UGA’s road to the top started with administration commitment

[tpstulane]

Once the administration made a commitment Georgia success has exploded. Kirby Smart has taken the Nick Saban route to the top. He demanded a commitment from the university starting with a Academic Facility, weight rooms, IPF etc.

Excellent read here:
https://theathletic.com/4453758/2023/05 ... ed_article

Now Smart’s office sits in a renovated and expanded football facility. When Smart took over, Georgia had one of the smallest weight rooms in the SEC. This new facility gives it one of its biggest. Offices were also added for the quality control coaches and support staffers Smart wanted. And there are gleaming new lockers for the blue-chip players Smart wanted to recruit.
There are more amenities in a building that cost $80 million, right after the $63 million spent to put in a recruiting room and new locker room at Sanford Stadium. Right after the $32 million to build the indoor facility.

This is now the top job in the country. But it wasn’t a few years ago. Not with the state of its facilities. Not with the financial commitment, or lack thereof, by the administration. The passion was always there. But it took the administration finally buying in, literally, to what it needed to do to win. It took seeing what Alabama, LSU and other programs in the SEC were doing.


Georgia saw the error of its previous penny-pinching ways.

“If you look back, there were a number of years where nothing was happening facility-wise. And we fell behind,” said Jon Stinchcomb, a member of the UGA Athletic Board since 2015 and a former Georgia and NFL offensive lineman. “Now there’s a much more forward-thinking approach of, ‘Where do we compare now in what we offer and what do we need to do in future years?’

We need to capitalize on this Cotton Bowl success.
The article also mentions NIL collectives. UGA won’t lose a player from lack of NIL money either.

[DfromCT]

We need to capitalize on this Cotton Bowl success.

I couldn't agree more, but fear that the time to do so has come and gone. Another NY6 bowl bid would help, but that's asking a whole lot of a team that delivered one last year and a program that never has back-to-back 10-win seasons. I hope the IPF money has been fully raised.

I also question Tulane's Administrative commitment. It may be improved, but I don't think it's to the level of most aspiring or current P5 programs and nowhere near what Georgia now has.

[anEngineer]

Comparing Tulane Athletics to UGA Athletics is somewhat ridiculous. No matter what commitment Tulane makes, it will NEVER have the resources or land of a flagship state university. I want a lot more for Tulane too, but let's be reasonable.

[DfromCT]

Comparing Tulane Athletics to UGA Athletics is somewhat ridiculous. No matter what commitment Tulane makes, it will NEVER have the resources or land of a flagship state university. I want a lot more for Tulane too, but let's be reasonable.

I don't disagree from a financial standpoint. But I don't think the administrative commitment to winning, which starts with the BOA and continues from Gibson Hall to Willow Street, is as strong as many of our fellow G5 programs. We still shoot ourselves in the foot frequently and are probably our own biggest hurdle to sustainable success.