Coach of the Year: Georgia's Mark Richt

There were many candidates for Coach of the Year in college football: Just today, Les Miles won the award from the AP. Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State has been mentioned, and Kansas State's Bill Snyder has done an incredible job at Kansas State. Louisiana-Lafayette's Mark Hudspeth helped the Ragin' Cajuns turn their team around from 3-9 to 9-3 in his first year.

But we're going with Mark Richt of Georgia.

It's not just because he led the team to a 10-3 record after a disappointing 6-7 season last year. That required some talent and perseverance, sure, but turnarounds are fairly common in prominent programs.

He certainly faced adversity, and most if it came from within—the fans and boosters that put him on the "hot seat" after last year's season, and kept him on it as Georgia started the season 0-2.

It was an indictment of modern college football and fan idiocy that Richt was ever in doubt. His record over the previous decade was incredible. Georgia had six 10+ win seasons in 10 years starting in 2001; the others were 8-4, 8-5, and 9-4, then last year's losing record where the Bulldogs were 6-6 before losing their bowl game.

That was enough for some fans to say Richt should be gone. A decade of prosperity, for them, could be wiped out by one disappointing season—a bowl season, even.

The team finished #22, #3, #7, #7, #10, #23, #2, and #23 from 2001 to 2008 in the final AP polls. Apparently two years outside the top 25 offsets eight straight top 25 finishes, including 5 top-10 finishes and two top-5 finishes.

Worse, the Bulldogs started this season 0-2. Never mind that the losses were to Boise State, who finished 11-1, and South Carolina, who ended up 10-2. Both opponents were top 12 teams at the time, and both finished in the top ten. Idiots don't take that kind of thing into consideration; they just see losses, get mad, and demand that someone lose their job for it.

When Georgia was 0-2, we wrote that we saw better times ahead and that Richt would keep his job after proving the haters wrong. We had Georgia favored in 9 of the 10 remaining games, and showed that there was a good chance the team would go 10-2, though 8-4 was probably most likely. Either way, a good season was still expected.

As it turned out, the Bulldogs won 10 straight games and even won their division in the SEC. They lost to LSU in the SEC title game, something I'm sure his detractors will use against him. There is no pleasing some people.

But Richt proved his worth to Georgia, as if he should have had anything to prove after a decade of consistent winning in the toughest conference in college football. The thing that prompted us to give him our blessing as Coach of the Year is the following, off-the-field story:

Richt was paying his assistants supplemental salary money out of his own pocket.

Yes, that is a minor NCAA violation. It also shows how much he cares about his staff and made sure they were fairly compensated. The details are interesting: Richt gave money to 15 coaches or non-coach staff members totalling around $64,000. Several times he did it when the University refused to give the person a raise. Many of them were refused bowl game bonuses by the University. He gave one fired coach $6,000 when his severance pay ran out.

The $64,000 question is, are we supposed to think these are real NCAA violations? Or do they speak for the coach's character? The latter makes more sense. I can't even start to have any indignation about this. NCAA violations deal with paying players, not coaches. The latter are professionals and are paid. Georgia didn't gain any advantage.

Perhaps Richt should have negotiated with the University a salary reduction with the difference going to the coaches in question, but given that Georgia was so stingy with those men, who's to say they would have followed through in distributing the money? That sounds like a red tape nightmare to me.

So he did what he thought he should do. He played Robin Hood with his own money. I think this is a refreshing story: a coach who thinks his own salary is too high relative to his coaching staff!

I wonder what the Richt haters will say about this one. While they were demanding his ouster for winning 10 games only 60% of the time, he was making sure his assistants were treated fairly, and he did so at his own expense.

Mark Richt is Coach of the Year for doing what was right even in the face of an idiotic outcry over his job performance. The fact that he turned the team around just seals the deal.

Comments

[Adam]

LOLZ filing this one under the "We Want To Be Different" category. If you wanted to pick a non-major award winner that was actually deserving, Brady Hoke or Bill Snyder would've been good picks.

Being 4th, at best, in the SEC with Georgia does not merit coach of the year awards hahahaha.

[SportsRatings]

Sorry, man! We'll try to conform in the future

[S.C.]

There's no doubt in that, Mark Richt is Coach of the Year. But now I'm waiting to know the Player of the Year.