FOOTBALL
Head Coach Mark Richt
Opening Statement…
“Good afternoon, everybody. If you’re wondering what happened to my chin, I think it had to be when I was hugging Richard Samuel after the thwarting of the fake punt. It happened right in front of me, and I just started hugging him. I think my chin just rubbed back and forth on his shoulder pad and wore a hole in there. But that was a lot of fun. We’re getting ready for this week with Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, right where I went to high school. My house couldn’t have been more than a mile and a half from campus, so this game is kind of close to home in a lot of ways for me. Coach Carl Pelini has taken the program over and is doing an outstanding job from what I can see so far. Their quarterback, Graham Wilbert is a tall kid who is very athletic, and they have some very good athletes. They’re just a lean, athletic football team and they run very well, which you would expect from a team in South Florida. We’re looking forward to getting back home between the hedges and getting a chance to play ball again.”
On Russ’ promotion to Uga IX…
“Uga is big, I know that. Early in my career I was the head coach, Coach Vince Dooley was the athletic director, Michael Adams was the president. We took a trip to Washington D.C., and when we got there there were lines forming to take pictures with me and Coach Dooley and President Adams. There was a massive crowd around Uga. It was 10-to-1, all of us put together versus Uga. Uga is big. He’s been on the cover of Sports Illustrated over the years. It’s a big deal. I think Russ has earned his stripes, and I think Russ is ready. He had a good offseason too from what I heard.”
On his conversation with Missouri’s Sheldon Richardson after the game…
“Sheldon basically said it was a good game, and coach I have a lot of respect for you and your team. He said he didn’t mean to disrespect. You could tell he was sincerely a pretty good guy. I thought it was big of him to grab me and say that he had a lot of respect for our program and our team. He’s a good player.”
On Sanders Commings’ suspension…
“I’ll just say that I think Sanders, after listening to everything and hearing everything, I felt like he did deserve to stay on the team. He needed to be disciplined for what he did. The amount of time that he was suspended was appropriate. It’s one thing to miss a game, and that’s hurts them. They don’t like it, but also part of the punishment is what you have to live with as a person because of all the attention that it gets. You have to look your parents in the eye, you have to look your teammates and coaches in the eye, you have to go to class. There is a lot of embarrassment to what happens when everything comes to light and is talked about over and over and over. He certainly didn’t behave the way he should, and he’s paying his debt to society, he’s paying his debt to the program in my opinion. I’m glad he’s handled everything the way he’s handled it, and I think he’ll move forward and be a positive person and a positive teammate.”
On the return of Sanders Commings…
“We’ll always cross-train Sanders Commings to play both cornerback and safety. He’s probably bigger than both of our safeties. He’s close to 220 pounds, and he runs and covers really well. He’s smart enough to play both positions, so we’ll train him at both. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Todd Grantham much about the plan this week and how exactly he wants to incorporate him.”
On Sanders Commings’ readiness to play…
“I think he’s ready. He’s in good condition, and he stayed focused. He worked hard, but you only get so much work once you get into the game planning of the opponents. You have to rep the guys who are going to play, so he hasn’t had a whole lot of reps. So we’ll see what kind of rust there is, but he’ll get a lot or reps this year.”
On any other suspensions…
“We’ll wait to see for sure what happens.”
On Malcolm Mitchell playing on offense and defense…
“Right now he’s going to continue to be in the defensive room. For how long, I don’t know. I don’t know if it will stay that way for the whole year, but for right now he needs to continue to work there. We want to have an offensive package for him. We would have had something for him this past game if it wasn’t for the injury and trying to see if he could come back from that. We didn’t want to do too much with him to overload the ankle. This week he’ll stay in the defensive room.”
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