I haven't figured this site out quite yet, I want to quote each of your points and answer them, but I can't figure out the "multi-quote" feature. That's my question to you lol.
"WHY did Richt gonfrom hands on OC/HC to CEO HC?"
When he arrived he was young and hungry and wanted to basically make our offense and program just like FSU's. In the beginning things were good. Our offenses weren't juggernauts but with our stellar defense they didn't need to be. So after about 5 years or so 2 things happened. One, the fans thought our offense was getting a bit stale. There were a few times during that stretch where the offense was totally stagnant. Second, I think being THAT involved started to wear on CMR. At this point he realized that as the HC, he should have his hands in every facet of the program equally, not just predominantly on the offense and a little in the other areas. So in November of 06 he turned the reigns over to his protege. There's not really one particular thing you can point to, I think it was mostly just wearing him too thin.
"next up is what really happened in those UF losses.."
Yeesh, good question. This rivalry is very cyclical. 30s and 40s we owned UF. 50s and 60s they had our number. 70s and 80s we owned them. Then the rivalry changed pretty severely in the 90s. They got spurrier and we had ray goff and jim donnan. Yikes! So, when richt came in 01 I think our entire program was still mentally terrified of UF. That attitude goes a long way. It's the difference in playing fast and loose and playing tight as all get out trying not to make a mistake. Despite Richt's UF shortcomings, he still did better than both his predecessors, and towards the end of his career started turning the rivalry back our way again. We won 3 in a row from 11-13 which hadn't been done since the 80s. The record the last 9 years is 4-5, which would have been cause for a parade in the 90s. But ot break it down further:
01: one of UF's best teams in richt's first year, can't fault him here.
02: Truly head scratching. One of our 3 or 4 best teams in school history and it was a comedy of errors. Lost by 7. This is definitely his fault.
03: Another WTF game. We won the east and our only loss this season other than the national champs was a mediocre UF. Lost by 3.
04: won
05: we won the SEC but lost to an average UF. Losing DJ Shockley (SEC POTY) was massive and our backup was a white guy who could barely throw 20 yards. We ran like 10 QB sneaks that game. Awful. Hard to blame him without DJ, but still.
06: we weren't very good and they won the title. Can't really fault him here, but we did hang in and lost by 7
07: won
08: on paper maybe richt's best collection of talent and we got shellacked. They won the NC, so credit where it's due, but this was one of the games that richt became known for where we look like we don't even belong on the field.
09: we lost 5 games, they were awesome. Still, no excuse to lose by like 30.
10: both of us sucked. Lost in OT
11 and 13: finally, at long last, we come in with the much better team and actually win.
12: One of richt's biggest wins. UF was undefeated and ranked
#2 and we held on to win due to causing 6 TOs
14: embarrassing. We had a pretty good squad and they had muschamp. We lost by multiple scores and gave up 400+ yards rushing. Their QB threw about 6 passes.
15: maybe the biggest failures of richt's career. We had 2 weeks to prepare (against UF with a new HC and treon harris at qb), so what do we do? Start the 3rd string QB who had never played more than a few mopup duty snaps in his life. He is a dual threat, yet we didn't even run him. We forced him to be a pocket passer which isn't his game. Threw 4 Ints and once again got embarrassed.
