The cold Gatorade and ice of victory splashed onto Mark Richt's Carthaginian neck with little over a minute to play, but the celebration was met with a harsh glare and the words: "No smiles until there's two zeroes on the clock." The scoreboard read Georgia 30 Georgia Tech 24, but Georgia's coach was not happy before or after time ran out on the game of old fashioned hate; and why would he be? This battle was merely a step along a path; a pass between mountains; a test showing how many travails still lie before this coach and his program.
Even in this victory, the Bulldawgs continued to commit stupid penalties that kept their opponent's drives alive, showed an inability to make key tackles, and an overall inability to stop Georgia Tech's unique rushing offense, and as a result, Mark Richt sounded like a man at his wit's end after the game. Despite being the victor on this lone Saturday, this red and black general recognized that Rome was still not conquered.
This competitive fire and lack of satisfaction with his eighth win over the Yellow Jackets in nine years is exactly why most Georgia fans will continue to support Richt despite a somewhat disappointing season. In his interview directly after the final whistle, one could tell that despite his two underclassmen running backs, Washaun Ealey and Caleb King, rushing for 183 and 166 yards he was not resting on his laurels. Richt did not praise his team's success on the ground Saturday; instead, he sounded like a man who realizes that this team did not play up to his expectations in this game or this season. He sounded like a man with work to do; his mind on the grand timeline of history, while lesser men focus only on the moment. Mark Richt recognizes that last night's victory against his state rival means little if it does not mold these young men into a team capable of winning much more.
Georgia spent the last two seasons as a factor in the BCS race, but this year the team faltered out of the gate, losing to then #9 Oklahoma St., cooling fans' expectations for the season. At the time, the Dawgs' preseason #12 ranking seemed way too high, but then the team rattled off three straight wins against South Carolina, Arkansas, and Arizona St., with Joe Cox looking more than capable of replacing last year's number one pick in the draft Matthew Stafford. Then an unsportsmanlike penalty against AJ Green, in the game against LSU, crushed all that optimism like an aluminum can at a tailgate, and the Tigers beat the Dawgs by a touchdown; and the following week Georgia's defense made Jonathan Crompton of Tennessee look like a first round draft pick, as the Volunteers stormed the Dawgs 45-19. The rest of this season was a story in how inconsistency can derail a season, as the penalties and turnovers in big games continued to mount, costing series, yielding games, losing seasons.
Mark Richt and his staff attempted to curb these problems, devoting extra sessions in practice to fumbling drills and adopting a zero tolerance policy on penalties, but none of that changed the results on the field, and Georgia finished the 2009 regular season 7-5, the most losses in one season since Richt became head coach.
Usually, in college football, a win against a top ten team feels like a huge triumph that keeps a team and its fanbase satisfied until at least the next kickoff, but last night's game appeared to leave Richt anything but satisfied; and that sentiment is contagious. After seeing his response, one could not help but reflect on the intricate details of Georgia's victory: the lead was built while Tech quarterback Josh Nesbitt was out of the game with an injury, the rushing numbers were probably inflated by an injury to Tech's starting defensive tackle, and UGA corner Brandon Boykin committed a pass interference penalty, in the end zone, on third down, setting up Tech's last score, cutting Georgia's lead to six. This victory happened in spite of the same mistakes that plagued Georgia's season all year.
One could dwell on all the previous mentioned circumstances, growing frustrated and depressed in the process, or one could acknowledge that Mark Richt took a team with 77 freshmen and sophomores and won seven games with them, defeating three of the team's major rivals, going 4-4 in America's toughest conference, to finish number three in the SEC East. These tasks were accomplished the year after Georgia's program lost its starting quarterback, starting running back, and most consistent wide receiver to the NFL draft, in a season where the team's best player, AJ Green, did not play in three of the team's final four games. While this team has its flaws and may need to replace its defensive coordinator, Mark Richt kept the team together and weathered the storm.
Now, with an extra month of practice thanks to another Bowl bid, this team is ready to march out of the Gatorade-flavored snow and ice of the Alps and lay siege to the kingdoms and empires of Saban and Meyer. After all, Mark Richt and his armies seek more than a win against the Yellow Jackets--the dream of a championship still alludes these riders of elephants, and these setbacks grow more and more frustrating, causing one to wonder how long the tides of history will allow a team to sit outside the gates of Rome before either the city or the army are razed from the field for good, and, judging from his mood last night, Richt recognizes his difficult position within the crux of college football, the SEC, as a teetering between being the dominant power in the Mediterranean or a scorched field of salt. These next few years will seal the fate on how people remember Mark Richt's tenure.
