Dawgs Open Spring Practice

FOOTBALL

The Georgia football team opened its 2012 spring camp with a two-hour workout in shorts and helmets Tuesday at the Woodruff Practice Fields. The team will hold 14 more practices over the next four weeks, including the annual G-Day game April 14 at 3 p.m.

“It was fun to be out there and practice football again,” said coach Mark Richt. “We had great weather. It was probably a little bit warmer than they would’ve hoped, but it’s better than freezing rain. An awful lot of work got done today, even though we weren’t running into each other. A lot of guys got reps. Spring is a great time of the year when there are no scout teams, so when everybody gets a rep, they get a quality rep on the side of the ball they came to play.”

Among the players to get reps at cornerback on Tuesday was rising sophomore Malcolm Mitchell, who earned All-SEC honors for the Dawgs as a receiver in 2011.

“It was fun to watch Mitchell get out there and compete,” Richt said. “You could tell he wasn’t quite sure what to do every play, but he is playing with a lot of enthusiasm and certainly can break on the ball and change direction. I like how our cornerbacks did in general. They did a nice job. “

Tuesday marked the first college practice for freshman tailback Keith Marshall and freshman quarterback Faton Bauta, who enrolled at UGA in January. It was also the first practice at Georgia for junior college offensive lineman Mark Beard.

“You can tell Marshall has very good quickness and very good speed,” Richt said. “He seems to have good running instincts. For a guy in his first college practice and considering everybody else knows the system, I thought he did a pretty good job. You can tell he did an awful lot of studying from the moment he got here until now to be able to function like he did.”

Georgia will practice again on Wednesday and Thursday. Following an off day on Friday, the Dawgs will return to the practice fields Saturday morning.