This season has been a huge disappointment!! Without a doubt, I've not felt this sense of helpless and hopelessness in a long, LONG time. Hell, I've not posted here or any other site in months because I have nothing but bewilderment to discuss....and there is already a boatload of those threads!!!! While I haven't posted, I've lurked and read and this morning I discovered a thread posted elsewhere that espouses to be a former player. Whether this is factual or not, is immaterial, as it offers an insight to what many herein have tried to state...but its like trying to rope smoke....That being said.............
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A former player under Richt speak out:
\"Martinez is taking the brunt of it, but as MR noted yesterday, and I have been insisting all year, it's the whole PROGRAM. The offense has been arguably worse then the D this year, but scoreboards get more reaction than anything else, so D is always a flash point for fans more so than O. It's not one side of the ball. And there's no telling week to week which side of the ball is going to implode.
Anyone who knows me personally knows I speak my mind more in person/private than I do here. But I have cited subtle concerns over the years here too. Small things like letting guys wear whatever they want to work out in. Doing away with the hair policy. Taking days off to go to the pool instead of grinding those days out and fighting through the mental fatigue of camp. The disappearance of \"champion\" from Richt's public vocabulary. Or as Ive cited the past two weeks, the team dragging arse up to Richt on the 25 after the ankle walk and no coach doing a thing about it.
All subtle changes that got away from the strict discipline and demand of excellence and toughness that was the trademark of the program Richt built here. Things we'd rather not have to do were approached as opportunities to do it different or be tougher than the rest of the SEC. There's a healthy arrogance developed from being different, in a tough way. I think MR has been slow to recognize the difference in how things are run today versus how he ran them in his first several years, because the changes were marked by very subtle things, as aforementioned. And it's easy to rationalize subtle loosening of the reigns when you seem to still be enjoying success and achieving goals. But subtle things eventually amount to something much bigger and catch up to you, or even blindside you without warning. Input equals output.
Many have stated they interpret Richt as confused and unsure of why this has happened or what the solution is. That may not be entirely inaccurate, because again, the changes have been so subtle. I too sense some helpless frustration from Richt. If you're inside the program, you're probably looking at things with befuddlement because you tell yourself we're preparing just like we always have. The content may be the same, but I do not believe the demand of the result is quite the level it used to be. That is an opinion shared by many, many, many former players who played under Richt.
Was BVG (Brian VanGorder) an influence on that demand? No doubt. He was relentless and uncompromising. But Richt is not given the credit he deserves. Make no mistake about it - Mark Richt brought toughness back to UGA. He brought that discipline back to UGA. The GATA 'tude we all miss? Mark Richt was the reason we got it back when he came here. IMO, BVG was simply the near perfect pupil to help implement it. It was Mark Richt's vision, and Mark Richt's demand, though. It came from the top.
I almost made a scathing post about our player leadership yesterday b/c what I saw on the sideline Saturday was a near carbon copy of what I saw at UT in 2007 and vs Bama last year. Nobody led. Nobody spoke up. Nobody rallied their teammates. I really wanted to just trash Cox's famous leadership b/c I saw jack squat out of him in that regard in Knoxville . But I reminded myself what a good kid Cox is and how I really do like the kids on this team. It's a really good group of guys.
And I thought back to the earlier Richt years. Examples of leadership were everywhere you looked, like Stinchcomb dressing down the team at half vs Auburn in 2002. Players take their cues from their coaches. I just think we've lost a bit of our edge in demanding a championship standard. Players will demand of each other what they've learned to be demanded of them by their coaches.
Being a champion is a lifestyle, not a habit. Champions develop a championship pride by
how they do things. We developed that chip on our shoulder under Richt because we didn't
just believe, we KNEW we did it better than our competition. We worked harder, we played
tougher, and everything we did was a notch more polished than everyone else. We didn't have
hair sticking out of our helmets(Tony Gilbert would spend 10minutes and a half roll of pre-wrap
to make sure his didn't). We all wore the same exact workout attire. We'd have loved to have
gone to the pool, but we fought through the heat of August and surfaced from that practice a
little tougher for it, even if it may have been sloppier than we'd like.
Champions exude that quality in everything they do from how they prepare, to how they present
themselves, to how they talk. Saban oozes it, and so does Meyer, which is why our fans continually cite them as examples.
People quickly forget, but Richt used to as well. Just the way Richt talked reeked of a champion. And therein lies all the comments of the theme that \"something seems different about Richt\" or \"something seems wrong with Coach Richt.\" That champion's edge just isn't evident of late. We've lost that champion's edge because we stopped demanding it. And Coach Richt will fall on that sword. The rise of the program from Donnan to Richt wasn't about talent - itwas about raising the standard that was *demanded* of the program. Mark Richt demanded it.
IF, and I stress IF, Richt believe this downturn is a direct result of him as head coach not demanding the same standard of his staff and players, then he can justify not making changes. As I've said before, we've won some big games with the group of coaches, and fairly recently. They haven't forgotten how to coach. And we haven't changed the way we prepare. What has changed is the standard we demand. Being champion used to bea lifestyle for our program, but we loosened the reigns and rationalized why we could be a champion out of habit, rather than lifestyle.\"
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I cannot attribute this and don't particularly like to cite anonymous works, but given the complexity and entirity of the implosions we've witnessed this season and the symptomatic process this cancer seems to have spread from season to season,..perhaps there is not only merit, but factual truth to the words posted above....
Nonetheless, we are perhaps at the edge of an abyss and in search of an escape, or rescue..whichever you prefer...My hope is that CMR recognizes and corrects that which has ailed this program for some time. One of the most concerning lines posted above was \"And Coach Richt will fall on that sword.\", which I interpret forebodingly........Time will tell...and as I sat and cheered through Dooley, Goff, Donnan, I will continue to cheer for CMR...or his successor..........
GO DAWGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"My advice to you is to start drinking heavily." - Bluto
