Weekly Press Conference

FOOTBALL

Head coach Mark Richt and a delegation of football players met with the media during the Dawgs weekly press luncheon today. They offered the following comments:

Coach Mark Richt

Opening Statement:

It's Tennessee week and we are going to the big orange house. I guess this will be the fifth time that I've gone there as head coach of the Dawgs, and it never gets any easier. They have an unbelievable atmosphere there. We have to do our best to try to help educate our young players of what its going to be like. Until you go there, you just don't really get it. We've had a couple of away games and the atmospheres have been outstanding, but when you get the numbers over 100,000 it does make a difference. We have to get our guys ready for that.

Last time we played away, we had a rain day that Thursday and did not get in the stadium and did not get the noise. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but as it turned out at Arkansas we probably jumped offsides five or six times. I don't know if it was that many and it could have been more; I don't know, but more than you would like. That's probably the reason you go to the stadium on Thursday, to get the crowd noise issue taken care of. This is a game where both teams want to get back on track. We certainly had a tough ball game this last week. All of our games have been tough to this point. All of our games have been close. To come out on the losing end after winning three thrillers was a little tough to swallow. The bottom line is Tennessee is not going to feel sorry for us. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We have to buckle it up and get ready to go. Everything that I've seen so far from our guys has been outstanding. Sundays weightlifting and running and practice; they were back at work, so it was good to see that.

On keeping the emotions of the team high:

The main thing today is we have to get the work done. It's a heavy work day. We have to continue to get better blocking. We have to continue to get better tackling. We have to make sure that whatever we implement, that the kids understand it well and they can get it ingrained enough where they can play full speed and let their fundamentals take over. Today I'm more worried about are we going to get the work done. I really don't care what mood they are in today, to be honest with you.

But as you get closer and closer to the game and as we taper down on the physical aspect of the practices, it becomes much more mental and psychological. When it comes to the kind of energy and spirit they bring to the game, you worry about that a little bit closer to game time. You can try to get them too excited during the week and by the end of the week they are exhausted. From the point of view of trying to get them jacked up for practice or for the game on a Tuesday, I'm not too worried about that. But I'm most concerned about what type of work are they going to put in today.

On Caleb King:

Caleb has a fracture in his jaw. I'm not sure which side of the jaw. There are different kinds of fractures. This one the doctors don't feel will need any type of surgery, and actually, they feel like relatively soon we can protect him to the point where he can play. So it's not a season-ending thing by any stretch. It might be a stretch to say this week, but were not really counting that out.

There's a concussion that he also had from the shot that he took, and that's probably more of a concern right now. He can't do anything until the concussion symptoms clear. As soon as they clear, I think they would let him practice immediately with the no-contact and they might OK him to play as early as this week. I don't think thats out of the question, but it's probably not likely.

On who might start at Tennessee:

We'd probably start Richard (Samuel). We haven't had an in-depth discussion about that, but Richard would start.

On Caleb Kings injury:

I know I saw it because I watched the whole tape, but as I was watching the film I didn't say, Hey that was the shot that he got hurt on. As a matter of fact, I probably saw the film before I even got the report. To say I didn't see it would be a lie because I saw all the film, but I didn't say, Hey show me the film where Caleb got hurt. I couldn't tell you right now when it happened. I didn't study it and go back and say, Hey Ron (Courson), show me the hit.

Really, I'm going to now, because somebody upstairs asked me the same question. Really the first time this has come up is from the media, so I didnt know there was some question from that. Again, if you watch film you see those kind of shots every single day, every single game. It's not that unusual to have that. If you are tackling a runner, you have to stick your face at the guy and sometimes a runner at the last second drops his head. There are so many times helmets hit. But again I've not seen the shot, so I couldn't tell you. From what I understand he played after the tackle.

On Georgias celebration penalty against LSU:

I haven't been reading everything and watching the TV, but through Claude, (Felton) he's telling me its gaining a lot of attention. I don't know if I'm surprised because there have been other times in years past where in the Florida-Vanderbilt game a year or two or three ago, when Vanderbilt was preparing to go for two and had one of those. It's been talked about before.

I think that we need to have good sportsmanship. I think the kids absolutely need to celebrate good things happening. I think they probably have to understand how to go about it, and I think thats probably been the biggest issue, really understanding what you can and can't do. I did watch the video of A.J.s (Green) reaction after the catch. Thats basically how we coach it, go find your teammate and go celebrate with him. Also saw a local television station show video until he got to the sideline. I didn't see him do anything that would have warranted that call. It definitely changed the dynamics of the game, no question about that. Whether or not it would have ultimately changed the outcome of the game, no one really knows that.

One thing I'll say about Rogers Redding and his leadership of the officials is he has always been willing to say if he thought they made a mistake.. I appreciate that about him. No one is perfect. As far as philosophically on that question should we look into changing the rule? I think it might be time to look at that and say we just have to be careful not to take the joy out of the game for the players and the ability to celebrate something good. I do think that it has to be in a certain way. If it involves taunting an opponent, there certainly should be a flag for that.

On Rogers Redding:

He's always been willing to say if he thought it should'nt have been called. He'll say this should have been called or should'nt have been called. He'll shoot you straight and I appreciate that about him.

On Georgias midseason issues:

We have been inconsistent enough in the ball placement of some of our kicks. We are very, very immature on that team. We have too many young guys side-by-side on those teams, on the kickoff coverage team in particular it's probably the youngest bunch we've ever had out there. Even some of the guys that have some good experience on it, we've had some injury issues with that.

A guy like Chad Gloer, Chad is becoming a star on that team for us, and he pulls a hamstring on Wednesday or Thursday. Thats one more guy that had to get thrown in there that didn't really have the experience. We are learning. You only get good at something through experience. You hate to have bad things happen to you in the process, but they have.

We've also gone up against the two teams that hurt us the most had the two most prolific returners in the nation probably; maybe two of the top three in the country over the last couple of years. So it wasn't like we were going up against chopped liver. We have to continue to work on our consistency on the hang time and ball placement and guys abilities to basically execute whats being coached