Mark Richt: Top 5 SEC Coach?

UGA’s Mark Richt begins his 15th season this fall as the Georgia Bulldogs Head Football Coach. In his 14 years in Athens, Richt has led Georgia to a 136-48 record and a pair of SEC Championships (2002 and 2005). However the biggest criticism of Mark Richt’s tenure with the Georgia program is that not one of his team’s have even played for a National Championship.

Had the College Football Playoff existed when Richt started working at UGA, Georgia would have likely made it three times by now (2002, 2007, 2012). But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. In the deepest conference in the Power 5, is UGA HC Mark Richt a Top 5 coach in the SEC?

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The SEC has a tremendously talented group of coaches. Most SEC coaches can recruit as well as anybody, guide their respective teams to a 10 win season and play in a meaningful bowl game. Is Richt the best? No, that spot goes to one man and one man only: Alabama’s Nick Saban. Love him or hate, there’s not a better coach in college football than Nick Saban (4 National Championships and many #1 recruiting classes). And that’s okay, Saban is earning his spot on College Football’s Mt. Rushmore.

So who is Mark Richt clearly better than as an SEC Head Coach? Well neither UK’s Mark Stoops or Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason have led their Eastern teams to bowl games, so that’s two. Florida’s Jim McElwain has never been a head coach in the SEC. Tennessee’s Butch Jones, Arkansas’ Bret Bielema, Ole Miss’ Hugh Freeze, Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen, and Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin are either still building their programs or have not had the consistency of Mark Richt as SEC HC’s.

That leaves USC’s Steve Spurrier, Mizzou’s Gary Pinkel, Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, and LSU’s Les Miles fighting for spots 2 through 6 in the SEC. How does Mark Richt stack up against these four SEC coaches?

Steve Spurrier has been Richt’s Eastern Division nemesis since Day One. Spurrier has led both the Florida Gators and the South Carolina Gamecocks to unprecedented heights with him on the sidelines. Georgia usually struggles at beating a Spurrier-led team, no matter the team or venue. Given that Steve Spurrier has won a National Title at Florida in 1996 and has been the best coach of all time at both Florida and South Carolina, I would say the Head Ball Coach is ahead of Richt in the SEC ranking of coaches on his past accomplishments. I don’t care for Spurrier both I do respect his football career.

LSU’s Les Miles is a bit of an eccentric to say the least. The man eats grass when he’s not coaching football. But Miles is one of the best in the business, winning 131 games at both LSU and Oklahoma State including 2 SEC Championships (2007, 2011) and a National Title (2011). He may not have a great bowl game record (7-6) but Les Miles is a champion, something Mark Richt is not.

So between Mark Richt, Gary Pinkel, and Gus Malzahn, only two can end up in the Top 5 of SEC coaches. Though Richt and Pinkel have been more consistent in their 14 years as coaches than Malzahn, Gus did take Auburn to the 2013 National Championship Game, something Richt or Pinkel have never done.

Pinkel has won back-to-back SEC East Division Crowns in 2013-14. The man isn’t a great recruiter but one of the best defensive minds in the SEC, usually having former players go in the first or second rounds of the NFL Draft. But Pinkel has never won his Conference in either the SEC or the Big 12.

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