SEC Revises Media Policy... Again

From SEC release...

In consultation with major media associations, the Southeastern Conference has issued its final Media Credential Policy for the 2009-10 season, conference officials announced today. The policy is in effect for all SEC intercollegiate athletic events hosted by its member institutions.

The SEC was assisted in the revision of the policy document in discussions with representatives of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Associated Press Managing Editors, American Society of News Editors and the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

“The SEC has always had a positive relationship with the media,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. “When contacted by major media associations, we immediately began constructive dialogue to address their concerns. While there were a few changes we could not meet, there was agreement on many of the issues. We look forward to maintaining communication with the media as we work to balance the issues important to the media and the SEC’s ability to protect its digital rights and trademarks.”

Among the adjustments in the final revision, media agencies have additional flexibility in internet news coverage, uses of photographic images, access to video images for television newscasts and special shows and clarification in the provisions of blogging.

The SEC will retain its exclusive rights for game action video on the internet while at the same time affording media outlets the opportunity to access game highlights through an embedded video player.

The SEC Media Credential Policy, which was initially revised on Aug. 14, will be reviewed annually.

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DH: Here are the sections on Internet use and blogging, as those appeared to be the most controvercial. If anyone actually wants to read the whole thing, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to forward it along.

Internet Use—Video and Audio

Upon execution of a separate agreement with terms and conditions governing the use thereof, Bearer will be afforded access to video and audio of broadcast Events for use on Bearer’s official news website(s), at no premium or charge. Otherwise, except as specifically permitted herein (with respect to online, non-archived simulcasts), Bearer shall not post, place, distribute or make available video (or audio from broadcast feeds) of game action of any Event (including any Bearer Generated Video of game action of an Event) on or through the internet or any other new media distribution platform (i.e., any platform other than print media or a form of television not available or viewable over the internet, except for non-archived simulcasts specifically permitted herein) including, without limitation, wireless handsets, podcasts, cell phones or PDAs.

(DH: The most important thing to note here is that the SEC has revised its definition of "event." The rules here essentially apply only to events requiring a credential, and therefore should not prohibit any practice or post-practice interviews.)

Blogging

Blogging, including periodic updates of scores, statistics or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the Event, is acceptable provided that the Bearer conforms to the blogging policies separately published by the SEC, as such policies may be revised from time to time. No Bearer may produce or disseminate in any form a “real-time” description or transmission of the Event in any manner that constitutes, or is intended to provide or is promoted or marketed as, a substitute for television or video coverage of such Event. Bearer agrees that the determination of whether a blog is a real-time description or transmission shall be made by the SEC in its reasonable discretion. If the SEC reasonably determines that a Bearer is producing a real-time description of the Event, the SEC reserves the right to pursue all available remedies against the Bearer and to revoke this Credential.

(DH: SEC rules have generally already limited blog updates to no more than three per quarter, which was roughly what I abided by for my "live blogs" last season. The only real problem I have with this current wording is that it is, by its very nature, vague. I can already envision a press-box brawl when a member of some school's sports information department disagrees with a reporter on what they deem ""real-time descriptions" of the action. But, that's the joys of the Internets, I suppose. As Sly Croom would say, it's just a series of tubes, and we're all just trying to avoid clogs.)

One last note... no information was provided as to policies on ticket holder restrictions.

SEC to Ban Media from Shooting Video

Lest you think the new mega-deal between ESPN and the SEC was simply going to benefit your lives and increase coverage, there comes this news, via an AP story...

The Southeastern Conference is expected to impose rules that prohibit the news media from posting video from games, practices and news conference.

The rules also limit televised highlights from games.

They were released to member schools on Thursday and a copy was obtained by The Tuscaloosa News, which reported the new policies Friday.

SEC spokesman Charles Bloom said the new restrictions are designed to protect the league's agreement with XOS Technologies for a new digital network.

Bloom said the policy is subject to change. It limits TV stations from carrying clips of longer than three minutes and allows highlights to be aired for only 72 hours after a game ends.

The SEC Digital Network is expected to launch in time for the upcoming football season.

What does it all mean? Well, for one, no more videos on this blog of practice or player interviews, but that's really just the start.

As teams, conferences and leagues expand their multimedia platforms, these things will continue to occur. (And they already have in other places, including the NFL.) The thought among many of these organizations is that you, as fans, don't care. They think you'll be satisfied with the controlled information you are given from them -- essentially replacing the media with a public relations firm.

Maybe that's true, but I'm guessing after your favorite team gets spanked by a rival, you're not looking for the watered-down version of what happened. Perhaps you really don't care where the information is coming from, but my guess is that you value quality journalism a lot more than they give you credit for. Maybe you go to one place and one place only for your news. But I'd be willing to bet the majority of you have gotten used to being able to surf a few dozen sites to get a broad view of Georgia football.

Look, I know things are changing for the media. I've been as vocal about the problems of the newspaper business as anyone. But for all our problems, I'm pretty certain that most fans appreciate the work most of us do -- even if they don't necessarily like all of it. And if you don't things like this will seriously affect the coverage you get of your favorite teams, you're being extremely naive.

If you want to read more about this, including the agreement the SEC wants media members to sign, the Tuscaloosa News has all the details.

Is Richt on the Hot Seat?

Read that headline again, then ask yourself, on a scale of one to 10, how stupid does it sound? Much like Nigel Tufnel's amp, that scale should really go to 11.

And yet, it hasn't stopped dozens of writers and columnists from asking it this offseason, most notably Paul Finebaum, who posed the question in a recent column for the Mobile Press-Register. A year ago, there would have been little tolerance for such hypotheticals, but apparently 10 wins doesn't get you what it used to.

For his part, Richt isn't paying much attention to any of the talk -- although he is aware that it has been talked about.

"I don't really dwell on those things so I don't know exactly what everybody said or what they think about me," he said. "When it comes to that kind of thing, I try to focus on what I can control. My job is to do the best I can for this university to prepare players and coaches to reach all the goals and expectations they have. ... I'm focusing on the process of building a championship team and doing it in a first-class manner. That's all I can do. I really can't control the perceptions or anything else for that manner."

Nor should he have to. But since players report for fall practice today, I think it might be worth trying to do a little of that perception control now.

First, it's always good to get a little perspective. As the Senator pointed out last week, what Richt has accomplished in just eight years at Georgia is beyond anything fans could have expected upon his arrival.

Then let's take a look at how Richt stacks up against the competition.

Best winning percentage, all active coaches:
Pete Carroll, USC (88-15, .854)
Urban Meyer, Fla. (83-17, .830)
Bob Stoops, Okla. (109-24, .820)
Mark Richt, UGA (82-22, .788)

*Note, it should probably be pointed out, too, that A.) Richt's bowl record (6-2) dwarfs that of Stoops (4-7) and that the majority of Meyer's record, as impressive as it is, was built in lower conferences (not that he's done too bad in the SEC).

How about closer to home? Here are the top SEC team's record during the past eight seasons:

Georgia 82-22
LSU 82-22
Florida 77-27
Auburn 72-30
Tennessee 69-33

Of course, all four of the non-Georgia teams on that list have had coaching changes in that time, so perhaps wins and losses don't have much to do with it.

After all, all the talk regarding Richt's job performance has never been about wins and losses. It essentially surrounds one key fact: He hasn't won a national championship yet, while Florida and LSU have each won two during his tenure.

That's really the big problem for Richt. While the chips have never fallen just right for a national title at Georgia, a few other coaches have managed to make the process look pretty simple. It's not.

Yet the argument I hear most from people who are, let's say, less than enthusiastic about Richt is this: The guy's not a bad coach, he's just not going to get it done at a national-championship level.

First off, Richt is a lot better than "not a bad coach," but let's humor the notion for a minute anyway. Since Richt arrived at Georgia, there have only been four non-voluntary coaching changes at a school that won eight or more games the previous season. (Of note: I'm defining non-voluntary in the most liberal of interpretations, so any instance in which there appeared to be even minor pressure for a coach to step aside is included.) Here's the list:

2008
Arkansas - Houston Nutt (8-5) to Bobby Petrino 5-7
Michigan - Lloyd Carr (9-4) to Rich Rodriguez 3-9

2004
Nebraska - Frank Solich (9-3) to Bill Callahan 5-6

2003
UCLA - Bob Toledo (8-5) to Karl Dorrell 6-7

The first thing to note is, most schools aren't stupid enough to dump a good coach, and my guess is that Georgia fans don't want to see their school lumped in with the UCLAs and Arkansas of the world.

But the bigger point, in case you weren't reading closely, is this: The combine record of the coaches who left in their final season was 34-17. Their replacements, in their first seasons on the job, finished 19-29. That's an average of four FEWER wins the next year under coaches who were supposed to be better alternatives. Anyone want to bet Lane Kiffin or Gene Chizik drastically alters that scenario this year?

The bottom line is, you don't get rid of a good coach because there aren't that many of them, and Mark Richt is better than a good coach.

Which leads me to the biggest reason people need to stop wondering about Richt's future. If you're going to make a change, you better be sure you have a better plan in place for the future, and that's no easy task.

Maybe Richt can't win a national title. There's really no way of knowing until either a.) he wins one or b.) he stops trying. But that's true of all coaches who have yet to win a title. In fact, here are the only active (or potentially active) coaches we're 100 percent positive have what it takes to lead a team to a national championship: Urban Meyer, Les Miles, Mack Brown, Pete Carroll, Bob Stoops, Nick Saban, Jim Tressel, Butch Davis, Phil Fulmer, Bobby Bowden, Steve Spurrier, Joe Paterno and Dennis Erickson.

That's it. That's the list.

I know this entire post has been preaching to a very small minority of Georgia fans (and probably mostly to a fair number of college football columnists who have far too little to write about), so I apologize if this was a wasted exercise for the rest of you.

But here's the question I want to ask that vocal minority (and anyone else who wants to answer it): Look at that list again and tell me, which of those coaches would drop what they're doing now to come to Georgia? And of those, is there even one that you'd spend more than two seconds considering swapping Mark Richt for?

The Go-To Guys

I have a buddy named Ken, whom I've known for a long time now. I think most groups of friends have a guy like Ken. He's the guy who makes things happen.

I met Ken in high school when he was on a movie date with a girl I was friends with. Across the street from the movie theater was a McDonalds. It was December, and the McDonalds was advertising a visit from Santa on one of those signs with the plastic letter cards you can change out whenever you want to advertise something new. Ken ran over to the sign in broad daylight and changed the notice from "Santa is Coming!" to "Satan is Coming!" It was the type of high-school delinquency that I found hilarious at the time.

Anyway, from that point on, Ken's primary goal when hanging out with us has been to make sure we're all having fun. He's the guy who makes things happen. If you don't want to wait in line at a crowded bar, he greases the bouncer with a bill larger than any of us have in our wallets. If you need a wing man to go talk to a girl, he'll be buying drinks for her less attractive friend before you've even thought of a good opening line. If you complain there's nothing to do, there's a good chance someone will need bail money by the end of the night. He's a good guy to have around.

I tell you all of this because Ken came to mind as I was reading through the responses to my post on Monday about Georgia's reliance on its stars last season. There have been a good number of people here and over at the Senator's blog both in favor and pretty stridently against the impact of Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno last year. Some think the pair was the best thing the team had going. Some people think they didn't get the job done. Ken reminds me that, perhaps, both theories are correct.

A bunch of us took a limo to go out in Philly for my birthday a few years back. Birthdays out on the town were a problem for me because people tended to buy me a lot of drinks and I have trouble turning down anything that's free. Needless to say, I was not at 100 percent.

When the limo dropped us off at my apartment late that night, we ran into a problem. In my diminished capacity, I had misplaced my keys. My roommate, who could have let us in, was nowhere to be found. He had either been distracted by a girl or stopped at Pat's for a cheesesteak. In any case, we were locked out.

So there we were, in the middle of January in chilly Delaware, a half-dozen guys, standing outside my apartment with no way in. As was usually the case, we put Ken in charge, and he remedied the problem. He broke down the door.

Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in my living room watching TV and enjoying some Hot Pockets when my roommate finally returned. He turned the handle on the front door and pushed in, and the door promptly fell onto the hardwood floor. He was less than thrilled.

Rather than yell at Ken though, my roommate was furious with me. At the time, I didn't get it. Ken broke down the door, after all. I had nothing to do with it. But it has since become clear to me what my roommate understood at the time: If we were always going to rely on Ken to make things happen, sometimes we had to shoulder the responsibility for the consequences of his actions.

Seems to me that's pretty much the same situation Georgia had last year. It wasn't about Stafford or Moreno failing to come through. It was about expecting a bit too much of both of them. It was about the other players on the team -- many of whom had the best of intentions -- simply assuming that, when the chips were down, they knew who they could count on. Most of the time, they were right. Sometimes though, their doors got kicked in.

I'm not sure this year will be different in terms of wins and losses, and I'm not inclined to think losing two players as talented as Stafford and Moreno helps a team, but I do think there's an advantage to having 11 guys on offense and 11 guys on defense who each realize that success depends as much on them as anyone else on the team.

Anyway, a few other thoughts on some of the comments I've read following that post...

-- Yes, the defense was suspect last season, but the offense simply did not show up throughout most of the Alabama game and all of the Florida game. Scoring was a problem against South Carolina, too, and the defense bailed Georgia out. So yes, the D needs some big improvements this season, but they weren't the ONLY problem.

-- Turd Ferguson and Richt Flair are both great commenter names.

-- I can't help but wonder what the opinion of Willie Martinez would be if he had followed someone who had a personality closer to his own rather than the fiery, ill-tempered Brian Van Gorder.

-- The "we're coming together as a team" talk is starting to get a little old, but it's the offseason, and that's about all we've got. Just be happy that you've gotten a lot of "teamwork" stories rather than stories about arrests and suspensions.

-- I'm glad a few people pointed out Mark Richt's minor jabs at the media's coverage. His quote in my post is no less than the third time I've heard or read something similar. Honestly, yes, if he's talking about ESPN, they did focus on Moreno and Stafford. But around here? I really don't think that was the case. In fact, I'd say I talked to Moreno and Stafford less than almost any other starters on the team because, quite frankly, they were two of the worst quotes. Then again, I doubt too many of the coaches or players are reading the Macon Telegraph.

-- I'd be willing to wager there isn't a player in recent history Georgia fans are more split on that Stafford. It's amazing... I never hear anyone say, "Yeah, he was a pretty solid QB, but just didn't put it all together for that Heisman-type season while he was here." People either love him or hate him. In truth, I think that comes from the fact that Stafford was pretty inconsistent throughout much of his career and fans tend to cherry pick the moments from his career that best prove their point.

--The coda to the story of Ken breaking down my door came the next day. After a greasy Sunday morning breakfast, we went to Home Depot buy a new door. I figured this was going to be a hassle because... well, who breaks down a door? As it turned out, apparently quite a few people. The door aisle was mobbed, and not with a bunch of 40-somethings finishing a honey-do list. There was at least a half-dozen college-aged guys there buying new doors. None of us said a word to each other, but there was a subtle, unspoken understanding of what had transpired.

Oh, and one final note: Ken is a South Carolina graduate, so really, we should have known better all along.

Richt: No Stars in 2009

The focus of Georgia's offseason has largely been the loss of Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno. Mark Richt, however, thinks the bigger obstacle was all the focus on Georgia's two superstars last season.

So as the Bulldogs move into the third week of voluntary summer workouts, Richt said there's a distinctly different mentality among the players without Stafford and Moreno aboard.

"They've really decided that they have to come together as a team and work their tail off and get after it," Richt said. "You can't sit there and rely on a Stafford or a Moreno to carry the team."

The departure of Stafford and Moreno -- both of whom were selected in the first round of the NFL draft -- along with receiver Mohamed Massaquoi means there aren't a lot of known quantities on offense for Georgia in 2009, but a healthy offensive line could make that a moot point.

While Richt says there was clearly too much focus on the team's offensive stars last season, in some cases there weren't many other options. With an offensive line littered with fill-ins learning on the fly, the offense was often forced to go with what worked. There weren't many chances to improvise.

When the protection broke down, Stafford relied on the receivers he trusted most. With the second-string tailbacks struggling in pass protection, Richt was forced to keep Moreno in the game nearly all the time down the stretch.

With a healthy and deep corps of linemen, this year, things should be different.

"I really believe that if the offensive line matures the way we expect it to, we won't need as many heroics," Richt said.

But the pressure won't just be on the offensive line this season, and the new focus must extend beyond the offense. This year, Richt said, things will be different everywhere from the players on the field to the fans in the stands to the stories in the newspaper.

"Last year was one of the toughest years because the Bulldogs fans and the media were focused on those two guys," Richt said. "But this year everybody understands that that's what it's going to take to be successful. The star of the team is the team."

Odds and Ends

I've been out of town all week (and actually, for the better part of the past month) so a few things happened that I didn't get around to commenting on immediately. Rather than write up long responses to each issue, I figured a quick (OK, not so quick) around the horn might suffice...

-- Big thanks to ESPN's Chris Low for linking to my post on returning offensive production in the SEC this week. One of his commenters, however, wondered why I ranked the schools by percentage of returning offense rather than gross production. The answer is that I was curious about both, but assumed you could eyeball the gross numbers easier than the percentages. But, since it was asked, here's a quick rundown of the rankings based on yardage returning for 2009.

Receiving Yards

Arkansas, 2999
LSU, 2580
Alabama, 2098
Ole Miss, 2091
Kentucky, 1880
Georgia, 1775
Florida, 1596
S. Carolina, 1370
Miss St, 1354
Auburn, 1212
Tennessee, 1066
Vanderbilt, 725

Rushing Yards

Florida, 2414
Ole Miss, 2331
LSU, 2011
Arkansas, 1362
Auburn, 1317
Alabama, 1208
Kentucky, 1204
Miss. St., 1192
Vanderbilt, 940
Tennessee, 500
S. Carolina, 499
Georgia, 479

-- I ran into Andrew Williams last night. He said he's been working in an advisory capacity with Knowshon Moreno and is planning to move out to Denver with him. No deal done yet for Knowshon with the Broncos, but Drew said they're not too far apart.

-- The MLB draft reminded me what a joke the NCAA is. This had already been on my mind, but then ESPN's Jemele Hill wrote a fantastic column about it. Why is it that a baseball player can be drafted and then return to school, but the same isn't true for basketball or football players? Why are baseball players allowed to sign right out of high school but basketball and football players are not? Why is it that a baseball player can sign a contract, play professionally, but still return to school and participate in another sport, but something as petty as extra textbooks or attending a high school graduation are violations in football?

Hill argues, quite rightly, that it's all about money for the NCAA, which seems a bit ironic since the NCAA flips out whenever a player or his family receives a dime for their work. And chalk this up in the "I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'" category, but here's the racial breakdown in college sports: Football, 51 percent minorities. Basketball, 67 percent minorities. Baseball, 19 percent minorities. Oh, and as for the high-level "decision maker" jobs in the NCAA... the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports estimates that as much as 97 percent of those gigs belong to white people.

-- Bleacher Report stirred up some controversy this week with a story criticizing Georgia strength and conditioning coach Dave Van Halanger. I'd love to link to it for you to read firsthand, but Bleacher Report -- the bastion of journalistic integrity that it is -- deleted the story from its site already.

Nevertheless, the AJC's Bill King linked to it earlier this week, which drew plenty of comments from his readers.

Now, I'm not in any way endorsing the Bleacher Report story which was essentially no more than one man's opinion, but I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing up a topic of debate and challenging the status quo a little. And after talking to one NFL talent evaluator (who asked that his name not be used), I found there was at least a little bit of legitimacy to the story. He said several NFL people feel that Georgia's strength and conditioning program has "the wrong emphasis" and players from the Mark Richt/Bobby Bowden/Chuck Amato coaching tree have entered the league "undisciplined and not well prepared."

Is there reason to believe the critique? Potentially. Here's a bit of analysis of Mark Richt's draft classes done by reader Jim Franklin back in April examining the early selections of UGA players by year...

Year	Round	Player
2008	5 (161)	Marcus Howard
2007	3 (51)	Quentin Moses
2006	2 (30)	Tim Jennings
2005	1 (14)	Thomas Davis
2005	1 (17)	David Pollack
2005	2 (35)	Reggie Brown
2005	2 (48)	Odell Thurman
2005	3 (85)	David Greene
2005	4 (131)	Fred Gibson
2004	1 (32)	Ben Watson
2003	1 (6)	Johnathan Sullivan
2003	1 (20)	George Foster
2003	2 (34)	Boss Bailey
2003	2 (37)	Jon Stinchcomb
2002	1 (25)	Charles Grant

(By year, Georgia had four players taken in 2008, four in 2007, seven in 2006, six in 2005, four in 2004, seven in 2003 and eight in 2002.)

Obviously the 2009 draft turned around the recent trend illustrated in the statistics above with four Georgia players being selected in the first three rounds, including two of the top 12 overall. But if you look at those high draft picks from 2002-08, there's a pretty fair number of busts (at least by NFL standards) in there, too.

The case could also be made that there has to be a reason for all the injuries last year, although I'm not sure any explanation given could be specifically traced back to the strength and conditioning staff, particularly since the injury bug had never been that bad in the past.

Now, the other side of the coin: At the start of the 2006 season, Georgia was tied for third with 36 former players on NFL rosters, and at least a half-dozen more will be added to the mix in 2009. (Also of note, Bobby Bowden's boys have the second most players in the NFL). So if NFL folks are so displeased with the preparation of Richt's players, why are they so prevalent on NFL rosters?

Of course, success in your S&C program isn't all about putting players in the pros either. At least ostensibly, it's about winning in college, and few people have done a better job of that than Van Halanger. His teams have made it to a bowl game for 28 straight seasons, an unofficial record among college coaches as far as Van Halanger knows.

The Bleacher Report story discusses Georgia's defensive woes as the product of poor conditioning, but that seems like an odd critique. For one, no amount of conditioning teaches Reshad Jones to wrap up on a tackle (and, in truth, it's probably time I stop picking on Reshad, too). No strength program will keep Jarius Wynn from hitting the quarterback late or ensure that the defensive ends can handle a cut block. Plus, if Van Halanger's preparation caused the defense to suffer last season, then why was Georgia's offense so good? Both sets of players are trained by the same staff.

Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with having the discussion about Georgia's conditioning program, but until a former player or two speaks on the record saying they were ill prepared for life in the NFL (or games on Saturdays during their college careers) I'm inclined to think Van Halanger and his staff are doing as good a job as anyone.

-- Lots of questions about the new deal with ISP Sports that Georgia just signed. I'll have a more detailed story in the next few days (I'm just starting to sift through a mountain of information on it) but here are a few tidbits I got from ISP's general manager in Athens, Jeff Huffman...

On changes to the UGA Web site...
"We're going to re-launch our site this year. We're making improvements to it to make it more cutting-edge, offer our fans something that they've never had access to before. That's our biggest investment from an upgrade standpoint. We're going to invest a lot of resources into making that a real fan-friendly place."

On the all-important upgrades to the game tracker software at GeorgiaDogs.com...
"That's in discussions right now. We're working to improve all facets of our Web site and that is a piece that we're obviously looking to upgrade."

On when the new Web features might be available...
"We're shooting for a target date of the end of August. We want to have it up and ready to go so people can get acclimated with it and have time to learn and have it ready before we kick off (for football). This is something that's been in the works for several months now, so we didn't just start on it."

On the TV side of things, including the coach's show...
"We're going to introduce new programming which will be unveiled in the next several months. With the coach's show, the biggest thing is distribution. We're working to make sure if you want to be able to watch the coach's show, you can find it. We're also going to upgrade just the overall look and feel of the show. This new media team that we have in place, they will be not only working for our Web site, but they'll be shooting game-day activities, working with the coaches behind the scenes, shooting the coach's show. We've got the HD equipment and the necessary tools to be able to produce a first-rate quality program."

On who'll be doing the radio broadcasts...
"Scott Howard will be our play-by-play man and Eric (Zeier) will continue to be our color analyst for football broadcasts. The other positions that we have from a sideline perspective, from a pregame show, from some of the ancillary programming that we have with this new hour, we're working closely with UGA to determine who those talents are going to be, but we haven't released that yet."

-- I wanted to wish a happy father's day to all the dads out there and remind you that Mark Richt will be hosting the All-Pro Dad event tomorrow if you can make it.

-- And finally, I made a bit of a big deal over a comment by Rivals' Radi Nabulsi on UGASports.com's messsage board over the weekend. I received emails from both Radi and Anthony Dasher explaining their side of the situation, and in fairness to them, I thought it was important to publicly note that we've cleared things up and there are no hard feelings on my part. I highly doubt any of you really cared, but since I called them out on the blog, I figured I should be as up front with the results.

OK, that's it for now. Have a great weekend!

Expect Less 'Whining' From Richt

As a general rule of thumb, people like Mark Richt, the person. Unlike some other coaches, he tends to have a pretty good appreciation of his own importance in the grand scheme of life, he's generally affable to everyone he talks to -- even obnoxious sports writers like me -- and he rarely offers much firepower for critics by sticking his foot in his mouth repeatedly (Lane Kiffin Syndrome, as it's now referred to in medical circles).

So it's safe to say the past few weeks -- and really, most of the past year -- have been a bit atypical for Richt. In recent stories, he criticized the media's focus on last year's stars as a reason for the team's failures. He seemed to sound a bit petty in discussing reasons he thought Florida had an advantage in the Cocktail Party game in Jacksonville. And he was less than thrilled with Damon Evans' insistence on having the Bulldogs play an arduous non-conference schedule each year.

The results: More than a few people (like here and here and here) calling him, to varying degrees, a whiner.

Lesson learned, Richt said. And sadly for us, that lesson is that he needs to stop being so forthcoming with the media.

"I'm going to give a lot less of my opinion," Richt said. "A lot of times, I will say things pretty tongue-in-cheek, but it doesn't read that way. So I've just got to guard my words. That's just the position I'm in, especially this time of year."

I'll vouch for Richt's tongue-in-cheek nature, but I've always thought that was what made covering him fun. With most coaches of his stature, if they do anything tongue-in-cheek, it's usually because they're making an obscene gesture at the competition.

Still, it's hard to argue with Richt's reaction to the criticism he has received. Just as he didn't want his players to be in the spotlight this offseason, he's hoping to avoid it himself, and that's tough to do when so many people are parsing your words ad nauseam with each new quote.

But it's more than just these past few weeks. After six seasons as the SEC's "nice guy," Richt has taken more than a few twists and turns in terms of public perception.

I'm not particularly interested in revisiting The Celebration from 2007, as I think it's been discussed enough. But throughout last season, Richt earned scorn -- often from his own fan base -- that he really hadn't experienced before.

The team lost three games -- all in pretty ugly fashion -- and fell well short of preseason expectations. The result was some unhappy campers in Bulldog Nation, but Richt doesn't necessarily think that was a bad thing.

"I think once you raise the expectation, then if you fall short of perfection, people get sad," Richt said. "They get their hopes up and get their ideas of what they think it should be, and if you don't win every game, people get bummed out. A lot of that has to do with where we are as a program now. We've gotten to the point where any given year could be the year, and I think we all believe that. So when it doesn't happen, there's a disappointment there."

Most of the disappointment (and at times, downright fury) was directed not at Richt, but at defensive coordinator Willie Martinez. So Richt decided to step in, and in doing so, managed to upset a pretty fair number of fans with what seemed to be an outright dismissal of their concerns.

It was a touchy subject for Richt, who is fiercely loyal to his staff. Clearly the defense was having problems, but he wanted to divert the attention and outrage away from Martinez. In the end, he essentially put both he and his defensive coordinator in the sights.

"We're all in this thing together," Richt said. "There's reasons why things happen, and some of the issues we had defensively were because of decisions I made. I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that."

And that's what Richt says his priority is when discussing issues with the public -- making sure they understand.

"I think there's always criticism, but you've just got to know as a leader, when you make a decision you're not going to make everybody happy," Richt said. "There will be people who think the decision you made is probably not a good one, and if the buck stops with you, if your team doesn't perform to a certain level in any given game or any given season, the criticism is going to come. A lot of times, it's not so much criticism as questions. People want to know what happened. They're not being overly critical, they just want to know what happened, and you've just got to explain that. But sometimes you don't know."