Dissension in the UGA fanbase explained: Richt's coaching style can produce NFL caliber players, but it can't win championships.
Today, I happened to read this article:
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/09/15/ooda-loop/
The article led me to the following reasoning: the former coach of the University of Georgia Bulldogs, Mark Richt, wins a large percentage of football games because his coaching style does a great job of teaching fundamentals and coachability, two aspects that are important to winning at the college level. However, it lacks in the decision guiding process of OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), which affects his strategy and makes it easy for opponents to exploit Richt's teams weaknesses.
As the (very long) article I posted above mentions, the OODA process is often viewed as a method inherent to success. For the purposes of this post, success is equated as winning football games, with championships being the primary and ultimate goal. The article specifically outlines how the OODA process can be used to interfere with an opponent's process (strategy, decision-making ability, etc.). I assert that Mark Richt's coaching style does not favor a strong OODA process; furthermore, his coaching style creates an OODA process that allows his opponent's process to easily disrupt (interfere) with his process.
Earlier, I mentioned that Richt's coaching style focuses on fundamentals and coachability. This style, I believe, is good for the players because it prepares them for the National Football League. For instance, in August, UGA had 51 former players on rosters in the NFL. This was the fifth most among colleges programs.
(http://georgia.247sports.com/Bolt/UGA-with-51-players-on-NFL-rosters-38535007)
That's a pretty high-ranking for a coach that hasn't won a conference championship since 2005 and has never won a national championship. Here's another source that's interesting:
Notice that Notre Dame and Clemson are the only schools in the top 10 (other than UGA) without a national championship since the new millennium, though Notre Dame did play for one in 2012. Dabo Sweeney has also only been at Clemson since 2008; they did win the ACC in 2011, and are currently undefeated and ranked #1 in most polls.
What was going on with UGA under Mark Richt, then? I've established that Richt's coaching style really focuses on fundamentals and coachability. This style prepares the players for transition into the NFL, where they typically perform well (see Todd Gurley). Unfortunately, it does not win championships. While Richt's style is good for the players, it prevents him from being able to manipulate his system to exploit weaknesses in his opponent's systems.
Teaching fundamentals accurately requires consistency; manipulating systems often requires a coach to not only be inconsistent, at times, but to also say, "This isn't the correct way to do this, but it's the way that we're gonna win." Richt isn't willing to do that, whereas coaches like Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Les Miles, and Jimbo Fischer often are.
Similarly, Richt's coaching style complicates strategy and tactics. Sticking with fundamentals, as I said before, requires consistency. This means consistent play-calling, players consistently in the game, consistent formations, schemes, etc. Richt's consistent strategy of "let's do what we do well" doesn't jive particularly wonderfully with the OODA process. Opponent's, therefore, who have coaching styles that follow the OODA process are easily able to disrupt Richt's strategy. This is why it seems like Richt always handsomely loses the "big game", closely wins a game that shouldn't be close, or loses a game that isn't supposed to be close (see, Alabama 2012, GTech 2014, UF 2014, Alabama 2015, Mizzou 2015, et al.) I include Alabama 2012 in this list because Richt was unable to tempo his OODA process and accordingly manage the game correctly.
In conclusion, this also explains the dissension that is currently evident among Georgia fans. Many fans (probably all) recognize that Richt is a great coach when it comes to teaching fundamentals and coachability. He's so good at it that he usually wins 9-10 games a year and puts plenty of players into the NFL. However, it's not a style conducive to winning the big games. It's why he seemingly under performs with better talent, yet his former players do well after college. So, some fans see that, whether they realize it or not, and believe in Richt and are okay with him not winning a championship yet. Meanwhile, the other portion of fans can recognize that Richt is a good coach, but see that he isn't a championship contender, except for in special circumstances. Thus, they want a new coach whose style will be more conducive to winning championships, but probably won't have a product of high-caliber players who adapt to the NFL well. Much of it comes down to what we believe the purpose of college football is: to win championships (what most fans want), or to create good football players for the NFL (which seems to be the more "moral" purpose)?
That all being said, I'm just a guy sitting on his couch making a very broad judgment about many people's characters and dismissively simplifying the difficulties that are inherent in coaching. Additionally, this is a throwaway because I told a friend who frequents r/CFB I was going to post this. This was his suggested account name. You're an asshole, SBJ.
Finally, it would greatly help your understanding of my post to read the original article where I got the concept of OODA from (I linked it at the top). It's quite long, but really, quite good. It's highly worth it, even outside of the football lens.
Posted Dec 2, 2015, 10:39 PM UTC