Tuesday Press Conference ~ Offense

FOOTBALL

Coach Mark Richt and a delegation of football players met with the media Tuesday during the Dawgs’ weekly press luncheon. They offered the following comments:

Coach Mark Richt

On Georgia’s offense…

“When we finally decided to try to do the no-huddle again, of course when I first got here we were trying to do that, but back then there was a little different attitude towards it I thought. I though that the Southeastern Conference in general wasn’t wanting to embrace it much, and I felt like even the officiating – they weren’t in a hurry to set the ball down and go. Now everybody has bought in, and it seems like if you want to go fast you can go fast. I think there is a lot of advantage to going fast. That helped us I think. The more plays you run, the more yards you get, the more points you score. We’re like anybody else. We’re going to watch people do what they do and try to learn why they do it. When you first start seeing people in the pistol you are kind of wondering why. Then after you experience it a little bit or study it a little bit and see the advantages of it, it’s worth doing. It’s not that hard to do. It’s basically the I-formation or a one-back set. It’s the plays you would run under center with the back six, seven, eight yards deep. Now you’re in the gun, you’re just turning and handing it, but it allows the back to come downhill with his pads square being able to make cuts that are a little bit different from trying to make a cut when you’re running laterally from the gun. Does it allow you to free release your back as quickly as you want in pass protection? It really doesn’t, but if you’re thinking run, play-action, the pistol is a pretty good way to go.”

On the intensity and diligence of Aaron Murray’s weekly pre-game preparations…

“He’s an outstanding student, first of all. So he just finds time to take care of the schoolwork, and then he finds time to take care of studying this game plan and putting the extra time in. I know he’s here on Sundays, and he’s probably here when I’m not looking. I don’t know if we’ve given a guy more responsibility than Aaron. We haven’t. Matthew Stafford certainly had a lot of leeway in what he did and he was a very good student of the game as well, but I think we’ve just added a few more things to put on the quarterback. He just pays the price that I haven’t seen many guys play.”

On Parker Welch…

“Coach Mike Bobo is basically allowing Parker and Christian LeMay to compete on a weekly basis to see who earns the right to get in the game first if we get into that type of situation. Parker has been doing well. Parker has been in the system a little bit longer, and he’s very diligent in the way he prepares as well. Coach Bobo felt like he earned the right to go in first, so that’s what we did. We’ll continue to do that.”

On Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall…

“When you have success early you do have fun. They’ve had success early, and they’ve earned it. They’ve worked hard. Of course Keith Marshall paid the price of coming in as a mid-year enrollee, so he went all through spring. He had a pretty good working knowledge of what was going on by the time camp rolled around. Todd Gurley came in the summer and being friends, Keith, I’m sure was helping him. Murray and some of the other boys were helping him learn what to do. Both of them were very diligent in wanting to learn what to do and how to do it. You watch them when they practice our blitz pickup. They are really locked in and wanting to improve every time they get a rep in practice. They know how important that is as well. I’ve been real pleased with them. They are a very mature couple of guys.”

On Georgia’s offensive line…

“They’re doing well. I think the biggest contrast you could have is if you were at our very first spring practice in pads. If you watch that and then you watch them today, the difference is unbelievable. I know Coach Will Friend, Coach Bobo and myself and probably every other offensive coach were trying not to hang our heads, thinking we have some problems, we have some things we have to iron out. To their credit they have worked their tails off. The linemen knew we had some issues. All summer long they decided as a group to get up at the crack of dawn and be the first ones there in the weight room. They worked extremely hard with our strength staff. Going against the defensive front they were going against day after day after day they just had to get better or get embarrassed. They got better.

“I don’t know if they are the best offensive line in America, but they sure have made a lot of improvement, and they are playing well. They are playing well together. If you have five guys who know who to hit and they’ll get after you, they’ll fight hard, they’ll play hard, it gives you a chance. That’s kind of what’s going on right now. We’ve had very few missed assignments, and they are playing together well, they are communicating well. They like each other, and when you’re blocking for these young backs I think it kind of fires them up. When you’re blocking for a guy like Murray, who can get the job done, they know if they give him enough time to get the job done with the receivers we have, it gets them excited. Coach Friend has really done a great job.”

On David Andrews facing Kwame Geathers and John Jenkins in practice…

“That will help him. David has been going against some huge nose guards. Whether you go against the number one or number two guy, he’s a huge man. Whether you are in a pass pro drill or an 11-on-11 just every single day he’s used to blocking guys who are taller and much heavier than he is. The one advantage he does have is he has the leverage as the low man. He is going to get under those guys whether he wants to or not. In some ways that’s helpful, but it won’t be the first experience of going against a big man like that.”

On Chris Burnette…

“Chris is playing great. He’s just playing harder. He’s really making a point of trying to finish blocks. I think just the thought of getting engaged to be married made him decide it’s time to be full-grown man. He’s always had what coaches call punch. Some guys are stout on contact. There might be a big, strong-looking guy and for whatever reason he can’t get movement. He doesn’t have that punch to knock people and move people. Burnette’s body type, when he got here especially, it wasn’t all that impressive frankly, but he had some natural punch about him. Now that he’s gotten bigger and stronger, he’s always been athletic, he just moves people. He’s been finishing blocks better than probably anybody up front. Although David Andrews is finishing blocks pretty good as well. It’s contagious. I see Kenarious Gates starting to want to do that more. They are all trying to finish a little bit better now instead of blocking their guy long enough to let a back go through. Now they are trying to run their feet until the whistle blows and try to get them on the ground. Burnette is doing a good job, and Chris is a very good leader. In order to be a good leader you have to be very strong in your character, and I don’t know if there is anybody stronger in character than Chris. And the guys know it and respect that about him. When he talks they listen. He gives some pretty rousing pregame speeches in the locker room from time to time when it’s just the players.”

Quarterback Aaron Murray

On his preparation…

“It’s something I’ve always prided myself in – trying to out-work everyone else. I use the analogy of being in school, and if you’ve got a test you want to feel good going into it. You want to feel prepared, not that you wish you’d studied more or read another chapter. I never want to have that feeling come Saturday. I want to know that I know their defense, the game plan, everything, and that I feel confident. I don’t want to go into a game not feeling confident and ready to go.”

On his relationship with Tennessee QB Tyler Bray…

“We met at the Manning Passing Academy Camp and became friends. We text every week, a group of us from the camp. It’s fun – the quarterbacks can check in on each other. Tyler and I text to see how each other are doing. He’s a great kid, a great competitor. He competes hard. We pick each other’s brains on different aspects – playing in the SEC, their offense, our offense. He’s a cool kid.”

Wide Receiver Tavarres King

On the wide receivers’ performance so far…

“I think it’s going great. I said early on we’d have success with our weapons out side, and it’s going well. The opposing defense can’t key in on one person.”

On Aaron Murray’s preparation...

“That guy is here for hours watching film. He puts so much effort into what he does, and he’s passionate about it. He wants to succeed and help others around him succeed. He does his best all the time.”

On the improvement of Georgia’s offensive line this season…

“It’s been amazing. I knew it had to happen and that it would happen. They’ve had to go against our defense every day, and our defensive front is just amazing. There was only one thing the line could do and that’s get better, and they have.”

On the Tennessee wide receiving corps…

“Those guys are great. They play with a lot of energy and passion. They’ve got some good wide outs up there, but I feel like we have some great ones here as well. We’ve got a special group.”

On Tennessee’s defense…

“They’re very good. They’re not going to beat themselves, they’re very fundamental. They’re going to test us – ‘us’ meaning the wide outs. They’re going to get in our faces and press us up a bit. It’s another challenge we’ll see this week, but we’re taking pride in that this week getting the work done and working on our man to man and getting after it.”