Georgia Bulldogs in 2011 - Post #9

This post is a response to Andy Staples' current article on SI.com listing his take on the top 20 jobs in college football. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/06/03/best-college-football-jobs/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t12_a2

His top ten goes like this:
1. Texas
2. Ohio State
3. Oklahoma
4. Florida
5. Georgia
6. LSU
7. Alabama
8. Penn State
9. Auburn
10. Oregon

Staples ranked the top 20 not on prestige or legacy alone. He factored in whether a program has to battle other instate rivals for recruits, whether the pressures of the job border on certifiable insanity, and whether a program currently has the resources to produce elite teams year in and year out. I won't pick at the rankings. I just want to react to his decision to place Georgia at #5, ahead of the likes of Bama, LSU, Auburn, and many other fantastic programs.

I have always felt that Georgia is a top 5 job. The program has a storied history, is undeniably the premier program in one of the most talent-rich states in the country, and has a massive yet relatively mature fan base. Sanford Stadium is a football shrine that dominates the campus, sitting right at the intersection of North Campus and South Campus, in a little valley that allows fans to peer down onto the field whether they are standing on the steps next to Park Hall or leaning on the railing of Gillis Bridge (often called Sanford Bridge).
Georgia's athletic department is also one of the richest in the country. This has allowed it to recently upgrade the football facilities to the point of rivaling any other in the country. Also, this war chest will allow the program to go after big name assistants (or head coaches) or through a bunch of money at a superstar coordinator in order to keep him from taking a head coaching job elsewhere. Of course, that would require Georgia to first have a superstar coordinator, which remains to be seen.

I could go on, but this is a good place to ask the pertinent question: If Georgia is a top 5 job, why hasn't Georgia produced more top 5 teams in the recent years?
This is, of course, the million dollar question. I think there are a few reasons ...

1. Georgia's fan base is an anomaly. While robust and dedicated, Georgia fans are a bit more down to earth than those found in Alabama and Louisiana. Georgia fans expect to win, but they do not encircle the head coach's house after a bad loss. They don't relentlessly demand undefeated seasons quite the way other fan bases do. Georgia is an odd great program in the sense that it does not truly have an arch rival whom Georgia must beat each year if the season is to be considered a success. Old Georgia fans consider Georgia Tech to be the rival, but younger Georgia fans don't share this sentiment and the fact that Georgia has dominated the series for the past 10 or 15 years doesn't really help in creating the level of tension that an Auburn-Bama rivalry has. Younger Georgia fans view Florida as the rival, but it isn't the traditional rival (that would be Tech), and the reverse of the Tech rivalry has been in effect as Florida has wholly dominated Georgia for the past 15 to 20 years.

2. It's true that many of the 5 star instate recruits in years past have been cherry-picked by other powerhouse programs. It is also safe to assume that had those players enrolled at Georgia, they would have had some measurable impact. But, Georgia's problem is not that it lets some of the local gems escape, it is player development. Georgia routinely finishes with one of the best classes each year, and yet the fruits of that labor have rarely been made evident on the field. Hopefully, Richt has addressed that over the past two years with firings and hirings. Much maligned DC Willie Martinez was fired and replaced with NFL coach Todd Grantham. Changes have been made in special teams coaching. Offensive line coach Stacy Searels was hired away (thankfully removed from Athens?) by Texas. And the strength & conditioning staff and program has been remade. Entering into 2011, Georgia has the potential to erase the memories of squandered high school talent.

3. Closely related to #1, for too long has Georgia rested on its laurels. The dominant SEC East program of the early 2000s, the aforementioned sensible fan base seemed to be late to sound the alarm bell after signs of trouble reared after the 2008 and 2009 seasons. More so, the coaching staff, and Richt in particular, appeared to let the most destructive cousin of success creep into the program -- complacency. Star players weren't pressed to be leaders. Players (and fans and media alike) talked too much about NFL draft potentialities instead of SEC wins. Bad losses were blown off instead of creating a sense of urgency and eliciting guarantees of redemption and revenge. I've long held that the '08 home loss to Alabama was both a demoralizer and a sign of worse to come. That Georgia team had the talent to win the rest of its games if it only could get pissed off, and show a little back bone. Instead, it would loose two more games. And it wasn't just that they lost two more. Georgia was blown out by Florida and then beaten by Georgia Tech -- its two biggest rivals.

So let us look again at Staples' top 10. Of those 10 teams, only Georgia and Penn State have failed to meet such lofty expectations in recent years. The two programs have commonalities, but more differences when you get down to the details. Paterno will retire as the all-time winningest college football coach. Aside from Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no hitters, Paterno's wins record may be the safest in all sports history. Richt has been successful, but Paterno is on the Rushmore of college football head coaches. Furthermore, Penn State and Georgia are like night and day in terms of expectations for each season.
And there in, as the Bard says, lies the rub. Georgia is not alone in the top 10 in terms of underachieving programs, but it has more in common with the other 8 programs than it does with the one other program that it shares this distinction.