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The annual 'Dawg Bowl' ties Georgia's Mark Richt era to Kirby Smart era

Jeremy Johnsonby: Jeremy Johnson4 hours agoJeremyO_Johnson
Kirby Smart-Mark Richt
(Marc Weiszer/Staff / USA TODAY NETWORK)

Georgia football is a fraternity that’s lifelong. One of the events that connects two of Georgia’s most successful eras of football took place on Wednesday.

The annual Dawg Bowl brought former players together with current players for a bowling competition to fundraise for the Isakson Center for Neurological Disease Research, in the battle against Parkinson’s and Crohn’s disease.

Former Georgia head coach Mark Richt’s organization put on the event. Richt was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in May of 2021. His granddaughter Jadyn was diagnosed with Crohn’s at birth.

The event brought out most of Georgia’s current team, head coach Kirby Smart, and Richt’s former players. It was an opportunity many of them didn’t want to miss.

“Every one of the guys (former players) that I asked said yes,” Richt told DawgsHQ. “I’m just a blessed man, you know. The current players are doing their part, and Coach Kirby Smart is allowing them to do that.”

Former Georgia All-American David Pollack was also on hand. Pollack would follow this event anywhere

“If Coach Richt held this in Afghanistan, I’d be there every year,” Pollack said. “I mean, that’s my coach, that’s my dude. We get to see him, we get to see a lot of the old heads. We get to see a lot of the new guys, too, and just kind of make connections, do it for a man that I love, and do it for a good cause, obviously, as you see him continue to fight, which is not fun. You don’t like seeing your coach struggle. We want to do anything we can to help.”

Kirby Smart and Mark Richt are keeping the bridge between the two eras at Georgia open

Smart learned a lot from Nick Saban. He implemented it into Georgia’s current program. There are still a lot of Richt’s principles in place as well.

Smart coached running backs under Richt at Georgia in 2005. He’s kept a lot of the principles that he learned from Richt in place. The brotherhood has been one of the major continuations.

“It’s special, you know, and I was blessed enough to play for Coach Richt, former Georgia running back Tyson Browning said. “Kirby was my running back coach my senior year. I’ve kind of seen the bridge in both relationships early. And it was important for the older guys to still feel a part of everything we got going on. I think Kirby’s done a great job with that.”

Richt and Smart changed the expectations of Georgia football.

 “I came here in 2002,” Browning said. “We hadn’t won anything in 20 years. I was blessed enough to win two SEC championships while I was here and see him change expectations. Before he (Richt) got here, nobody cared if we won because they didn’t expect us to. So once Coach set expectations, Kirby (Smart) was able to just take it to another level.”

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