Weekly Press Conference, Continued

Head coach Mark Richt and several football players addressed the media during the Dawgs weekly press luncheon on Tuesday. They offered the following comments:

On getting the best shots from the Dawgs opponents

It's going to be that kind of game. If you look further down the schedule, Arizona State has an open date involved. The Georgia game will be their first big test. No disrespect to who they are playing, but if you look at their schedule, they are going to be building up a frenzy for us considering what happened last year and I bet they spent the majority of their summer working on us too. We are getting everybodys best lick, but we are going to be ready.

On the Dawgs carrying momentum into the Arkansas game

It's like that old song. You have to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and dont mess with mister in between. Thats what we are trying to do. We are trying to really look at the positive things and build off of them, eliminate the negative things and well be OK. Well keep getting better if that happens.

On penalties

Well keep disciplining it. Some games get wild. That game got wild. They had a bunch of penalties. We had a bunch of penalties. If you have to chose between the team playing the way we played with the amount of energy, fire and enthusiasm the whole game, and if the byproduct of that is penalties, I'll take that over a team that doesnt have a penalty but doesnt have a pulse to go with it. I dont like it, but it doesnt make me crazy. Its such a subjective thing. These men are out there doing their best to make calls. Sometimes they call things and sometimes they don't. It's hard to know exactly how everybody is going to call each game. Even within our league, each group kind of has their own personality on what they are going to call and what they aren't going to call, what theyre going to warrant and what they are not going to warrant. There are some things that are flat out and straight up; you jump offsides, you jump offsides. You get 12 men on the field, you get 12 men on the field. Those are the things we better straighten out. Those other things, you have a guy playing defense and hes trying to defend the ball. He's trying to time it our perfectly. Its not an easy thing to do, but there is no excuse for some things.

On the advantage of Arkansas having a bye week

I think the biggest advantage is the time to plan and focus on you opponent and even observe us. Sitting there and watching that TV copy is different than just watching the film that shows up. I think that, more than anything else, is the biggest advantage. Now they have to go 11 in a row. I'm sure they aren't too thrilled about that.

On Justin Houston and whether he will be the next great Dawg defensive end

He has potential for sure. He was practicing that way in the spring. He has practiced well in the fall. Everyday after practice he stayed and made sure he stayed in the best condition he could. He worked on his fundamentals on his own. He's very, very hungry right now. He could not stand not being there. It was tough on him, but he handled it like you would hope a young man would. I'm proud of how he handled his discipline. Now he's fired up. The guys are happy for him, I'm happy for him. I think the DawgNation should be happy for him.

On the depth chart at offensive line

I didn't ask Coach (Stacy Searels) about it. If Chris does start, Justin will play. If Justin starts, Chris will play. It may be a week-to-week decision on that. While we are talking about guys who are going to play, Josh Davis has been given the OK to play, we will observe him in practice of course. We've given him limited contact and scout team work. He's done extremely well. He'll go through a Tuesday practice and a Wednesday practice, and well have a lot better gauge. My guess is he'll play some, probably not the whole game.

On Josh Davis playing left tackle or right tackle

He's sharp enough to play both. He could play right and (Clint) Boling could go to left if we needed to spell Vince (Vance), but he could play either one, Clint could play either one, Vince could play either one also, but we are a little more apt not to let Chris (Davis) go to the right.

More to come tomorrow.