It's about Georgia's black football helmets, the ones just worn in the Bulldogs' 41-17 loss to Florida.

It's about whether or not those wretched black shells shout of desperation more than inspiration.

When Georgia coach Mark Richt, now nine years on the job, has to resort to that kind of trickery to fire up the Dogs against their most bitter rivals, isn't something more amiss than the fashion fact that those red facemasks really, really clashed with those black helmets?

And if that's the case, if the program Richt molded into a yearly Top 10 resident is now truly no better than third in the SEC East behind Florida and Tennessee, then where do the Bulldogs go from here?

Does Richt clean his coaching house and start over, with new coordinators -- at least on defense to replace Willie Martinez? Does he dig in his heels, shrug off this current 4-4 season as a bad blip on the radar screen and continue business as usual?

Or does he take a step or two back when this season's done, decide that he's too loyal to throw his staff under the bus and too tired of the criticism to fight it anymore.

In other words, does Richt negotiate a buyout and resign, much as Auburn's Tommy Tuberville did a year ago, understanding it's always better to leave a year too soon than a year too late.

This isn't to hint that it's time for Richt to step down. The man was coaching the nation's preseason No. 1 team just 14 months ago. The guy didn't misplace that skill set between then and now.

Richt can still coach. Richt can still lead young men to personal greatness beyond football. Richt can yet return Georgia to football greatness.

But getting back is also far tougher than getting there, especially in an SEC now anchored by Florida's Urban Meyer and Alabama's Nick Saban. Both those men have previously won national championships. Both figure to win them again, one of them possibly this season.

They are serious men with serious ambitions and serious systems in place to achieve those goals.

Throw in Tennessee's Lane Kiffin, who's already thrown down the recruiting gauntlet in the Peach State by telling the Vols that he will never lose to Georgia, and Richt's future seems far less pleasant than his past.

Beyond that, the one time he came across as projecting that angry edge -- the infamous storming of the end zone by his entire team early in its 2007 upset of Florida -- he spent most of the next nine months apologizing for it, as if he couldn't believe he'd let it happen.

And that's the problem with gimmicks. From that Florida fiasco to the "blackout" that blew up against Alabama last season, to Saturday's black helmets and pants, they feel contrived. They feel forced. They feel like anything but what Richt would probably prefer to do.

After all, this is a guy whose public personality tends to fluctuate between reserved and REM. A guy who said on Tuesday, "If you're going to be accused of something, being accused of being a nice guy is not the worst thing."

And in most walks of life it's not. But college football is not a nice game. It's a violent game, a vicious game, a game that usually requires a little nastiness if you're going to succeed.

When your players start playing like nice, undisciplined guys in every pivotal game -- well, except against Vanderbilt, which has its own collection of nice guys -- it requires a little more than a change in uniform colors to get back on track.

Of course, there is a silver lining in all this if Richt really does step aside any time soon. The exit line should be easy: Fade to black.