Bill Shanks: Georgia has another good win, but is that enough?

ATLANTA -- Well, a win is a win. One team had to score more than the other. But what we saw Saturday in Atlanta will never be confused with great football. It was just a game between two teams that had no choice but to finish the regular season.

Georgia barely beat Georgia Tech by six points. The Bulldogs barely won a lot of their games this season, particularly the previous two (by a total of 13 points). The Bulldogs have had good wins, but nothing you would call great.

Georgia fans got Saturday what they've come to expect -- an unspectacular performance and an unspectacular win. This season was what the program is -- good but not great. Against better competition, this Georgia team would have been lucky to win more than six games.

But hey, it's was a winning season, and compared to Georgia Tech, the Bulldogs have a lot to be happy about.

That's the team -- the players and coaches. The fan base might be a bit different. The past four games, the past four wins, really didn't prove a thing to many. This season was defined with the disappointments in October, which overshadowed the normal glow of a nine-win season or even beating the in-state rival.

This was not a very good football game. Georgia Tech has been depleted by injuries, and the roster it ended the season with looks nothing like the one it started with in early September. Georgia has been beset by a less-than-spectacular offense, which is something the fans are not used to seeing from a Mark Richt-coached team.

Richt appeared relieved in his postgame news conference. He likely knew deep down what a loss would mean to his future. Now, a win and his 9-3 record make it a little more difficult for people to stop him from doing what he has done for the past 15 years.

The frustrations on offense, the questionable time outs and clock management and the closeness of this game are part of what has many Georgia fans upset. Yes, Georgia won, but just like it barely beat Georgia Southern last week, it barely beat Georgia Tech on Saturday.

Georgia Tech has a long list of injuries that have helped cause its disastrous season. That has helped cause this team to simply not be very good. And Georgia could only beat a 3-8 Georgia Tech team by six points?

The question remains: Has a decision on Richt's future already been made? Was it made a month ago? The past four games shouldn't have made a difference, since this past month featured mediocre (weak) opponents. So is this season, and Richt's future, defined more by the entire season or what happened against the best opponents?

Can a program fire a head coach after a 9-3 season? Well, LSU seems prepared to do it. Les Miles has been much more successful than Richt, but the LSU fans are evidently ready to simply start a new chapter. They might not find anyone better than Miles, but they're convinced his chances have run out.

And that's what Georgia has to answer about Richt. Have 15 years, 15 chances been enough? This isn't as much about what Richt has done, but it's about what he can do. Is Richt the head coach to get this program where it needs to be and where it hasn't been in the past decade? Or is it simply time to try someone new to see if they can do better.

Georgia was beaten by the three really good teams it played this season, and chances are when it plays a decent team in a bowl game, it is going to have trouble. Georgia Tech is missing its best defensive player (Adam Gotsis), and the second-best defensive player (P.J. Davis) got ejected in the second quarter Saturday. Yet Georgia scored only 13 points.

That's a problem.

That's why this game was a win, but it wasn't impressive. That's why the 9-3 record is nice, but it's pretty thin. That's why this season, while successful, was a disappointment.

Just like the past 10 years of Georgia football, it has been good, but it hasn't been great.

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 twitter.com/BillShanks and email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.

This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Bill Shanks: Georgia has another good win, but is that enough? ."