Recency bias is a real thing.
If you removed the wins achieved by Day, Freeman, and Franklin that resulted from the expanded CFP, you’d have:
Day – 10-8
Freeman – 2-5
Franklin – 2-20
It’s amazing how this process lead to three coaches on the hot seat to suddenly being considered the greatest in the game. When you note that mark by Kirby, regardless of recent outcomes, it’s notable that one of these people is not like the other.
I still think Day is an okay coach, but suffers from the same issue with Michigan that Kirby has with Alabama. Freeman, imo, is flash in the pan and is the guy on Top Chef who is talking about chemistry and gastronomy while making fancy popcorn. Franklin still is a blow-hard and not worth his hype as a coach.
It’s interesting though, looking at our sports psychology here, that there’s plenty of criticism floating around that Kirby Smart has major problems in Athens. I’m not on one side of the fence or the other, but there was a quiet recruiting problem that was occurring with the O Line hidden by the success of back to back national championships, and that became glaringly apparent this year (along with receiver recruiting shortfalls, but he obviously tried to address that through the portal).
The two previous classes of linemen were big improvements over Luke’s groups, and I’m hoping they are developing and grinding as we speak (note: based on a lot of social media, they’ve already begun).
I say all that to say, I’ll still take our head coach over all the other flashy new toys. Consider how good DeBoer looked last year and hold that up to a mirror now. Orgeron and Chizik are two others that looked real good for the moment, and didn’t take long to gain some rust even as the echoes of celebrating a national championship hadn’t even faded yet.
I’m still in the group that appreciates we are living in gilded times. Sure beats the hell out of the late 80s and 90s, and I can’t lose sight of that. Outside of two Ole Miss games, I’ve never found much reason to count a Kirby-lead team down for the count, and I’ll keep that mindset until proven wrong.
Go ‘Dawgs.
Kirby doesn’t get it!
Funny that the one listed ahead of him loses his games to bad teams instead. A problem Kirby has nearly eliminated entirely.
Firmly believe Kirby “thinks/burns with the passion of 1000 suns” like we do from a Dawg fandom point of view + also happens to be the baddest mofo in the college football coaching profession = winning.
That 5-1 DeBoer stat ain’t right. He began ’24 by losing to Michigan and went on to lose to Texas…. and that’s just looking at last year.
When did they play Texas?
I thought bama lost to vandy, tennessee and oklahoma.
I figured the 1 was Michigan in the final last year.
Damn! I stand corrected.
Everyone on that list is a good coach, other than Cristobal. The only great coach is at our school.
I know one thing looking at that list:
The hc talent has dwindled greatly since I was a kid.
There may be two guys on there that could have survived in the 1970’s and 80’s. Given the salaries available now vs then its a curious situation.
Yeah, it’s interesting since one coach dominated for so long, rather than many different winners which perhaps would have elevated their perception in the last decade. Also, the others that won championships have retired or been fired.
The comments concerning the UGA football O-Line have merit considering the likes of Mr. Andrew Thomas, Mr. Cedric Van Pran or even Mr. David Andrews….guys that were there day in and day out for years, it seemed they would always be on Saturdays line up card, understanding those individuals are few and far between, but they are the types of student athletes required for serious O-Line success, those types mentioned, made the staff’s jobs easier on the surface….here we are today, without a true left tackle and no true center to navigate a new QB1 in the sec/playoff football schedule….it is true, the opposition d line in 2024 was in the back pocket of the UGA football O-Line most of the year….GO DAWGS!!
Franklin is just an 8-4 kind of guy and not a good fit for the culture. The Amish are funny that way. Freeman is one to watch. Should get the NIL money he needs and plenty of TV cash, but the Vatican is likely siphoning off so much he can’t build the facilities. Brian Kelly kind of alluded to their tight-fistedness. Freeman will get better offers. Day’s future is a one year contract extension and finding a QB. If he whiffs on that and loses another to Big Blue he’ll be impolitely shown the door, ring and all. Kiffen is always on the edge. Probably still black-listed by the NFL owners, but he’s a better fit for an OC position there than getting a HC gig with one of the P4 royalty. The longer he stays at OM the less attractive he becomes. Lanning has Nike money and knows The Process. Will the NFL come calling? Dabo…safe in his pulpit at Clemson and could still weirdly land at Bama if DeBoer flames out. Sark is safe with Arch but needs Peyton Manning and McConneghy to lose his cell #. Cristobal needs to get in the playoffs or the NY transplants will get restless.
Thank God for Kirby. If we had to replace him tomorrow Lanning gets the first call, but then who?
Joey Freshwater is that hc that could bolt for new horizons, but those damn 9/10/11 win seasons look pretty on the surface, they just mean he receive$ a yearly contract extension and stays put for now….GO DAWGS!!
Lanning gets the 1st call. Dell McGee gets the 2nd call. Fran Brown gets the 3rd call IMHO.
I’m not sure Lanning would leave Oregon for UGA. We can’t compete with Nike money. And now that he’s in the B1G, there’s little downside to recruiting Eugene.
I would make him turn it down.
Bobo
Dabo probably knows that he can coach at Clem’s Son for tens of millions as long as he wishes but Alabama would be a pressure cooker and he would face an SEC schedule.
None of the names Freeman, Day, or Franklin should be mentioned in the same breath as Smart. Anyone that thinks so has lost their fucking mind.
And how many more head coach years does Dabo have than Kirby, to have the same number of games vs. Top 10 teams?
Dabo has coached 7 and half more seasons or 103 more games. Lots of acc games.
And that’s a great point. These numbers show how hard a program’s typical schedule is…and the harder it is, the tougher it is to win even the “gimme games” (Like UK, GT, UMass, UMs, even AU this year)
Because
1. you get worn down and beat up and
2. You do get everyone’s best shot.
About point 2……Kentucky and GT both practiced for UGA all summer.
Both teams’ coaches wanted to beat UGA more than they wanted to take their next breath.
And we could talk about UMass…who wanted it more but didn’t have the talent to take it.
These stats hint that Kirby has so many top ten teams to prep for that he doesn’t have the time and effort to spend preparing for lesser programs..and it shows in player enthusiasm …great against great and not so great against lesser.
The answer? Not good…The answer is to play only one or two top ten teams a year like they do in the B1G. Impossible with an SEC schedule. Had anOSU or Indiana or ND or PSU or Oregon played Georgia’s schedule, most of them wouldn’t have sniffed the playoffs. (anOSU likely the only one that would have).
To reiterate the point…Had UGA played GT’s schedule, they would have been undefeated and able to devote tons of practice time and effort for the build up to a one game season.
The answer to that is ACC vs SEC level of competition. Dabo might play one team per year that qualifies.