Mark Richt’s new boss said he had some ideas about nonconference scheduling, but wanted to wait to talk to Richt. Well, the Georgia head coach gave us an idea of what he’ll say to new athletics director Greg McGarity.
Richt clearly isn’t in favor of beefing up the schedule. That doesn’t necessarily mean he would weaken it, but the western trips – such as to Colorado this year – are probably on the way out.
“I’ve learned it first-hand that flying back through the night from Arizona is not good for your team,” Richt said. “I think in the future we’re gonna try and minimize that as much as we can.”
The Bulldogs are still scheduled to go to Oregon in a few years. The trips to Colorado, Arizona and Oklahoma State were spearheaded by former A.D. Damon Evans, who wanted to build the brand of Georgia nationally.
The subject came up Wednesday on the SEC teleconference, after a report in The Birmingham News that said the SEC tended to have the weakest nonconference schedules.
Richt answered a quick “no” when asked if he felt other league teams needed to beef up their schedules.
“Lemme ask you this: Who’s won the last four national championships,” he said. “And I don’t think those teams have gone overboard on who they’re scheduling out of conference.”
A few more tidbits from Richt’s appearance on the teleconference:
- Branden Smith is the No.l punt return man, and Carlton Thomas is No. 2. As for A.J. Green, Richt isn’t necessarily adverse to using him, but granted that with changes to punt return rules there’s risk that a return man could be “splattered.” And he also worried that someone could decide they want to get a bit hit on Green because he’s a star player.
Still, you get the feeling that if at some point they decide Green is their best returner, he’ll be back there.
“Punt return’s a pretty big play too. Kick return’s a pretty big play,” Richt said.
- Richt had kind words for starting quarterback Aaron Murray, who gets his first college start on Saturday.
“He has got everything that it takes. He’s just gotta experience it now,” Richt said.
- Richt repeated that because of the offensive line injuries “offensively we’re not as far as along as I would’ve hoped.”
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Richt wants to "minimize" trips out west
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8 comments:
I see his point. Afterall, Florida isn't scheduling outside of the southeast (or Florida, for that matter).
But, the one issue I think is that we don't have Florida's media profile. They don't really need the bump, but we actually might (SEC schedule and all). Afterall, while Michigan at least got consideration for the national championship re-match; Georgia was dismissed out of hand. The Dawgs just don't have the national cred that Bamer, Florida and LSU do.
As a fan, traveling to Arizona and Colorado are big deals; but if the coaches think it puts us at a competitive disadvantage, then so be it.
Richt needs to worry about winning games period and stop with the location stuff. Florida doesn't have to schedule out of the southeast to build the brand because they are winning. Winning changes everything and there has been too little of that in Athens recently.
I agree with both Anons and find it very disconcerting that Richt has such strongly anti-competitive opinions. It has to rub off on the team in some way, not to mention just plain sounding like weak sauce.
The scary part of this article is the last statement by CMR, “offensively we’re not as far as along as I would’ve hoped.” With a RS freshman at QB, statements like that make my very uneasy. Could be a rough start with the Cocks and Hogs right around the corner!
Yeah, I agree with those who think daman evans was too concerned with getting everyone out west for games and not concerned enough about setting us up to win the SEC ( a la Alabama - stay in state and Florida - let's don't play nobody and to back to the dome).
I don't think we have to go out of our way to get big match ups, but it isn't bad to have a few mid-level games in our expanded region.
I know a lot of people are now disappointed in the Louisville game, but I think that is probably what we should shoot for. Teams that are in our region or not too far out, but that are likely winnable games.
So the OOC schedule would be like this:
1. GT
2. NCST, L'ville, E.Carolina, Duke, Troy, So. Miss, UVA
3. UAB, LaTech, MTSU, Memphis
4. N Texas, ULL, SWLa, FAU, FIU
However, I would like to see us put an end to lower division games, like Ga Southern, W. Carolina, Charleston Southern, etc.
We're not putting an end to GA Southern...that's an in-state school that we have an 'unofficial' mandate to play every few (in our case, four) years.
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