Tennessee Week - Tuesday News and Notes

ATHENS - News and notes from Georgia's practices.

Regardless of what Greg Blue does on the football field, his biggest achievement this year will come in December, he said. The senior safety, who was admitted to college as a partial qualifier, is taking one class this fall and will graduate after this semester.

He will be the first person he knows of in his family to graduate college, he said.

“That’s going to set the tone for my family, for my younger brothers and sisters and hopefully my children,” Blue said. “That’ll be one of the greatest feelings of my life right there.”

IMPROVEMENT?: Bryan McClendon insists the Bulldogs’ kickoff return team is better this year than it was last, but the statistics are even worse. Georgia was 112th in kickoff returns in 2004 with an average of 16.5 yards per return. It’s 112th again this year, but it’s average is worse (15.7). Still, McClendon said, there is potential there.

“We’re so close. We’re so, so close,” he said. “I feel we are about 10 times better than we were last year. We just haven’t put it together.”

PRACTICE REPORT: Defensive tackle Gerald Anderson (concussion) and defensive end Charles Johnson (ankle) returned to limited action Tuesday and are expected to play Saturday.

WHIZ KIDS?: Georgia is not only ranked on the field, it’s also a Top 25 team in the test room, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal examined as many test scores from the Wonderlic Personnel Test as it could verify to measure which NFL team had the smartest players and which college produced the smartest, at least as measured by the test. The Wonderlic is given to almost all potential NFL draft picks to judge their readiness to handle the increasing mental load of the league.

The Bulldogs came in No. 24 in the country and No. 2 in the SEC in the study. The average score by a Georgia player was 19.8, nine points behind No. 1 Stanford. Florida (20.8) is the only conference team to measure higher.

The St. Louis Rams, with an average Wonderlic score of 24.6, were tabbed the NFL’s smartest team. The Atlanta Falcons came in 19th (21.1).

THIS AND THAT: D.J. Shockley was named Tuesday as one of 184 semi-finalists for the 2005 Draddy Trophy, which is known as the academic Heisman. ... Tennessee has a 9-7-1 record against Georgia in both Athens and Knoxville. ... The Volunteers have 10 players from Georgia, the most of any state other than Tennessee.