Mark Ricth and the Trifecta of Regret

I think the football fortunes of the Georgia Bulldogs under Mark Ricth can be summed up in three words:  shoulda; coulda; and, woulda.  Of course, the proper syntax would be “should have”, “could have”, and “would have”, but I’m going to use the local vernacular, and a conversational style as well.  Also note that two of the three words often appear in conjunction with each other.

 

“In his first year, and first head coaching job, I woulda been happy with just about anything.  So, an 8-4 record, and a win over Tennessee, is pretty nice.”

“In 2002, #5 Georgia shoulda beaten #22 Florida, and 1st year head coach, Ron Zook.  Then maybe our 2^nd year coach woulda been leading us to a National Championship, instead of just the SEC Championship.”  (2^nd year coach, Jim Tressel won it all with Ohio State that year.)

“I know we won the East, and two of our three loses in 2003 were to the eventual national champion, LSU, under Coach Nick Saban in his 4^th season, but we really shoulda beaten Florida that year.”

“Ok, in 2004 maybe #5 UGA coulda beaten #3 Auburn; maybe not.  But, there’s no way we shoulda lost the game, and the East, to #17 Tennessee when we were ranked #3 at the time.”

“I wish we coulda live up to our rankings in 2005.  Instead, we lost to #16 Florida when we were ranked #4.  #15 Auburn beat us when we were ranked #9.  And then #11 West Virginia took a lot of the luster off of our SEC title, and #8 ranking, by beating us in the Sugar Bowl.”

“Yes, Florida beat us again, and won the National Championship in 2006 in Urban Meyer’s 2^nd season.  But, we coulda beaten Tennessee, and there’s no way we shoulda lost to Kentucky and Vanderbilt, and ended up 4^th in the East.”

“If we coulda won either the South Carolina or the Tennessee game in 2007, then we woulda been SEC East champs, playing eventual National Champion LSU, and Les Miles in his 3^rd season.  Instead, we lost to two unranked teams while we were ranked #11 and #12.”

“2008 was the year that coulda been; preseason #1 in both the AP and the Coaches’ poll.  But, we’d already dropped to #3 before #8 Alabama hung 21 points on us in the first half of our first loss.  Then, #5 Florida whips us by 39 on the way to their 2^nd National Championship in three years.  And being ranked #13 apparently didn’t help in our loss to #18 Georgia Tech to end the regular season.”

“In 2009, Nick Saban led Alabama to a National Championship in his 3^rd season as the Tide’s head coach.  Meanwhile, we had our first five-loss season under Coach Ritch.  I know Oklahoma State, LSU, and Florida were ranked #9, #4, and #1 respectively when we lost to them; but, lower ranked, and even unranked, teams seem to be able to beat us when we have the higher ranking.  We coulda won at least one of those games.  And, we shoulda beaten Tennessee and Kentucky.”

“Is there’s anything we coulda done in 2010 that woulda made a difference.  While Gene Chizik is leading Auburn to the National Championship in only his 2^nd season as head coach, we stumbled to a 6-7 record in Coach Ricth’s 10^th year.  We lost to Central Florida in a bowl game in Memphis.  Who coulda imagined that?!”

“In 2011, despite opening loses to Boise State and South Carolina, 10-2 and East Champions (for the 1^st time in six years) looked pretty good at the time.  However, back-to-back losses in the SEC Championship and the Outback Bowl left us with a final record 10-4, and one more year of shoulda and coulda.”  (Meanwhile, across the state line to the west, the Tide was winning its 2^nd National Championship in three years.)

“Ahhh, the year 2012; the ultimate coulda and woulda season.  I’m not talking about the ‘How the @#$%& did we lose 35-7 to South Carolina?!’ game.  I’m talking about the SEC Championship game against Alabama.  How many times have you heard, or said, ‘If we coulda made that last completion, we woulda been playing Notre Dame in the National Championship.  And, we woulda beaten them!’”  (Instead, Coach Saban and Alabama go on to win their 2^nd national title in a row, and their 3^rd in four seasons.)

“Who woulda picked Missouri to win the Eastern Division in 2013, their second year in the SEC?  Maybe those same people picked us to lose to Mizzou, and Vanderbilt, on the way to the second 8-5 season in four years under Coach Ricth.  However, I’m not sure anyone woulda picked Auburn to play in its 2^nd National Championship in four years, under 1^st year coach, Gus Malzahn. But, they did!”

 

“Even though we hammered eventual East champion, Missouri 35-0, and shoulda been in control of our own destiny in 2014, we weren’t.  You woulda thought that being ranked in the top 10 meant that we coulda beaten either #24 South Carolina or unranked Florida.  Instead, they both beat us, and knocked us down to 2^nd in the East for the 5^th time in 14 years under Coach Ricth.”

“Hey, 9-3 doesn’t look that bad this year does it?  We lost to eventual West champ, and current #2, Alabama.  Then we lost our star back, and Heisman hopeful, on the first offensive play of our lost to Tennessee.  That’s a game we coulda won.  And then our last loss was to the eventual East champ, Florida, and 1^st year head coach, Jim McElwain.  But, I think we shoulda had wins against more than just two teams with winning records:  Southern, out of the SWAC; and, Georgia Southern out of the Sun Belt.”

I'd Rather Talk Football Than World Affairs Right Now

Almost immediately after Georgia’s victory over Auburn yesterday, the discussion turned to how we could end up with another 10-win season, if we beat Ga. Southern, Tech, and our bowl game opponent.  The Dawgs’ overall record is currently 7-3; 5-3 in conference play.  And, five years from now a 10-3 mark would probably look pretty good to a lot of people. [Aside - I think a little bit of the aura of 10 wins has been lost ever since we went from an 11 game regular season, plus a bowl game (10-2 = 83%), to a 12 game regular season (10-3 = 77%).]  However, if you look a little deeper right now, some disappointing statistics are revealed. 

As it stands today, Georgia’s five SEC wins are against the bottom four teams in the eastern division, and the last place team from the west.  Those five teams are currently 8-27 in conference play; with seven of those eight wins the result of beating each other.  None of the five can finish the season with a winning record in the conference.  And when you look at the overall record, it doesn’t get much better either.  Out of Georgia’s seven victories so far, only one is against a team with a winning record.  Southern University, out of the SWAC, is 6-4 with one regular season game left on its schedule. 

And yes, I know that two of our three loses were to the eastern division champ (#11 in the CFP) and the presumptive western division champ (#2 in the CFP), and both of those teams are currently 9-1.  And while I appreciates a “quality lose” as much as the next person, it isn’t really relevant to my theory, which is that one of the best ways to judge a team is to look at the winning percentage of the teams they’ve beaten.

IF (and yes, the “if” is in all caps on purpose) UGA, Auburn and Mizzou all win their remaining games, the Dawgs will finish the regular season at 9-3, with four victories over teams with a winning record.  But, if Auburn and Mizzou lose either one of their two remaining games, then the number drops to two.  And, if the Dawgs don’t beat Ga. Southern, the number of victories over teams with winning records remains at one, and Georgia’s regular season record would be 8-4.  Given that we’re 1-3 against teams with winning records so far this season, I wouldn’t be surprised (disappointed, but not surprised) to see us finish 9-4, or even 8-5.

We Have to Read and Think at the Same Time

     While researching the issue of the state of Tennessee’s use of a three question drug-use questionnaire, and follow-up drug testing, I found the following web article:  http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/10/3621267/tennessee-drug-tests-after-six-months/

     

     The first two sentences of the article read as follows:

 

Less than one half of one percent of Tennesseeans who applied for public assistance flunked a drug test in the first six months of the state’s experiment with drug screenings for welfare recipients, according to recently released state figures.

Out of more than 16,000 applicants from the beginning of July through the end of 2014, just 37 tested positive for illegal drug use.

     When you read those two sentences just now, did you think what I thought when I first read them?  My initial thought was Tennessee gave drug screens to over 16,000 applicants, and only 37 came back dirty?!  However, it’s in the first part of the third sentence that the writer, Alan Pyke, gives himself away, and actually reports the proper statistics:  “While that amounts to roughly 13 percent of the 279 applicants who the state decided to test based on their answers to a written questionnaire about drug use...”

     In other words, Tennessee didn’t test over 16,000 people and get 37 positives results, and 15, 963 negative results, the state tested 279 applicants and got 37 positive results.  That’s over 13%, or basically four (3.978) out of every thirty people screened.  And, that figure is over 61.5% higher that the state’s overall rate of drug use (8%) as stated in the article. 

     Now that's a headline that would jump off the page:  Public Assistance Applicants' Drug Use 61.5% Higher Than State Average  However, the author ends the third sentence by returning to his disingenuous apples to hubcaps comparison and writes “the overall rate among applicants is just 0.2 percent.”  

     Allow me to re-write the first three sentences with some different data to illustrate my point.  

  

Less than one half of one percent of all students enrolled at The University of Georgia passed the state bar exam on the first attempt in 2014, according to recently released state figures.

Out of more than 35,190 students on campus during the 2014 school year, just 155 passed the bar on their first attempt.   While that amounts to roughly 94 percent of the 165 law students who took the bar exam for the first time, the overall rate among all students is just 0.47 percent.

     See how that works?  The fact that over 15,700 applicants were never asked to take a drug screen in the first place is totally irrelevant to the author feigned statistics, just like the fact that over 35,000 UGA students never sat for the bar exam is irrelevant to mine.  Nice try though.