking about the next TEN years. The recruiting pipeline is SET like FSU during the 90's. Unbelievable talent and DEPTH....yeah, next 10 years I'd say.