Houston Honored By SEC

FOOTBALL

Junior outside linebacker Justin Houston has been named the Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Week, according to a league announcement today.

Houston, a 6-3, 258-pound native of Statesboro, muscled past his Kentucky opposition for five tackles, including two sacks and three tackles for loss.  He also recovered a fumble, recorded seven quarterback hurries and had a pass break-up. 

Third on Georgia’s defense with 40 tackles this season, Houston remains the SEC leader in sacks with 8.5 and is second in the league with 14.0 tackles for loss.

Houston is playing his first season at outside linebacker after lining up as defensive end his first three years.

Thanks in part of Houston’s presence, the Dawgs have forced 15 turnovers and converted them into 52 points while Georgia has only had eight miscues that have turned into seven points.  This turnover margin (+7) ranks second in the SEC and 18th in the nation.

Houston was named the SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week last season for his performance against Arizona State. 

This is Georgia’s fourth SEC weekly football award of the 2010 season.

Following Saturday’s game, Kentucky coach Joker Phillips said, “Georgia is one of the most physical teams that we've played this year.”

“That’s music to my ears, quite frankly,” Richt said. “That’s one of the things we wanted people to feel about us. We wanted to earn respect, and it sounds we did earn their respect. I want people to look at our film and say, ‘These guys played in a hard, physical nature.’ I thought we played hard and I thought we played physical. We’re a better team than we were a month ago. I’m just thankful we’re getting some wins to go with it.”

Richt said tailback Caleb King’s two-game suspension is over and that he will be in the rotation for Saturday's game against the Gators.

“I can’t think of any reason why he won’t get back in the mix,” Richt said. “He’s played pretty well this season and he’s improved in a lot of areas. We are confident in his ability to play. I don’t know how many carries he’ll get. We’ll observe all the guys during practice this week. Once a young man carries out his discipline, he’s back in good standing with us. We’ll give him as many reps as we think he deserves based on his practice.”

Richt was asked about the challenge of facing Florida with the Gators coming out of their bye week.

“It’s a little more of a mystery than if we’d played them without an open date,” Richt said. “With an open date, you have time to make change, radical changes if you choose to do so. So we’re not 100 percent what we’ll see. But it’s hard to change everything. We have some basic idea. I’m sure Coach Meyer and his staff will have some interesting twists for us to deal with. I’m sure there will be some things that are brand new to us.”