Weekly Press Conference, Continued

FOOTBALL

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

Coach Mark Richt....

On mixing the tailbacks…

“There will definitely be a plan to play both of them. I’m not even sure we have settled on who will start, though I will say Richard (Samuel) will start the game; I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen. Caleb (King) did very well. He ran the ball well. He pass protected well and secured the ball well. He showed no signs of the hamstring becoming an issue for him, so it was a very good performance for Caleb. I think our tailback position just got stronger by virtue of that. Carlton (Thomas) certainly has done a nice job for us, and we still have confidence that he can go in there and play ball for us.”

On the Dawg's punting game and long snapper Ty Frix…

“Ty’s Frix, of course his daddy snapped for Georgia and was on the national championship team. I think he was on a couple of SEC championship teams. I didn’t want to mention Ty much in the preseason, because when you have a brand new snapper, you don’t really want to tell the world about it, so I didn’t say much. Then we he sailed that snap over the punter’s head, everybody knew who he was. There was a lot of juice on that, by the way. He really has a strong snap, so I guess we could say there was a silver lining there. Other than that snap, he’s been extremely accurate. He has a great operation time. Between he and (Drew) Butler, we get the ball off pretty quickly; maybe as quick as all the years I’ve been at Georgia, which is great. He actually has a couple of tackles under his belt. A lot of times a snapper is a guy who you just hope he can get that one job done, and if he happens to fall into one as far as a tackle is concerned, you are happy. He actually gets down and does a good job of breaking down and made a couple of nice open field tackles, so that’s a bonus with him.

“As far as our punter, Drew, what can you say other than he’s been fantastic. There is still improvement to be made. When he has decided to kick it deep, it’s been over the heads of the return men. We do still need to be very conscious of hang time, because there are so many great return men that we’ll face throughout the rest of the year. A 55-yard punt and a 60-yard punt is exciting, but if it doesn’t have the hang time that it needs to get our people to cover, it’s too much space for dangerous runners, so we have to continue to be conscious of the hang time and not get too enamored with the distance. It’s hard to do when you are leading the country in that category or first or second in that category, but he has to stay unselfish for the team’s sake.”

Quarterback Joe Cox:

On being named the Walter Camp National Offensive Player of the Week…

“I was pretty surprised. That’s a pretty big honor to get. I knew we had a good game, but anytime you get an award like that it’s definitely something that you are really proud of and feel really honored by.”

On talking with former Dawg quarterback D.J. Shockley…

“He wishes me luck before the games, but it’s not like we have long conversations with him telling me everything that I should be doing. He just tells me to have fun with everything that comes with the job and to just play loose and play football. I think that’s what our offense has been doing the past two weeks that we didn’t do week one. We just wanted to have fun, cut everything loose and just worry about playing hard. I think that’s been the difference.”

On if he has watched any of the Arizona State game film from last season…

“Yeah, and we’ve watched a lot of their tape. They’re a good team with a good defense, especially this year. You can tell that they are playing really hard and flying around. They’re going to want to prove something when they come here Saturday, so we need to keep practicing like we’ve been practicing, working hard and preparing for this week they way we have the past couple of weeks.”

Tailback Richard Samuel:

On the play of the offensive live…

“I feel the line is playing real good. They’ve gelled together and they’re playing real good. We lost Trinton Sturdivant a couple weeks back, but we put another guy in and continued going.”

On quarterback Joe Cox’s performance against Arkansas…

“Joe’s performance was real good. He just showed what he’s capable of doing no matter what happens or what people say.”

Wide Receiver Tavarres King:

On what sophomore flanker A.J. Green does that amazes him the most…

“Nothing. Not a thing. That’s Superman right there. He really is. Nothing he does surprises me. He’s just awesome.”

On if defenses are playing the Dawgs as the team expected this year with the presence of A.J. Green…

“We knew coming into the season that his name was out there and that people were going to try to double team him and maybe even throw triple teams at him. We knew that was going to happen, and things are going as planned so far.”