Forget the Colts, let's talk college ball

With the Indianapolis Colts' season in shambles from the get-go, I see no real reason to rehash the opening week debacle at the hands of the Houston Texans. Suffice to say, the Colts made the Texans look like a SuperBowl-caliber team. They are not.

So let's talk college football, shall we?

Thanks for your permission.

While not Florida State football, Mark Richt is a former offensive coordinator under legendary head coach, Bobby Bowden. I never liked his coaching. If my personal blog were a few years older, you would have heard me bitching about his vanilla playcalling and total uninventiveness (is that a word?).

Richt left Florida State after they captured a second national title in 2000. Yes, he was part of the formula, but let's face it, the Noles were LOADED with talent and led by a 27-year-old, Heisman-winning quarterback! Lee Corso could've won with this team.

When Richt left for UGA, I told anyone who would listen that the Bulldogs would NEVER win a national championship. Why was I so sure? Because Mark Richt is the consummate nice guy. A devoted Christian and family man, he doesn't have one shred of the killer instinct as say...a Steve Spurrier (though I loathe the man) or a Jimmy Johnson. Those guys went after the throat of the other team. I know, FSU lost to both of those coaches more times than I care to remember.

Nice guys don't make good head coaches. And don't let Bowden's "aw, shucks...dadgummit" schtick fool you. They guy was a student of General MacArthur. He lived and breathed football strategy, just like the famed general loved war strategy. And underneath his good-ol-boy charm, Bobby had the heart of a lion. He'd call the endzone fade if there were four seconds on the clock and the School of the Blind was down by 40. That's why I love him, DADGUMMIT!

Mark Richt, though tutored by Bowden, is no Bobby. He'll never have a bronze cast statue on any college campus, nor a field named after him. And let's face it...he graduated from "da U." (Sidebar: Why hasn't anyone else called out their dumbass alum for embracing that stupid moniker? Nearly EVERY SCHOOL has "university" in their name!)

So Richt goes 82-22, a winning percentage of better than 78-percent, in his first eight seasons. The first few years he was feasting off someone else's recruiting. And let's face it, Georgia is a football-rich state, third only to Florida and Texas, in my opinion. If you're "the" state school in Georgia and you cannot land blue-chippers from your own backyard, then you have no business coaching at the collegiate level.

Richt follows up his two SEC titles with a couple of subpar seasons, then starts this year with two painful losses, and YES, people are saying he's on the hotseat. On Football Tickets Online's blog, a guy named Patton begs the question, "Can Mark Richt survive this?" I think the answer is obvious.
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Lacking the skills and killer instinct of his contemporaries (I refuse to use "the old bawl coaches'" name again), he cannot survive another subpar season. Not at Georgia. Those bulldogs are rabid.

Maybe he gets picked up again as an offensive coordinator at a bigtime school. Maybe he steps down from coaching altogether. Again, football is not his number one priority. And while I admire his personal character and priorities, I've never respected him as a coach. And I'll say it again, with more emphasis this time, Mark Richt will never lead a team to a national championship!