An interesting note on discipline....

For the past few seasons, many Richt-haters have been saying that he's gone too soft. They say he has lost the "disciplinarian" factor. In doing so, they point to things like turnovers and off-season arrests.

Thus far, 2011 has been a quiet off-season (with the exception of Ealy - now gone). And, looking back at 2010's penalties....

UGA was ranked 31st in penalization. That is the lowest in the last decade. In fact, in all penalty categories, the 2010 Dawgs were the absolute best-behaved of all Richt-coached teams.

68 total penalties beats the previous low of 77 in 2005.

5.23 penalties per game beats 2005's 5.92

545 yards penalized is 66 yards better than the 2006 low of 611.

41.92 ypg is 5.08 ypg better than 2006's 47.

The "good dawgs" were 6-7.

What is the correlation? There is none. You can point to yards lost by penalties as something that can hamper a team's chances at success, sure...but the 2002 team (well accepted as Richt's best) was 71st in the nation in penalties, with 101. Only 3 other Richt-coach teams topped 100 penalties in a season, and not surprisingly two of them were the '08 and '09 teams. In fact, the early years of Richt's tenure (when people like to believe the teams were at their best) were generally marred by penalization. From 2001-2004, the teams averaged 101 penalties per season with 101 in 2002 and 119 in 2003 (both East Championship seasons).

So, for those who believe Richt has lost the respect and discipline of his team, you can see that isn't the truth. But, don't look for wins and losses in penalty trends. Just like with turnovers, it's not how many penalties you have - but when they happen that matter.

Go Dawgs