Mark Richt is in trouble but not because his team lost to a clearly better Boise State team Saturday. (Though I know many a Georgia fan that has a problem with the fact that the Bulldogs lost to a team from the Mountain West Conference.) Richt has now lost two straight games to teams from NAQ schools and that doesn’t sit well with the Bulldog Nation.
No, the REAL reason Richt is in trouble is because of who he has decided to surround himself with as he is on the hotseat. Mark Richt caught some heat during the 2008 season when the team struggled following a No.1 preseason ranking but waited until after the 2009 season to make a change at defensive coordinator. Now Richt is watching/hearing his collection of assistant coaches get slammed on blogs, radio stations and newspapers columns.
Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo is called everything from a Richt puppet (one of the nicer things said on a recent call-in show) to the “worst offensive coordinator in the country,” (perhaps the meanest thing said on the same call-in show). Richt’s handpicked defensive coordinator Todd Grantham doesn’t seem to make the adjustments once the opposition adjusts to his game plan. Case in point: on Saturday the Georgia defense was shutting down Kellen Moore and company well into the second quarter when the Broncos finally made adjustments and scored 14 straight entering halftime. In the second half, Grantham had coached his squad so “well” that a timeout was required three minutes into the first drive. Huh? Even standout cornerback Brandon Boykin was quoted in an Atlanta newspaper, wondering where the pressure was. The new offensive line coach watched as Aaron Murray was sacked six times and the running game never got going. And lastly, the new strength and conditioning coach Joe Tereshinski needs to answer for what was up with the cramping. It seemed like at least once per defensive drive a player went down with cramps. That is understandable considering it was being played in the hot afternoon Georgia heat with the humidity….wait, it was in a temperature-controlled dome? But, how, wait, he what, see… That was curious. The Bulldog faithful heard all off-season that Joe T. was going to amp things up in order to avoid what happened the last few years when the team didn’t finish strong. I shudder to think of what cramping might occur this Saturday in the outdoors of Sanford Stadium.
Richt is in trouble enough for the past two seasons and failing to win at least ten three of the last five. He hasn’t seemed to help his own cause with his assistant coaches. If Richt is going to turn this thing around, he is going to need some serious help from those he hired to help him.
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