UGA fans always talk about Vince Dooley being better than equal than just about everybody but CPB and CNS, and it usually is regarded in the media to be true. There was an article about Dooley lately that sparked this conversation, but I was talking to some people at church about it. One older Auburn fan said "Dooley was only great when he had Herschel, and was only good when Alabama, Tennessee, and Auburn were rebuilding. But if all things being considered, Marc Richt was a better coach than 10 Vince Dooleys." Basically he said "when he was without herschell he had a 2-2-1 record vs Barfield, and only beat Dye once without Walker. A mediocre coach that got lucky with a once in a lifetime player" Statistically it seems to be true that his bump in wins are between 1980-85, but Ive been told he was one of those coaches better than his overall records.
I wasn't alive for Dooley, but Ive always heard Dooley was a legendary coach. So was he in fact a mediocre coach that got lucky with one player, or was he as good as UGA fans believe
I'm at work, but I'll do what I can. May have to ditch it mid thought.
1) Dooley's Legendary Status
Dooley's status as "legend" (a status conferred on him by former Georgia graduate sportswriter turned comedian Lewis Grizzard - among others) really owes itself to the accident of timing more than anything else. Dooley coached in an era where the turnover rate among college football coaches was substantially smaller than today - a fact that enabled coaches that never would survive a 9-3 down season (looking right at Frank Solich) in the modern era keeping their jobs for long periods of time. Dooley was the last of an era of coaches that - like baseball stadiums are iconic symbols of their cities (even Fenway Pahk) - were symbols of their schools, when you thought of the school, you thought of the coach. Well, he was the last in the SEC - Paterno was likely the last ever (and note he began his career just two years after Dooley did, so it was in the same time frame).
2) The Luck of the Bulldog
It's probably no accident that Dooley's career success coincides perfectly with Georgia Tech leaving the SEC to become and Independent....that and Bobby Dodd retiring. All one has to do is look at the timeline.
Dodd became the head coach at Tech in 1945. He had a losing season that first year as coach and lost to UGA in 1946 while finishing 11th (UGA was #3).
And then Dodd beat UGA nine times in the next 10 years. He lost four in a row (three of them close) and then won 3 blowouts in a row. In other words, Dodd had an overall record of 12-7 prior to (wait for it).......Georgia Tech leaving the SEC at the end of the 1963 season.
Dooley is hired for the 1964 season. He gets the recruiting advantages of the bigger name, "they're not in the SEC anymore," and the easier academic standards.
Of course, it's easy to read too much into this, too. FSU's biggest success came - not so coincidentally - when Miami was on probation. Mississippi State's rise to the top of the SEC coincided with Alabama's probation that followed quickly on the heels of Auburn's PLUS Ole Miss got popped in 1994 (and gee, State gets good in 1996).
So I don't want to disparage Dooley too much for that. All kinds of guys inherit good teams but not every one of them can win a Super Bowl like George Siefert did. And to make it even better......right as he gets Herschel Walker, Tech gets hit with a major probation and hires Bill Curry (I'll let the reader determine which was the bigger obstacle for Tech).
3) Luck of the Bulldogs 2
As a result of the "fix" allegations in the 1962 Alabama-Georgia game, the two schools agreed on a cooling off period and went to a rotational schedule rather than a yearly meeting. It was fortuitous for Georgia but awful for Ole Miss, who Alabama hadn't played since WW2 but was now on the Tide schedule almost every year. It's not a coincidence that Ole Miss went from national title contender to also-ran the moment they faced Alabama all but four years between 1964 and 1983. Ole Miss' bad fortune was Georgia's good, though to be fair, the Rebs' refusal to integrate played as large a role in their demise.
So Dooley gets 2-8 Miss St in 1966 instead of Alabama and shares an SEC title and 1-9 Miss St in 1967 (and they go 7-4). In 1968, he draws Ole Miss......the week after the Rebs beat Alabama. Dooley goes 3-0 in those games before the Dawgs collapse to 5-5-1 in 1969.
Dooley goes from 1966-1971 and never faces Alabama. Oh and wins two SEC titles at the time.
Again, we have to be careful not to read to much into the background. Dooley still won those games, and Georgia prior to 1980 was more than content with only contending every 3-4 years with a senior heavy team. It was only after they won that national title that they got such insane delusions of grandeur and where their program ranked. The same thing happened to Clemson in 1981, giving rise to what Stewart Mandel has long called, "Ole Miss-Clemson Syndrome," defined as the delusion that your program's singular best year is an accurate barometer of where you are viewed at all times.
4) Dooley oversaw integration.
While this, too, was an accident of timing, the fact remains he did an admirable job of it. Johnny Vaught resisted black athletes (Ole Miss was the last SEC team to have a black player - in 1972) and overstayed his competence to the point Ole Miss has never come close to recovering from the damage he did.
He was neither a buffoon nor a legend.....although Dooley standing on the sidelines looked like a cross between Terry Bowden and Gus Malzahn on Prozac. He would be out there in those dress clothes but wearing that goofy looking Georgia hat, hands pressed on knees like he was on the field himself. Then he would do the sort of fist shake after a big play but with less enthusiasm than Gus.