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. They offered the following comments:

Coach Mark Richt

Opening Statement…

“Here we go. We used to play South Carolina earlier in the year, and now it’s game six for both of us. Normally when we play South Carolina, both teams are undefeated in league play because it’s always been the first one, but this year both teams have found a way to stay undefeated. So I know it’s definitely an exciting time for their program and for our program. We all know that ESPN College Game Day is going to be there, so that’s usually a pretty good sign that it’s a big ballgame. A lot of people are going to be watching and are going to be very interested in what happens, so we obviously have a lot of respect for South Carolina. They’ve beaten us the past two seasons, and of course they finished either in the top five or top ten last year. They’ve had some really outstanding years and breaking records left and right. I don’t think they’ve lost an SEC Eastern Division game for quite some time, so they’re used to winning and winning in this league. I’m very impressed with what they’re doing.

“Their offensive linemen are very outstanding run blockers to run the ball as well as they do with Marcus Lattimore and Connor Shaw. They’re able to run the ball extremely well in the fourth quarter at the end of ballgames. We haven’t had a whole lot of success in the past slowing Lattimore down, so that will be a great challenge for us.

“Of course, you’ve got Coach Steve Spurrier leading the way. I just read in their media release that he’s looking for his 250th win as a head coach. That’s a lot of ballgames and a lot of victories. He’s one of the best coaches in the country, and he has been for years. I’ve got a lot of respect for Coach Spurrier, as well. I know their atmosphere is tremendous, and their fans know how to do it. We’ll have the crowd noise to be dealing with, so there’s going to be a lot of hype. It’s one of those games that most kids dream about playing in, so here it is right about the halfway mark of the regular season. We’re going to find out who is going to keep pace in the Eastern Division race. It’s a big one.”

On the team’s attitude about the game…

“It’s going to be our job as coaches to try to get them to focus on the things that will help us win, which is the game plan, playing hard, and just being very fundamentally sound with blocking and tackling. We’re just trying to keep the focus on the process of getting better like we’ve been trying to do all season long and not focus too much on what the game means. I don’t think I’ll have to say too much about that, but I think it’s going to be pretty obvious to them how big of a game it is, so let’s focus on the things that can help them play well.”

On the top-10 matchup as a coach…

“It’s fun, it’s exiting. It’s nice to be in the middle of the college football world. A couple of years ago when we were 6-7 it wasn’t very long into that season where no one really cared what Georgia did on any given Saturday. It’s not a lot of fun, it’s not where you want to be. Last year we kind of got enough rolling where we got a chance to play in some big games and we got to start playing sometime other than noon and that was nice. Now we are in position where everybody is going to know what goes on this weekend. Everybody is kind of curious. Everybody is talking about it. That’s good. We can’t focus on it, but that’s a good place to be.”

On Steve Spurrier and South Carolina’s offense…

“When I was at Florida State we were doing things a little bit differently too. We came to this league and tried to do certain things as far as no-huddle, some pace stuff, some spread stuff. We found out that first of all I don’t think the league was interested in going fast back then. Another thing was when it came to matchups there weren’t a lot of times we were outmatching people with our skill people versus their defensive skill people. I learned in a hurry that style points don’t really mean much. Winning and losing is what means the most in this league, and I think our fans appreciate a good three-point victory as much as a 20-point victory. I think Coach Spurrier is doing what good coaches do and that is take your personnel, find out what they do best and give you the best chance of winning regardless of what you might think is a fun and exciting thing to do. Winning is more exciting than chunking the ball around the yard if you are not getting the victories.”

On whether he thinks Georgia will see more of Marcus Lattimore…

“I think the closer the game the more you’re going to see Lattimore. They’ve had some games where some were close, but they ran away in a lot of the games. I don’t think they felt like they had the need to do that. I’m sure coming off the injury they wanted to take their time and be wise. From what I’ve seen just from the first game to this past game, I think he’s gaining confidence in him and they’re gaining confidence in him that he’s well and back to 100 percent. Sometimes when guys rehab they work harder than they do if they don’t have an injury. I think his conditioning is tremendous, and it always was good. I was watching last year’s game (against South Carolina), and his biggest runs came in the fourth quarter. He had more than 100 yards rushing in the fourth quarter. They were quite frankly able to run the ball when everybody knew all they were going to do was run the ball. That was a little bit of a problem. A lot of it has to do with their blocking, a lot of it has to do with his ability to find it and break tackles and have enough endurance to be even more effective in the fourth quarter than the first quarter. As everybody else is giving way a little bit, he’s still going strong.”

On Georgia’s special teams…

“We’ve blocked two punts, we had a fake tried on us and we stopped it, we have had excellent kickoff coverage. Our punt team, if you go strictly by statistics as far as net punt, it’s not that impressive, but that first punt of the year where we knocked it about 57 yards and they had a 20-something yard return, since that time there have only been 18 return yards for the next four games. We’re not allowing big returns. We’re punting the ball high and getting guys under it and getting a lot of fair catches, which is outstanding. We’ve made all but one field goal, two over 50. I know our extra points have been an adventure. No doubt we have to get better at that. Kickoff return has actually been pretty solid other than the one kick where the ball ended up on the one-yard line last week. Other than that we’ve fielded it pretty well. We’ve had people bloop-kick it to us, and a lot of times your average goes down when they bloop it to you and you get a five-yard return, but you get good field position. I think the special teams as a whole are getting a bad rap. I do know that we’ve not fielded the punts very well. We’ve had some mistakes there. That’s part of the reason why we’re allowing Rhett to go ahead and do that.

Overall I think we’ve had some pretty good special teams play. We did have the one kick return for a touchdown, which was big. We haven’t had a punt returned for a touchdown. We’ve had a couple of good returns, but nothing spectacular. Overall it’s been pretty solid. There are a few things that stick out that makes you feel like everything in the special teams is going wrong, but it’s not. We have six different units. The majority of the units, I think, have done pretty well. If a guy gets benched from being a return man, that’s not fun for him. These kids understand what’s going on. The other thing is they have to be ready. Malcolm, he may return two for touchdowns this game. It just depends on how things go in the ballgame. You just never know when your opportunity will come again and you have to be ready for it.”

On Rhett McGowan returning punts…

“Rhett will start out as our punt return man in all situations. He was kind of our midfield punt returner. If the punt was somewhere around midfield, he’d get his heals at the 10-yard mark and be the guy to decide whether to fair catch it or let it go over his head. He’s got some reps doing that, and he’s had a couple of reps out in the middle of the field. We’re going to allow him to be the primary punt return man in this game and see how it goes.”

On Marshall Morgan’s 50-yard field goal against Tennessee…

“It was a heck of a kick. It was a great hold. Adam Erickson had a great hold. The fact that the operation was a little bit slower because of the snap might have helped us make the kick. They had a middle block and they had Justin Hunter jump and try to block it, and he’s really in pretty good position to do that. But by the time we kicked it he was kind of on the way down. I don’t know how much clearance there was, but if the ball would have been there at the height of his jump, I’m not sure he wouldn’t have gotten a piece of that. It turned out pretty good. It’s tough as a kicker to make a 50-yard kick and the timing of it be a little bit disrupted, so it shows the power he’s got in his leg. We just have to get him comfortable and consistent.”

On whether Jamie Lindley would get an opportunity to kick extra points…

“He gets reps there, but overall if Lindley has been ‘Mr. Automatic’ he probably would have gotten an opportunity by now. In practice he just hasn’t been ‘Mr. Automatic’ either, so I think we are better off right now just sticking with Marshall and allowing him to just get used to doing it without even thinking about it. Right now it has still been a problem. We’ve had a high snap, and of course the one that was blocked, it was a low-trajectory kick, but we also had some penetration through there. We can’t allow that, although I will say that that nose guard Tennessee had was a giant. He was a beast. If you have nine extra points or field goals and he’s trying to blast through every time it’s hard to keep him out every single time. That’s what you want to do, it’s your goal, but you have to give credit to them as well. They are a pretty physical bunch.”