re: Richt vs Kirby after 3 years

Rivals love to bring this up as if it's some sort of dig on kirby, while forgetting that early era richt was maybe the hottest up and coming coach in america at the time. Some rambling thoughts:

-I think overall we are set up to be better now and going foward than we were at the same stage of richt's tenure, but our competition is much more difficult
-You mentioned it but it bares repeating, if the playoff existed then I put it at 50/50 odds we are national champs in 02. OSU was garbage that year and I'd put us up against anyone the way we played from mid-November on.
-The recruiting can't be understated. We have never recruited this well in our history, and one of the biggest components of that is along the LOS especially OL. Richt never had an OL in his history that was half as deep as this year's.
-Those first 3 years of richt, he played a nationally elite UF/UT in 01, nobody really that great in 02 (bama and AU were very good but not nationally great), and the national champs in LSU in 03. Kirby didn't really play anyone nationally good in 16 (AU was very good but not great), played 3 nationally elite teams in 17, and more great teams last year. His overall quality of competition is much harder IMO and will always be as long as saban is still in the way.

Richt's first giant mistake was replacing van gorder with martinez in 05. Richt played the mellow leader while Van gorder and jon fabris were the fire and brimstone guys, it was a good balacne. When we lost VG and replaced him with willie who was not the hardass VG was, the discipline started to erode. Regardless of future staff changes I don't see that same thign playing out wiht a kirby-led team.


I also think with the way we're recruiting we're bound to win one at some point. You don't recruit as well as we have and not get one at some point. Texas, USC, bama, UF, etc going back the last few decades...all of them had good to great teams that fell short but just kept stockpiling elite 5* talent until that one year that it eventually all came together. I don't see why that won't be us soon.