I think you guys will be surprised at what you find when I compared Richt to Donnan. I think it may come down to how much goodwill Richt still has from the first part of the decade.
Please check it out at ChuckOliver.net. Feel free to comment here or there.
For the person who voted that Richt is clearly a better coach and that Donnan and Richt should not be compared, I'd love to hear your explanation.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they can be compared--at least not as an apples to apples comparison--because so many factors are different.
ReplyDelete1. UGA was mired in pretty poor football through the 90's and Donnan wasn't exactly pulling us out. Whereas CMR DID, in fact, pull us out and has placed UGA in the top 25 conversation, possible challenger to the SEC conversation, nearly every year.
2. The SEC was not as "deep" as it is now. Remember FSU and Miami and Nebraska dominated the 90's. Today, the SEC wins nearly every national title and the top 2-4 teams in the SEC are always in the top 10 in the country. Winning in the SEC today is much, much harder than it was in the 90's.
3. UGA has the resources ($$$) today to hire a phenomenal staff to surround CMR thanks to ridiculous TV revenue. Donnan did not have the luxury.
So, comparing coaches it nearly impossible.
However, I will save that the "Richt Era" is greater than the "Donnan Era". I don't think there's any doubt about that.
1. Did you read my post at ChuckOliver.net? Because Donnan finished in the Top 20 in the country every year but his first (that's 4 years). Not only that, but we finished higher than where we were ranked in the preseason 3 of those 4 years. I'd argue that Donnan is the one who put us into the yearly Top 25 conversation. By himself. Though, I will argue that Richt put us into the Top 10 conversation, if only for a few years. But I think we've slid out of the Top 10 conversation.
ReplyDelete2. Not so sure about this. Look at Tennessee over the past couple of years. South Carolina is about the same as they were when Donnan was here, or so our results would indicate. Florida is the only real dominant force in the SEC East, and Tennessee is irrelevant. That wasn't the case when Donnan was there. Tennessee and Florida were both competing for the national title nearly every year. So, though the SEC may not have been as deep through and through, the SEC was more top heavy back then, and arguably a more difficult division.
3. And yet what does that say about Richt? Despite all those dolla dollas, we are still struggling.
I believe you forgot the "Damn Good Dawg" factor. Richt is a damn gooder dawg than Donnan. In fact if you take Dooley out of the equation, Richt is the Damn Goodest Dawg of them all. Thus this argument is null and void. Rookie Mistake on your part Fratlock.
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