By: JJ Lanier

GeorgiaSportsEdition.com news services

The Urban Meyer retirement I saw coming; the Mark Richt retirement, I did not.

Whenever you have a coach as young as Richt abruptly retire, the speculation automatically turns to poor health, albeit with him or someone in his family.

I’m sure over the coming days and weeks more info will come out of Coral Gables as to the reasons why; it will also give us a little more clarification as to whether or not there’s a possibility Richt follows the aforementioned Meyer and returns to the sidelines any time soon.

Rather than try and guess any of those things, I want to take Richt retirement at face value, assume he is done coaching and talk about what legacy, if any, he leaves behind.

Since he had only two head coaching stops during his 18 years as a head coach, 15 of which were spent in Athens, your opinion of his coaching is probably based on whether his tenure at Georgia was successful.

Regardless of how you felt about Richt at the time he ceased to be Georgia’s head coach, he did have a successful run there. He took a program that had been struggling to find some consistency, amid high expectations from alumni and fans and was able to bring in some of that much sought after stability.

Georgia went from a good program to one that people outside of Athens thought could be title contenders on a regular basis.

Miami was in even more dire straits when Richt took over three years ago, and although this year didn’t live up to expectations, he was bringing that program back to respectability.

Unfortunately, despite what he was able to accomplish, I’m not sure that’s exactly what Richt will be remembered for.

As soon I wrote that his team in Coral Gables didn’t live up to expectations this year, I admit I thought “Well, isn’t that kind of his thing?” I mean, for all the triumphs he had as a head coach, his teams never quite seemed to be able to reach their potential.

When you look at all the talent that came through the program while he was there, it’s a bit surprising he didn’t win more big time games during those 15 years, isn’t it?

It’s hard to knock someone who won 2 conference titles and had the misfortune of coaching in a league with both Urban Meyer and Nick Saban, but it still always felt like Georgia could have been more.

This seems to be even more exacerbated by the success Kirby Smart has had since taking over for Richt. Smart has been more successful on the recruiting trail and was able to take them to heights- mainly being a national championship game- that Richt was never able to do.

We all like to talk about how difficult it is to follow a highly accomplished coach on any level, but sometimes it’s more damaging to the reputation to be outdone by your successor.

I have no idea if Richt will ever return to coaching, or if he even has the desire to. I imagine if he chooses to comeback at point down the road, there will a number of college football teams interested in his services. He is a good coach that seems to have a knack for elevating the level of the program he is leading. Just don’t expect him to bring you to the top of the mountain; as you’ll probably remember, that’s not exactly his forté.