Comparing the 2017 Georgia football team to the 2002 Bulldogs after six games
Second year head coaches
The most glaring similarity between 2017 and 2002 is the fact that both teams were coached by men in their second year on the job. Mark Richt led Georgia to an 8-4 record in 2001 after helping guide Florida State to a pair of National Titles in the 1990’s.
Kirby Smart’s Dawgs finished 8-5 in 2016. Prior to coming back to Georgia, Smart was defensive coordinator for Alabama and helped them win four National Titles in seven years. If you wanted to hire assistant coaches to take over a major college program in 2002 and 2016, Richt and Smart had to be the no. 1 choices.
And Georgia tasked both coaches with ending championship droughts. Georgia went 20 years without an SEC Championship before Richt led the Dawgs to Atlanta in 2002. And now, Georgia has gone 12 years without a conference title.
The differences
New head coaches take a lot from coaches the worked for previously. And both Richt and Smart spent most of their assistant coaching careers with one guy each. Richt coached under Bobby Bowden, while Smart coached under Saban.
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Bowden and Saban couldn’t be any more different. Both are great coaches. Bowden has over 300 wins and two National Championships. He built Florida State into a powerhouse. But, his teams weren’t always perfect. And the team standing between the Seminoles and National Championships always seemed to be Miami, one of their biggest rivals.
In 1987, 88, 92, and 1994, Florida State ended the year with one loss. Each of those years, Miami was that one loss. After 18 years on the job, in 1993, Bowden finally led Florida State to the top of the mountain, with a win over Miami along the way. Bowden didn’t have an issue with any other rival, including Florida for the most part.
Same story with Mark Richt. Georgia just couldn’t beat Florida. Losses to Florida effectively eliminated the Bulldogs from National Championship contention in 2002, 03, 05, 08 and 14. You could tell with both Bowden and Richt, it was a mental thing. The Seminoles and Bulldogs were too focused on beating Florida to focus on just winning on the football field.
That was on perfect display in 2007. It might be a beloved memory, but Georgia rushing the field after that first touchdown was a gimmick Richt used to loosen his team. And it worked, but why was a gimmick needed in the first place?
Nick Saban however, has never experienced an issue with a major rival since coming to Alabama. Auburn, Tennessee, LSU are always the underdogs against the Crimson Tide. And more times than not, they all lose to Alabama. Tennessee is yet to beat Alabama under Saban.
Where Bowden was always too caught up with beating Miami to focus on fully preparing the team to win the football game, Saban minimizes who the opponent is and gets this players prepared to play their best 60 minutes. That’s not to say Saban and his players aren’t aware or don’t understand the rivalries. He just insures the team stays focused.
That one major flaw of Bowden rubbed off on Richt. While we are yet to see if that area Saban excelled at rubbed off on Smart, so far, all signs point towards Smart being a full extension of Saban into Athens.
And it may end up as the biggest difference between Smart and Richt. We will all find out by the time the season ends. In 2002, Florida handed Richt’s Bulldogs a devastating loss. Georgia should have won that game. A win over the Gators will prove the differences between the two coaches.