Unpopular take and I’m sure I’ll get dragged: I think the level of reverence Mark Richt is paid is not commensurate with what he achieved here.
To be clear, this is not disrespect. I didn’t say he deserves no reverence. I simply think a LOT of our fans and alumni act as if he brought us championships when in reality he brought us one overachieving season and a few other mediocre seasons. Yes he added (temporary) credibility. Yes he was incredibly generous. Yes he stepped down when he needed to. He is a humble and kind man by all accounts. Those are all admirable acts and traits and deserve to be recognized. At the same time, those things have nothing to do with on field achievement.
Not dragging you cuz i get what you mean from your vantage point of what the standards are for this program and what was and wasn’t considered successful beforehand…that being said,
Don’t see how 2017 was overachieving considering it should’ve been an 11 win season (Arkansas state) if Hurricanes Irma didn’t shuffle the schedule. We were lucky as in 2017 as we were in 2024. Good teams are always lucky and find ways to win more close games than they lose. 2016 was a solid 9 win season for a first time HC. We hadn’t won 9+ games in back to back seasons since 2004 and 2005.
The Pitt loss was a stain on the season but we were very good. The other two losses were against Clemson and Wisconsin who went a combined 25-3. We finally won our division outright. We also snapped a downright miserable 7 game winning streak by FSU; we literally won once throughout the whole Obama presidency. Had two ranked wins, VT, including finally beating ND after three straight recent losses. We hadn’t beaten a team that finished ranked since Maryland in 2010.
Paradise Camp brought a lot of the alumni closer to their program after the disastrous Golden era and summertime Golden camps. Richt also left Diaz a pretty solid, by no means 6-7 worthy, roster in a similar way as Golden left Richt some talent to work with. Diaz ****ed it all up though, similar to Shannon, including the shortcomings of his own recruiting during the Richt era. Diaz killed so much of our collective spirit that the fanbase was relieved Notre Dame took our place in the ACC championship game in 2020.
A lot of current fans were made during the turnover chain Richt era. Us younger fans were starving.