Weekly Press Conference, Continued

FOOTBALL

Coach Mark Richt

On Ben Jones:

He loves to play. He loves the position of lineman. He is like a pig in slop out there. He loves it. He loves trying to grind somebody into the ground every play, and he's actually starting to play a little smarter, because with that enthusiasm and energy and the mindset of I want to finish every block, sometimes you grab on too tight and too long, and sometimes you maybe block past the whistle, which you are not allowed to do.

He's had a few penalties that aren't very bright in that regard, but you dont want to temper him where he doesn't play hard. But you have to get him where he plays smart. He does love it. He loves to see his boys get yards and touchdowns. He's a good one.

On scoring 31 points after A.J. Green was injured against Auburn:

It was a good sign for us, no doubt. That would probably be the No. 1 topic of discussion today if we really didn't get much going offensively after that point, so it was great for a guy like Israel Troupe to come in and get a chance and then come through. That's a great thing for him and a great thing for us. To be able to put the points on the board without your top receiver, it was good.

Now going into the game you have a defense that knows he's not going to be there, and that may change how they decide to play us. This defense here, they don't tend to want to change for anybody. I don't know if they would have changed for A.J. of not, but I'll be shocked if they do anything differently than what they've been doing all year long because they have really done a nice job.

On whether Joe Cox throws a better deep ball than a short ball:

He throws a great deep ball. He throws a ball thats very catchable. If you can even remember back earlier in his career, the pass he threw to Martrez Milner (against Colorado in 2006), that was beautiful touch pass over a defender who was playing pretty tight. Even last years Florida game, he got in the game late and lofted one beautifully to Aron White and he's been doing it throughout the season. He gets good air on it. It drops down over that defender and he keeps it in play.

He can overthrow a bomb. He can throw it as far as he can and overthrow it, but it doesn't do him any good. He at least understands that its important to keep it in play, keep it outside and if nothing else, keep it short rather than long because the receiver almost always has an advantage on a short ball thats outside, so we've had a lot of balls either hit the hands of our receivers or where they've always had a chance to catch a deep ball. This last game was a little bit uncharacteristic with the shorter throws. He's a pretty accurate guy all the way around, but he certainly threw the deep ball better this last game.

On the last three games of the season:

I'll say this, and it's definitely good policy for me. It's not the answer you want, but my main focus is Kentucky. That's where I have to keep my mind. That's what I have to focus on. Focusing on anything too far down the road is not healthy for me or the team, so my goal is to really make sure we are ready to play against Kentucky right now.

On Orson Charles:

We knew Orson was talented when we went after him. Everybody in the country was trying to get that kid. We were fortunate to get him at the end, way at the end. We're asking a tight end to run routes like a receiver, catch like a receiver, block like a lineman and being just that one same person is not that easy to do, especially for a freshman.

Like I'm talking about freshman tailbacks, they naturally can run, but sometimes they have trouble pass protecting and running routes. I'd say Orsons forte would have been as a route-runner and a pass-receiver, but you still have to learn what to do in those areas. Not that he wasn't a good blocker in high school, he was and was very tenacious, but his size is not one that you would say he's going to match up and maul some of these defensive ends in our league. It's all he can do to get after them and get the job done, but the better technique he has and the better understanding of where these players are trying to go, he can do it.

It's when he's a little uncertain where he gets thrown around a little bit or gets knocked into the hole or whatever it is from time to time. With another offseason of strength and knowledge, he's going to be a heck of a player and I don't want to discount what Aron's done either.

Aron has really come a long way, but Aron showed up at 212 pounds. It took him a while to get in position to play like he's playing now. I'll say this too, I'm very optimistic about what big Arty Lynch is going to do for us too. We're really sitting good at tight end right now.

On whether he had doubts that Orson Charles could have an impact as a freshman:

We were counting on him to come and make an impact for us as a freshman, at least wanting to put him in position to do that and figured from what we'd seen on film that he would be able to make an impact. We try to put them all in position to do that. Some are able and some aren't quite ready, but we had a pretty good feeling the he could do it.

On who will get the snaps to replace Bacarri Rambo:

More than likely its going to be Reshad (Jones) and Bryan Evans. I would think they'll get more. I'm not saying there's going to be a third guy plugged in to rotate. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but Quintin Banks, I think would be the first guy to do that. Mikiri Pugh is also coming on at safety. It could be either one of those guys, but will it be the same reps that Rambo was getting? Probably not.

On Bacarri Rambo:

All the testing he did was fine. He's out this week, and we're just going to hope he'll stay symptom-free for the rest of the week.

On the status of Bacarri Rambo and A.J. Green for the Georgia Tech game:

I'd say we just don't know, but we haven't counted it out. We haven't counted either one of them out. These are kind of day-to-day type situations. With one you have a pain issue and a healing issue, and you have the other young man Rambo with just wanting to make sure all the symptoms are clear and he's safe.

On Georgias three senior defensive tackles Geno Atkins, Jeff Owens and Kade Weston:

We honor all of our seniors as captains, so every senior will have a C on his jersey. But there are only four who can come out. We pick offense, defense and special teams; usually one or two offense and if there are two offense, it's one defense and one special teamer. We go to deciding who are the captains to walk up for the coin toss, and I say we I'm talking about the staff.

Joe Cox on offense and defense you have Kade, Jeffrey and Geno. On the special teams it could have been Justin Fields or Prince (Miller), and we decided to go with Prince. Then you have those three guys. You can't have five; you can only have four, so there are only two spots left. We pretty much had to flip a coin. It ended up being Jeffrey and Kade as the guys who would walk out. I almost thought about not doing a special teams guy or just saying can we throw five guys out there, because all three of those guys deserve to walk out there. I think they've done very, very well.

I think the guy who made the most improvement from his junior year to his senior year was Kade Weston. Kade went from a guy who was a pretty good football player, a good, solid football player to a guy who really started to dominate. It all started with his offseason. That guy trimmed his body. That guy got in the best shape of his life and he changed his physique and his changed his quickness and the ability to change direction and his ability to play hard every down without the fatigue factor. Jeffrey and Geno kind of had those kind of productive years prior to this one, but Kade I think made the biggest jump from last year to this year.

On Prince Miller:

Prince did a great job for us in his career, and he actually this year took on more of a leadership role in a verbal way with the young corners that he's trying to help mold. Even the secondary in general, he's being a little more demanding of his teammates in practice that I've seen. Just to play as many snaps as that guy plays, punt return, gunner.

That gunner, he's one of the best, and he's almost playing every snap on defense. He's probably played more plays than anybody on our team this season. He hasn't complained one time. Early in the season when it's hot it is tough. It's cooled down a little bit and I think it's been a little easier on him. Prince has been very solid in a lot of areas and has been a great Bulldog for us.

On Georgias bowl scenarios:

It seems like there is a big wad. You have two guys over here, one kind of over here and then there is a big wad. Were in the middle of that wad, and I'd like to separate from that group if we could and convince the bowl people that weve done that. It's going to be interesting.

Quarterback Joe Cox

On playing in night games:

I like night games. I think it gives you a chance to get good sleep and to really just be able to relax on the way up to the game. It's tough having early games because you wake up at like seven or eight, you eat and then it seems like you are on the way to the stadium and you're ready to go. You don't really have a chance to think about anything or calm down or be able to relax. You really just don't have a chance. I think everybody really enjoys night games being able to kind of sit around all day and think about what we have to do and get relaxed about it.

On if it is motivating to know that if Georgia wins against Kentucky it will be 5-3 in the SEC and finish second in the Eastern Division behind Florida:

Absolutely. That's the best we can do now, and we definitely want finish up that way. It's not what we wanted, but I would still be proud of finishing up this year strong and being right behind Florida in the east. That's definitely what we are shooting for at this point.

On throwing a deep pass compared to a short pass:

A lot of times on shorter routes you are dealing with people in your face, you got to have a lot quicker feet, its placement and people are breaking in and out. On a deep ball, you kind of just get to take a good drop and you don't have to worry about anybody knocking it down. You kind of just get to throw it out there for somebody to run under, and if you've practiced it enough, it's something you've been doing as long as you've been playing quarterback.

I do enjoy throwing the deep ball, and I always have. It's something I got used to high school with Mohamed Massaquoi. As long as we can keep hitting them, I think that's really helping out because big plays produce momentum.