Bill Shanks: Steady improvement the better outcome

Joe Torre said the worst thing he did as manager of the Atlanta Braves was to win the division in his first season in charge.

The Braves had not been very good for a long time, but Torre's Braves started the 1982 season 12-0. They went on to win the NL West before falling to the St. Louis Cardinals in the playoffs.

Then the next two seasons, Torre's Braves finished in second place both years. He was then fired after the 1984 season. Torre said later that if he had finished in second place in his first two seasons and then won the division in his third, there's no telling how long he would have managed in Atlanta.

A coach doing well early on can raise the expectation level dramatically. Mark Richt won the SEC title in his second year as Georgia's football head coach. It was the first SEC championship for the Bulldogs in 20 years. Then Richt won the SEC again in his fifth season on the job.

That gave Richt tremendous currency, which lasted until just a few weeks ago. His early success raised the expectations, but it also gave him unprecedented safety until people realized it had been far too long since Richt's teams had done anything special.

Kevin Sumlin went 11-2 in his first season as the head coach at Texas A&M in 2012. But Sumlin's Aggies have gone backwards ever since. They were 9-4 in 2013, 8-5 last year and then this season 8-4. Now there's so much turmoil in College Station that Sumlin might not even make it to coach the bowl game.

Look at Florida's Jim McElwain. He took over the Gators program and went 10-3 in season one. Florida had been 12-13 in the previous two seasons, so the instant success for McElwain was a bit of a surprise. But just imagine now what Florida's expectations will be next season. Florida's fans will not want to go backwards, and they'll likely only believe the next logical step for the program is to win the conference.

Dan Quinn started his reign as the new Falcons head coach this season with a 5-0 record. It has fallen apart since then, which has people already wondering if Quinn is a good coach. But maybe it was better the Falcons came back down to Earth, instead of setting those hopes higher than they should have been this season.

It's easy to have excitement when a new head coach takes over a program, hoping improvements will be made. But realism is important, as well. Sometimes a new head coach can be the difference, but usually a head coach takes over because there were problems before the coaching change.

Is it really good for a new head coach to have early success, or does it just make it even more difficult with the higher (and perhaps unrealistic) expectations?

There cannot be enough columns written to temper the expectations next year for Kirby Smart at Georgia. Those who might dream Smart will immediately push all the right buttons and that freshman quarterback Jacob Eason will be at the Heisman Trophy ceremony in year one are doing just that -- dreaming.

Georgia might be better next season, but maybe not. The schedule will be more difficult, with a season opener against North Carolina and an early season game at Mississippi. The SEC East might be tougher, and more importantly, Georgia will have a freshman quarterback. A freshman -- and while Eason might be special, don't put pressure on that kid to save this program.

It's OK to dream about 2018, when Eason will be a junior and his line of scrimmage should be better. But it's tremendously unfair to Eason to believe he's going to pop in from Washington and take Georgia to where it needs to be in year one. He doesn't deserve that, and neither does Coach Smart.

Maybe we should all take from what Torre learned 30 years ago. It might be better to have steady improvement instead of an instant success.

Listen to "The Bill Shanks Show" from 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WPLA Fox Sports 1670 AM in Macon and online at www.foxsports1670.com. Follow Bill at www.twitter.com/BillShanks and email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 5:46 PM with the headline "Bill Shanks: Steady improvement the better outcome ."