Kirby is 5x the coach Richt was. The handful of UGA fans I know all agree they finally got a real CFB coach like they hadn't had in a couple of decades. UGA was underperforming every season given their top 5 recruiting, big budget, big stadium and massive hold on the state of GA.
CPJ stayed competitive with UGA...until Kirby made UGA fundamentally strong on both sides of the ball. Suddenly GT was getting whipped BAD. Suddenly most of UGA opponents were getting whipped bad. Richt had two or three nail-biters every year where UGA was more than a TD favorite. Richt also had UGA losing a game they shouldn't lose...every year.
Richt went to Miami and stunk up the place. In his defense, every coach has stunk up the place since Coker (can't believe its been 20 years since Hurricanes were one of the top 5 programs in the nation for 15+ years).
Kirby is the best UGA coach of my lifetime, superior to Vince Dooley and several tiers above any that followed Dooley.
It's too bad we didn't get ahold of our own Kirby. Maybe we'll get lucky in the coming few years?
The problem with htis is that it misses
why Kirby has been able to deliver (slightly better) then Richt. I don't think it has too much to do with Kirby. It has a lot to do with
institutional commitment. And here I give Richt credit. I think he actually wanted UGA to win without the entire institution being wrapped up in doing so. He didn't want to run a program like the ones at Bama, Awbun, or Clempson. But … as those programs went all out, he found himself losing ground, despite great (there's no other word for it) recruiting.
I'm not sure why or how this was managed, but I'm pretty sure that the administration at UGA is now committed to doing
anything to win, just like they were under Dooley. I also suspect that the foul underbelly of this will be exposed as time goes on. But, shoot, if
UNC can get away with the kinds of shenanigans they did, who knows if that will make any difference.
I hope Tech never goes down that road, however.