As the Bulldogs prepare to welcome the University of Florida Gators to Athens for a pivotal Week 9 contest, the Georgia football family must take a step back to remember the life of Vince Dooley, the football team's long-time head coach who passed away peacefully at the age of 90, according to a statement from the university, as passed along by WSB-TV 2 Atlanta.

“Legendary former University of Georgia football coach and director of athletics Vince Dooley died peacefully at his home in the presence of his wife and their four children Friday afternoon at the age of 90,” the university said in a statement. “A member of the College Football Hall of Fame, as well as the Georgia and Alabama Sports Halls of Fame, Dooley is Georgia’s winningest football coach with 201 victories, six SEC titles and the 1980 national championship in his 25 years leading the Bulldogs (1964-88). He was also the recipient of numerous awards for his service as director of athletics over a 25 year tenure (1979-2004).”

A collegiate quarterback who most notably played for Auburn from 1951-53, Dooley spent much of the first act of his coaching career as the War Eagles' offensive coordinator before officially jumping to Georgia as the team's head coach in 1964; a position he would hold until 1988. Amassing a 201-77-10 record over his quarter decade with the Bulldogs, Dooley's team won the SEC six times in 1966, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1981, and 1982, and even won the national championship in 1980, marking just the second time to that point that Georgia brought home a claimed national championship and the third-time overall following Kirby Smart's 2021 victory.

“I can't say that I was the most well-received coach who has ever been hired,” Dooley said to ESPN in 2019. “When I look at those credentials, there's no way as an administrator that I would've hired myself. A 31-year-old freshman coach at a rival school? Now suppose you had to hire somebody at an institution like Georgia and say this is the coach.”

Though Georgia may be in the middle of its most successful era in years under Smart, Dooley's fingerprints remain on the University and will continue to live on for years to come.