Tuesday Practice Report

FOOTBALL

The Dawgs (5-1, 3-1 SEC) practiced in pads for the final time this week on Tuesday as they continued to finalize their game plan for Saturday's Southeastern Conference road date at Kentucky. They worked out in helmets, shoulder pads and shorts for just over two hours.

"I thought it was a good practice," coach Mark Richt said. "The extra day of preparation because of last weekend's open date should be very helpful. It's a good that we had a head start to begin with. It's going to help Malcolm Mitchell too. Malcolm's had plenty of time to learn what to do on both sides of the ball. That was actually a little bonus."

Tuesday's injury report included three additions, tailback Ken Malcome, linebacker Dexter Morant and fullback Dustin Roystin all missed the session due to various unrelated illnesses. Linebacker Jarvis Jones was again held out of action due to a sprained right ankle.

No. 13 Georgia's contest with Kentucky (1-6, 0-4) has been set for a 7:08 p.m. kickoff, and the game will be televised on FSN and also available via espn3.com.

Tuesday Press Conference

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

Opening Statement…

“We have been getting ready the past couple of weeks for Kentucky. We’re looking forward to going to that ballgame. We haven’t had the best of luck out there in Lexington with some very close ballgames. I have a lot of respect for Coach Phillips, and he really does a great job. We also have a lot of respect for what Coach Sanders does offensively.

It’s been tough for them going through two or three quarterbacks. I can’t imagine what that would be like.

Kentucky’s always done a great job on special teams and they’ve always had some outstanding blocking schemes to block your punt, so we’ve got to make sure we’re ready for that. We know we have a lot of big challenges in that area, as well.”

On the team’s mentality moving forward after the South Carolina game…

“We need to beat Kentucky right now. That’s really all I’m worried about right now, and then the next week we’ll worry about that game. We’re a pretty good team, and we thought we could beat anyone we play when the season began, so that hasn’t changed.”

On letdowns in the first half this season…

“I think everyone will have things you didn’t prepare for and things that catch you off guard. Sometimes you just get overaggressive when it comes to wanting to stop the run and be physical. All that’s good, but you have a certain area of responsibility that you have to take care of.”

On recent offensive and defensive miscommunication issues…

“I know we’ve given up some big plays off not communicating well in the back and making mistakes and being over-aggressive on play-action fakes. I don’t think there’s been a ton of missed assignments offensively, but when you do have negative yardage plays, a lot of times it is a guy turning someone free rather than getting whipped. But I don’t want to talk about South Carolina anymore. They beat us soundly and congratulations to them, but we’ve moved forward. Every game you’ll have miscommunications, and we’re not going to sit here and make excuses other than that we didn’t do a good job and we have to get better.”

On the team’s cohesion…

“When you have a group of linemen or the defensive backfield, communication is very important, and the more reps you get with the same five, they tend to communicate well. The more they play together, the better chance they have of not making those mistakes.”

On whether or not anyone is looking ahead towards NFL draft projections…

No, not at all. I think there are a lot of guys that have an NFL future, but I think they know that the better we play as a team, the better everyone looks. I don’t think you can play in such a way that it wouldn’t benefit the team if you did well. I think everybody knows that every goal we’ve set for ourselves, other than winning every game, is still a very real possibility.”

On sympathizing with Kentucky and their share of injuries and struggles this season…

“Well people have asked me those types of questions before, and especially last season when we go 0-2, so I think somebody addressed that question in regard to me and how we’re doing at Georgia. My answer was that I don’t expect anybody to feel sorry for me. I expect everybody to hook it up and play the very best that they can play. I expect everybody to watch film and get the best plan possible and try to exploit whatever can then be exploited and play 60 minutes as hard and as fast as you can play against anybody you play. So I’m sure that’s how all of the coaches feel in the league.”

On Kentucky’s recent pile-up of injuries…

“They have had a lot of injuries. No coach wants to make any excuses for anything, but there’s no question that if you’re playing a bunch of true freshman on your team and in the back end of your defense, that’s tough. I think they’re almost all true freshmen playing in the back end, so it’s tough. Those guys all want to play SEC ball, but if you get too many of them playing at the same time, you’re going to have some problems. So how many guys will be back healthy, I don’t know. If you watch them play us last year, and a lot of those guys are back, and if you watch the first half of their South Carolina game, you see what you could be in for. Some teams, especially young teams, play better at home than away, and we’ll be at their home and they’ll have a comfort zone there. We just have to get after it because we have our own problems. We have enough problems of our own.”

On recruiting Kentucky wide receiver Demarco Robinson...

“I remember him being in our camps and being a guy we liked. He’s a good football player. Kentucky’s always done extremely well recruiting our state.”

Monday Practice Report

FOOTBALL

The Georgia football team continued preparations for its game at Kentucky on Monday with a two-hour, full-pads session on the Woodruff Practice Fields.

The Dawgs logged three days of practice last week and then were idle over the weekend. Because of the open date, coach Mark Richt had his players strap on the full pads a day earlier than normal. The Dawgs will go in shells on Tuesday and will have dress rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday.

"I thought we had a good practice today," Richt said. "We got what we needed today. It will be nice to have an extra day to prepare this week. Our focus and energy were good today, and we'll need to maintain those levels as we go through the rest of the week."

The Dawgs, who are 13th in the AP poll and 11th in the initial BCS standings, will visit Kentucky on Saturday at 7 p.m. in a game that will be televised by FSN. Georgia is 5-1 overall, including a 3-1 record in the Southeastern Conference. Kentucky dropped a 49-7 decision to Arkansas last weekend to move to 1-6 overall and 0-4 in the league.

Guard Chris Burnette said the weekend break was beneficial for the Dawgs.

"It was pretty good, especially the timing of it right in the middle of the season," Burnette said. "After a loss like that to South Carolina, it was kind of good to rejuvenate and get your mind back ready for the second-half grind of the season. … I feel like we were going to try and come out here with the same intensity no matter what, but seeing over the weekend that we still have a chance to accomplish our goals keeps you amped up. You can't focus on what happened in the past. You've got to push forward and see what you can do in the future."

Monday's injury report included end Sterling Bailey (right thumb sprain, surgery Monday, out); linebacker Brandon Burrows (left hand second metacarpal fracture, surgery Oct. 11, out); and linebacker Jarvis Jones (right ankle sprain, out).

Dawgs Getting Ready For Kentucky

FOOTBALL

After a bye weekend that allowed players time for rest and recuperation, the Dawgs will return to the gridiron this Saturday as they travel to Lexington, to face SEC foe Kentucky in a 7 p.m. matchup on FSN.

Georgia enters the contest with a 5-1 overall record, including a 3-1 mark in conference play after dropping a 35-7 decision in its last outing on October 6th at South Carolina. Kentucky is coming off a 49-7 loss over the weekend to Arkansas to fall to 1-6 on the year (0-4 SEC).

“Right now, I think the best thing for Georgia is to focus on getting better and focus on Kentucky,” said coach Mark Richt on Sunday evening. “We’ve got to get back to running the ball like we did earlier in the year. We need to get more turnovers, and we need to protect the ball a little bit better. We still have some things to clean up in special teams. We had the break right at the midpoint and with six games to go, we want to finish strong. If we can keep improving as we go, we have a chance to have some fun in the end here. We’ve got a ways to go, though.”

After the tough loss in the team’s last outing against the Gamecocks, Richt stressed the importance of the time and effort that goes into opponent preparations on a weekly basis.

“You just get the best information that you can get about an opponent,” Richt said. “We have a four-game breakdown of the opposing team. It’s not necessarily their last four games, but it’s the ones that have the most common formations, plays, and personnel groupings that will give you the best gauge of how they’ll play us. No matter who they played last week, you still have to study real hard to see who’s there and who isn’t, and then you make your plans based on that.”

When describing the loss to South Carolina last week, Richt noted the ways in which the Dawgs varied their typical game plan slightly to adjust for the strengths of the South Carolina defense.

“We did a couple of things differently in the South Carolina game because of their edge pass rushers,” Richt said. “They really have three good pass rushers there. You want to help your tackles out, so we did things a little differently there in pass protection, too. We may have spent too much time and scheme on that where we should have maybe just done what we did all year long. We probably should have stayed with our run game a little more than we did, but South Carolina made the plays early in the game and got the lead, and we probably just didn’t stick with that inside run game as much as we should have done.”

With wide receiver Michael Bennett suffering a torn ACL in practice prior to the South Carolina game, Richt noted the impact of the remaining receivers stepping up in Bennett’s absence.

“I think wide receiver Chris Conley has been playing well, but the ball just hasn’t come to him quite as much this year,” Richt said. “Marlon Brown was in and out last year, and Rantavious Wooten didn’t play last year. We had a situation where Malcolm Mitchell pulled a hamstring and was out for a bit, so that might have been why we decided to play Chris more last year. This year, he’s still getting a pretty good amount of reps, but just not as many balls have come to him while he’s been in. But with Michael out, it may be that Chris now gets more opportunities.”

Just as many of the players used this weekend to relax and take a bit of a mental break from football, Richt also found time to relax by watching his son, Jon, play football. As the quarterback for Mars Hill College, Jon led his team to a 35-28 victory over Catawba College on Saturday evening, and the entire Richt family was in attendance at the game.

“Jon’s game went great, and he played well,” Richt said. “They won, and he set school records in attempts, completions, and passing yardage, so it was fun. It was a beautiful day, perfect weather, and it was probably the last time I’ll get to see him play college ball in person, so it was a great evening with the whole family.”

Tuesday Practice Report

FOOTBALL

The No. 14 Dawgs (5-1, 3-1 SEC) practiced for just over an hour in jerseys and shorts on Tuesday afternoon and then ended the session by visiting with a group of fans. It was the first practice since Saturday's loss at No. 6 South Carolina.

"I was pleased with the energy and effort," coach Mark Richt said.

Just under 50 representatives from Extra Special People, an organization that assists individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, toured the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, watched a portion of practice and then visited with the team.

"Extra Special people…they're awesome," Richt said. "We normally have an event with them in the summer prior to the season kicking off but we didn't this year because of a scheduling issue. So we got them to come visit us and it was a lot of fun. I don't know who had more fun, us or them."

Richt also announced the captains for Georgia's next game, which is a week from Saturday at Kentucky. Chris Burnette will be offensive captain, John Jenkins and Abry Jones will be defensive captains and freshman Josh Harvey-Clemons will be special teams captain.

"It's rare that a true freshman becomes a captain, but the staff and I felt he did the best," Richt said. "Every special team he was on, he excelled and had a winning grade. All of the coaches were saying how excellent he played. It is really hard to become a captain as a freshman, especially true freshman, but he earned this and I'm proud of him."

The Dawgs' injury report included six players.

Wide receiver Michael Bennett had reconstructive surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee at St. Mary's Hospital on Tuesday. He is slated to be discharged tomorrow and expected to make a full and complete recovery.

Other players who missed the workout included tight end Jared Chapple (right lower leg contusion), linebacker Jarvis Jones (right ankle sprain), running back Brandon Harton (left thumb surgery) and tight end Cole Trolinger (concussion). Cornerback Luis Capella was limited with no contact due to a right shoulder sprain.

Georgia's date with Kentucky (1-5, 0-3) has been set for a 7:00 p.m. kickoff on Saturday, October 20, and the game will be televised on either ESPN2, ESPNU or FSN.