'He embodies what a coach should be:' Mark Richt inducted to Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame

Mark Richt never won a national championship as a head football coach (he was the offensive coordinator at Florida State in 1993 when they won the first of their three national titles) but one of his former University of Georgia players, wide receiver Terrence Edwards, said any parent should have jumped at the chance to have their son play for Richt.

"He didn't get over the hump and win the national championship we all wanted," said Edwards, who played for Richt in 2001 and 2002. "But if you want your son to play for a God-loving, great man, send your kid to play for a guy like coach Richt. He embodies what a coach should be."

And since Richt left coaching following 15 seasons at Georgia and three at Miami (with a career 171-64 record as a head coach, for a .728 winning percentage and coach of the year awards in both the SEC and ACC), the accolades have been coming in on regular basis -- the College Football Hall of Fame, the Peach Bowl Hall of Fame and now the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame, where he joined Edwards and Florida Gators running back Earnest Graham and cornerback Joe Haden at the annual induction luncheon at the EverBank Stadium East Club on Friday.

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Richt, who retired from Miami after the 2018 season lives in Athens, Ga., and is now an analyst for the ACC Network, had a 5-10 record against the Gators.

"I was trying to figure out why I was invited to this," he joked when he made his induction speech. "When you're a coach and you get any kind of accolade, it's the team, the players, the coaches, the administration, the fan base ... it takes everybody to win. The success I've had has a lot to do with them."

Reliving 'The Gator Stomp'

Richt captivated the luncheon audience with his side of "The Gator Stomp," the incident in the 2007 game in which the entire Georgia team rushed the field after Knowshon Moreno scored the first touchdown in a 42-30 victory over the Gators.

Richt had urged his team during the bye week to do something with emotion if they had some early success but emphasized that he wanted it to be a "team celebration."

"When I said, 'team celebration,' I was thinking of 11," Richt said. "When I said, 'team celebration' they were thinking of everybody ... and I didn't know that."

Moreno scored and most of the team bum-rushed the end zone. Georgia was hit with two 15-year penalties for excessive celebration but hardly anyone cared.

Florida coach Urban Meyer got some revenge the next season in a 49-10 victory in which he ordered quarterback Tim Tebow to take three kneel-downs but called a time-out after each one to prolong the agony.

“They got their pound of flesh,” Richt noted.

Richt, who is battling Parkinson's Disease, got a standing ovation from the crowd when he finished -- from Bulldogs and Gators alike.

Richt had Florida as a rival at every step

Richt has a unique perspective on the Florida-Georgia series since the dominant rival during three periods of his football life has been the Gators.

When he was a quarterback at Miami from 1979-1982, the Hurricanes and the Gators played annually. Richt then coached under Bobby Bowden for 15 years at Florida State and added another 15 years at Georgia.

All told Richt has faced the Gators as a player, assistant coach and head coach 36 times. The teams he was associated with had an 18-17-1 record against Florida.

"When I was playing at Miami, Florida was our No. 1 rival," he said. "At FSU, Florida was the No. 1 rival. Then at Georgia, Florida was still the No. 1 rival. At all three of those schools, it was the same -- Florida was the No. 1 rival."

Richt admitted that there may be more juice in Florida-Georgia because of the nature of game day: the stadium split down the middle, with the lines of demarcation formed behind each goal post.

"No matter who has the ball, the other fan base is trying to make noise," he said. "The bottom line is there's loud and intense crowd noise every single minute of that game. When you're at home, your fans try to be quiet when you have the ball. In this game, someone's going nuts all the time."

Richt said he had one ritual: his players were not allowed to drink Gatorade unless they beat Florida.

"Other than that, it was PowerAde," he said. "But we drank Gatorade after the game if we beat them."

Richt has praise for Carson Beck

Richt said he's been watching with great interest what Mandarin High graduate Carson Beck has done in leading the No. 1-ranked Bulldogs to a 7-0 record in his first season as a starter.

"He's a guy who has to follow the guy who won two national championships," Richt said, referring to former UGA quarterback Stetson Bennett. "It's a tough spot to be in. To a certain degree, he's learning as he goes, for all to see. When you're learning you make mistakes but the more you play the less mistakes you make and the more productive you are. I think he's at the stage where he's doing a lot more good than he is struggling."

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Like a true coach, Richt didn't want to speculate on a possible Georgia vs. Florida State matchup in the College Football Playoffs. But as an analyst for the ACC Network, he's been watching Mike Norvell's Seminoles all year and is amazed at the progress that has been made.

"Mike didn't just have to weather a storm ... he weathered a couple of typhoons there," Richt said of Novell's first two seasons in which FSU went 8-13. "But over time, everyone started to buy in. He did a great job of taking advantage of the portal, did a great job of developing the guys they already had and a great job of recruiting high school kids.”

Richt, 63, has recovered from a heart attack in 2019 and released the news two years ago that he was battling Parkinson's Disease. But he’s staying as active as possible, throwing himself into charity work as well as his analyst job.

Richt has his parents, two sisters and three grandchildren living near him in Athens, his son Jon is the offensive coordinator of the Prince Avenue Christian School (which won a state title last year) and he and his wife Katharyn (“my teammate”) have been married for 34 years.

"I've been able to do what I do for a living and do it at the college level when most guys who show up are at the boyhood stage," he said. "It's our job to help them reach the manhood stage by the time they leave. To watch that process of them growing in that short time and staying close enough to them and what they're doing 10, 20 and 30 yards later is rewarding."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Former Georgia coach Mark Richt found Florida as a rival at every step