FOOTBALL
Coach Mark Richt
On Georgia’s run blocking against South Carolina:
Run blocking was fair. And I say that if I had a bunch of freshman linemen, I’d say that is was probably a pretty decent day. But for that group of guys, I think we can do better. We’re challenging our runners to get more out of what is being blocked. That kid from South Carolina did. Not that they didn’t block well, they did block well, but when you add the yards after contact that he had it makes any line look better.
On Georgia’s running game against South Carolina:
We ran the ball after the first little bit. It just didn’t look as good. We ran it better early. We had a couple of plays pop out of there early, but we did continue to run the ball. It’s not like we threw the ball an awful lot of times. We only threw it 19 times.
We didn’t have many plays, period. There were a couple of reasons for that. One was both teams were using the majority of the clock. Even though South Carolina was no-huddling, the majority of their plays took most of the clock. Every once in a while they would get to the line and snap it, maybe two or three times in the game. Most of the time they were using the cadence. They would try to see what was going on and then look to the coach, the coach would make a call, and that’s what happens. They were using a good bit of their clock. We were using a lot of our play clock. That was one thing.
The other thing was both teams ran the ball a god bit, so that clock was grinding up.
The reasons why we didn’t have many plays are two things. We didn’t have enough third down conversions to continue drives, and our defense, conversely, didn’t get them off the field when we got them in a third down situation. Some people say the offense has to do more to get the defense off the field and there is some truth to that, but the defense always has the right to stop them on third down if they want to get off the field. It’s everybody’s responsibility to rest the defense. Get a three-and-out and you can rest all you want. If the offense gets three-and-out, you can get another three-and-out.
The last think I’m going to do is start trying to say, this side of the ball has to do better because of that side of the ball. That’s a bunch of junk. What’s important is we are a team and we believe in each other and we know no matter what the situation is, we have to do enough to win the ballgame.
On Todd Grantham’s message to the defense:
I wasn’t in that room when he gave his message.
The bottom line is we have got to do a better job of just sticking our face on that runner and wrapping him up and running our feet.
In our perimeter, our defensive backs, in my opinion, were not doing that. They were deciding to try to go low on the guy or they were trying to knock the guy down and not really face that issue and get right down the middle of him and wrap him up. You watch games, there are a lot of DBs that are doing the very same thing. We have to have the confidence to go face him up. Once a defender begins to wrap up a guy, then the other guys can come along and strip the ball or join the posse and knock him back or whatever it is. That’s one of the biggest parts.
The other thing is our defensive line needs to drop anchor a little bit better. We got displaced a little bit. We got moved around too much, not every time but enough times where there was too big of a seam for a linebacker to really get a flush hit on the back. If everybody handles their gap responsibility well, when that linebacker fits into that opportunity to make the tackle or a safety who comes into the box, if that window is not very big, then we can make that strike in that small amount of space.
But if the space gets too big, then the guy has a two-way go. When we say a back has a two-way go, he has space to make a guy miss rather than he has to go through that hole and hit whatever is in there. That was part of the issue too.
On Georgia getting bigger at the nose guard position:
There was so much three-receiver stuff that we were in mostly our nickel package, and our nose guards come out when we are in nickel. They basically got into a three-receiver set to run the ball. That was their strategy and it was good strategy. We didn’t have enough beef that could stand in there and handle it. We’ll have the ability to do that even in those nickel situations.
On whether there would be any personnel changes on offense or defense:
Not really. There is no change. That’s not even a change, really. It’s just having a guy playing an inside technique that he would normally play anyway, but just do it in a four-down set rather than taking the nose guards out every time we go to a four-down look.
On being asked if Georgia played timid:
I went and watched the TV copy last night. I got three quarters of it in, just to kind of get a flavor of that. I do that regularly. I usually do it the day of the game, but I didn’t TiVo it. I wasn’t on the ball there.
I like to see what everybody else sees and in TV copy, you can see more detail than you can see on our tape, believe it or not at times. There are certain things that you just can’t see in tapes that we get.
There was a picture of one of our players who looked like he turned down the opportunity to lay into somebody that it could’ve made the difference on a big play that they had.
That’s not Georgia football. The caller was right. It looked timid to me too.
On whether Georgia did not play physical enough:
All it takes is one image or two images to say, wow. But that’s not the characteristic of our football team or our defense, that one particular play.
When you say, ‘Were we physical enough?’
We probably were not in that particular game. They played more physical than we did. I think that was definitely the difference in the game. If we would have made more plays, there was an opportunity to hit a touchdown pass where we kick a field goal. There was another opportunity to hit a touchdown pass where we end up kicking a field goal, then we fumble inside. If we get a score on the board at a crucial time, then I think maybe they can’t be quite as patient with their plan.
We never put enough points on the board to get them to feel uncomfortable doing what they were doing, which is basically run the zone play. If we put too many in the box, chuck it out to those gigantic receivers and get what you can get. That works good if you have a good, comfortable lead, which they had a comfortable enough of a lead.
It’s the offense’s responsibility to put some points on the board, too, which I think could have changed that game.
Also field position, we didn’t change the field position even on a couple of times when our defense was getting some stops and we were starting at the 10 yard line or the nine yard line, we have to at worse get two or three first downs and punt them deep and make it more difficult for them. There were a lot of things that we have to do better. Everything is correctable, and I think our guys will be very anxious to play again and do a better job.
I’ll go back to when I was coaching at Florida State and we were doing a lot of four wide receiver stuff.
We were going fast break, no-huddle, all that good stuff. I can’t tell you how many defensive coordinators said those guys aren’t very physical. They are a finesse offense. The bottom line is if you move the ball and you score points, I guess that’s the point I am getting to.
But if you are going to line up in the I-formation and say you are going to run the football and you are going to play-action pass as a good part of what you do, then you have to be physical. The more physical you are, the better chance you have of getting it done. You can be real physical and block the wrong guy. You have to be disciplined and you have to get the hat on the right people. If everybody puts their hat on the right spot and runs their feet and just ties up a guy, you can gain yards and you can throw the football and do extremely well. You don’t necessarily have to maul somebody every time.
Football is a very physical game and both sides of the ball, there are images of our guys knocking their guys down too. They just had more than we did. You are going to get knocked down sometimes. You just have to get your rear end up and get back in pursuit of the play and make a play.
Defensive Lineman DeAngelo Tyson
On the defensive play in the South Carolina game:
We just did a poor job of tackling. We were trying to thud them up instead of wrapping up like we've been taught. It was just bad fundamentals. This week, we're going to correct those things, and hopefully, we're not going to make those mistakes again.
On facing Arkansas:
It's going to be a tough test. Ryan Mallett is good quarterback, and I know he's going to come out and play his 'A' game. Coach Grantham is going to come up with a good game plan to slow him down a little. If we go out and practice and learn what we're supposed to do, we should be successful on Saturday.
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