Tuesday Press Conference ~ Defense

FOOTBALL

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

Coach Mark Richt

On Shawn Williams…

“I think Shawn is a real passionate guy. I think he loves Georgia and loves his team and wants us to play the best we can possibly play. I think his comments on Monday were more public than you would like, but I don’t think he meant any harm by it. I think his teammates know that, so it’s really not an issue. I did talk to him this morning about it. It was more of him coming to me. I think he read the comments and didn’t like not necessarily how it was reported, but when he read it himself, that’s really not the tone and what he was trying to communicate in his heart. He’s an emotional guy, and he wants to have success, and he wants to try to help motivate not only himself, but his teammates to play better. So, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you’d just assume not have it as public as it was. I don’t really think it’s a big issue. That’s how he felt about it, so he has a right to say it.”

On the performance of the defense this season…

“We want to play championship defense, there’s no doubt about that. Part of that is being able to stop the run or at least slow it down and force people into some situations where they’ve got to throw the football and force them into situations where they can’t just comfortably do what they do. Whatever they do, we have to find out what they do and make them do something different, and we just haven’t been able to do that enough. So that’s been frustrating for everybody.”

On Jarvis Jones…

“He practiced yesterday, and we think he will be able to play in the game.”

Linebacker Amarlo Herrera

On preparing for Florida…

“We’re working hard and getting after it in practice this week. We have more hitting and full contact periods every day, and we have more live periods for us to practice game time situations.”

On the atmosphere in the locker room…

“We’re all pumped up. It’s now or never for us. We have to get everything together and play a complete game for this week and for the rest of the season or else we won’t be able to accomplish our goals.”

On stopping the run against Florida…

“They’re a great rushing team. Obviously we’re going to have to stop the run, and we’re going to try and make them do what they don’t do a lot of, which is pass the ball. We’re going to try and give them a longer field. Anytime you give a team a longer field to work with, it’s harder to score. We have to do a better job of containing the quarterback and getting pressure on him.”

Linebacker Christian Robinson

On preparing for Florida…

“Today is going to be a physical practice. We’re going to have a few extra periods of first team defense vs. first team offense. It’s going to be a very physical game and if we want to win we have to prepare that way. Emphasis will be on first and second down situations; that’s where they’re most successful. We want to stop the run and make them throw deep and try and be in the right place at the right time.”

On containing Jeff Driskel…

“He’s definitely a running quarterback. He’s the second leading rusher on the team so he’s definitely a threat. It’s going to be all about containing him and taking away running lanes. We want to pressure him to make sure he feels like he doesn’t have time to find lanes and if we can do that then that will be a big help for us.”

On the atmosphere of the locker room…

“It’s the biggest game of the year for us so far, at this point. We have to try and keep our emotions in check because all of the fans are already down there getting ready for the game and we really have to just focus on what we have to do. We want to try and keep everybody positive because if we go in at halftime and things aren’t going the way you want them to, you have to be able to adjust and come back out and win the game.”