Head coach Mark Richt
Opening statement…
“This Kentucky team is hot. They are very talented and well-coached. Coach (Rich) Brooks has done a fantastic job
with them. It’s a big game for us, no doubt. It’s our last game between the
hedges for 2009. It’s the senior day. It means a lot to me, it means a lot to
the seniors and I think it means a lot to their underclassmen to play the best
they could possibly play to let these seniors leave our field with a great
memory. It’s going to be good memories no matter what because the pregame
ceremony is awesome. I love how we line the field with our underclassmen, and
the seniors get to run through them and see the faces of their teammates and
kind of have the flashbacks of all the great memories with their teammates. At
the end of the gauntlet are their families waiting on them proudly, and I get
to be right in the middle of it. I get to take the picture with the family. I
get to watch the players hand their ball to one of their family members. It’s a
proud moment, no doubt. It’s an emotional moment, and I enjoy it quite a bit.
I’m sure it’s going to be good. I also want to say to any of the fans who are
watching this, please get there on time to honor those guys. There is nothing
like hearing the crowd roar one more time when their name gets called. It makes
for a great ceremony when the fans are ready to go. That will be right within
just a few minutes after pregame warmup, so if y’all
could get there that would be awesome.”
On finishing second in
the SEC East…
“I think the guys would take great pride at this point
finishing second in the Eastern division. It’s certainly something we can
contain and something we can control. I think that is meaningful. I definitely
will mention it to them. I think I might have already mentioned it to them
Sunday; I’m not certain if I did or not. That’s certainly one thing I would
bring up to their attention for some motivation.”
On Washaun
Ealey’s pass blocking…
“He’s improving. I’m really not trying to beat him down
anyway, but when you ask the question how things are going, I want to obviously
say that he is progressing in that area, but I also want to make a strong point
how important that job is. Some young guys want to fancy themselves as a
running specialist and the passing is not quite as important or the route-running is not quite as important, but it really is
important. He’s gotten better no doubt about it. While we’re talking about pass
protection, our first touchdown of the game Caleb King threw a beautiful block
that really set up the opportunity for Joe (Cox) to have the pump fake and
still have time to throw the ball. Just to give you an example of why I
emphasize it so much, if Caleb doesn’t do the job he does on that play, we
don’t score and maybe we don’t win the game. That’s how crucial it is, but he
is coming right along. Every time we have blitz pickup on Tuesday and Wednesday
we get our scout teamers to go as hard as they can go and we make sure Washaun is getting a good bit of that action. He’s
definitely getting better.”
On whether Caleb
King’s improvement in pass blocking served as a template for Washaun Ealey…
“They are going to get it. If a guy wants to get it, he’ll
get it. And if a guy wants to play, he’ll get it. I don’t see any issue at all
with him not wanting to get better at it, but it’s a skill. It’s not an easy
one. You’re out there in space with the linebacker who is sometimes big enough
like right now I’m talking about 260 pound linebackers. They are big enough to
run you over, but they are also agile enough to make you miss and you’re out
there with a lot of space. You have to learn to take away the inside rush and
if he does anything, he beats you outside, but we don’t want him to beat you
but he’ll take the outside rush and you have to run him past the quarterback.
Or if he decides he is going to try to run your little rear end over, you
better be ready to hunker down and strike a blow, because good ones will lift a
back out of his shoes and just plant him on the quarterback, so it’s not an
easy thing to do. It’s something that they rarely do a lot of in high school
and it’s just the one skill that usually holds a young man back from really
getting a lot of playing time.”
On Georgia’s running
game…
“I think when we made a change in the lineup up front it
really helped us. We wanted Cordy (Glenn) at guard
all year long, but Trinton Sturdivant
got hurt again, so we had to move Cordy, who is a
tremendous power guard run-game blocker, we felt like we needed to move him
outside. Josh Davis wasn’t healthy yet. He was still coming off his shoulder
surgery, so we were kind of figuring if we move Cordy
out there we are going to be better at tackle. If we move him inside we are
going to be better at guard, so finally once Josh came through with his health,
we just decided to get him out there and see what he could do alongside of
Chris Davis and put Cordy back at guard, leaving
(Clint) Boling at tackle and Ben (Jones) has always been the center. That
combination, I just think it clicked better. That group as a whole is playing
better. They are communicating well. They have very few missed assignments, and
they are blocking with some tenacity, which it takes. Sometimes it’s not the
biggest man who blocks the best; it’s knowing what to do and where to put your
hat, where to put your hands and fighting. Then I think our backs have matured
too. I think they’ve learned to run the ball better. They’ve learned to see
where these schemes are putting them, learning to press the line of scrimmage a
little bit farther before they try to cut back and not give up on the front
side of a run too quickly. All those little nuances that take time and
experience are coming together and I hope it will continue. I will say this, these guys (Kentucky) are outstanding at stopping the
run. There are some statistics of them maybe having some people running the
ball against them relatively well, but most people that have hurt them running
the ball have hurt them with the option game. The more traditional zone, power,
sprint draw, the things that we do the most, they’ve been much more tougher and
physical against those types of runs. It makes you want to put some option in,
doesn’t it?
On Ben Jones…
“He loves to play. He loves the position of lineman. He is
like a pig in slop out there. He loves it. He loves trying to grind somebody
into the ground every play, and he’s actually starting to play a little
smarter, because with that enthusiasm and energy and the mindset of I want to
finish every block, sometimes you grab on too tight and too long, and sometimes
you maybe block past the whistle, which you are not allowed to do. He’s had a
few penalties that aren’t very bright in that regard, but you don’t want to
temper him where he doesn’t play hard. But you have to get him where he plays
smart. He does love it. He loves to see his boys get yards and touchdowns. He’s
a good one.”
On scoring 31 points
after A.J. Green was injured against Auburn…
“It was a good sign for us, no doubt. That would probably be
the No. 1 topic of discussion today if we really didn’t get much going
offensively after that point, so it was great for a guy like Israel Troupe to
come in and get a chance and then come through. That’s a great thing for him
and a great thing for us. To be able to put the points on the board without
your top receiver, it was good. Now going into the game you have a defense that
knows he’s not going to be there, and that may change how they decide to play
us. This defense here, they don’t tend to want to change for anybody. I don’t
know if they would have changed for A.J. of not, but I’ll be shocked if they do
anything differently than what they’ve been doing all year long because they
have really done a nice job.”
On whether Joe Cox
throws a better deep ball than a short ball…
“He throws a great deep ball. He throws a ball that’s very
catchable. If you can even remember back earlier in his career, the pass he
threw to Martrez Milner (against Colorado in 2006),
that was beautiful touch pass over a defender who was playing pretty tight.
Even last year’s Florida game, he got in the game late and lofted one
beautifully to Aron White and he’s been doing it
throughout the season. He gets good air on it. It drops down over that defender
and he keeps it in play. He can overthrow a bomb. He can throw it as far as he
can and overthrow it, but it doesn’t do him any good. He at least understands
that it’s important to keep it in play, keep it outside and if nothing else,
keep it short rather than long because the receiver almost always has an
advantage on a short ball that’s outside, so we’ve had a lot of balls either
hit the hands of our receivers or where they’ve always had a chance to catch a
deep ball. This last game was a little bit uncharacteristic with the shorter
throws. He’s a pretty accurate guy all the way around, but he certainly threw
the deep ball better this last game.”
On the last three
games of the season…
“I’ll say this, and it’s definitely
good policy for me. It’s not the answer you want, but my main focus is
Kentucky. That’s where I have to keep my mind. That’s what I have to focus on.
Focusing on anything too far down the road is not healthy for me or the team,
so my goal is to really make sure we are ready to play against Kentucky right
now.”
On Orson Charles…
“We knew Orson was talented when we went after him.
Everybody in the country was trying to get that kid. We were fortunate to get
him at the end, way at the end. We’re asking a tight end to run routes like a
receiver, catch like a receiver, block like a lineman and being just that one
same person is not that easy to do, especially for a freshman. Like I’m talking
about freshman tailbacks, they naturally can run, but sometimes they have
trouble pass protecting and running routes. I’d say Orson’s forte would have been
as a route-runner and a pass-receiver, but you still have to learn what to do
in those areas. Not that he wasn’t a good blocker in high school, he was and
was very tenacious, but his size is not one that you would say he’s going to
match up and maul some of these defensive ends in our league. It’s all he can
do to get after them and get the job done, but the better technique he has and
the better understanding of where these players are trying to go, he can do it.
It’s when he’s a little uncertain where he gets thrown around a little bit or
gets knocked into the hole or whatever it is from time to time. With another
offseason of strength and knowledge, he’s going to be a heck of a player and I
don’t want to discount what Aron’s done either. Aron has really come a long way, but Aron
showed up at 212 pounds. It took him a while to get in position to play like
he’s playing now. I’ll say this too, I’m very
optimistic about what big Arty Lynch is going to do for us too. We’re really
sitting good at tight end right now.”
On whether he had
doubts that Orson Charles could have an impact as a freshman…
“We were counting on him to come and make an impact for us
as a freshman, at least wanting to put him in position to do that and figured
from what we’d seen on film that he would be able to make an impact. We try to
put them all in position to do that. Some are able and some aren’t quite ready,
but we had a pretty good feeling the he could do it.”
On who will get the
snaps to replace Bacarri Rambo…
“More than likely it’s going to be Reshad
(Jones) and Bryan Evans. I would think they’ll get
more. I’m not saying there’s going to be a third guy plugged in to rotate. I’m
not saying it couldn’t happen, but Quintin Banks, I
think would be the first guy to do that. Mikiri Pugh
is also coming on at safety. It could be either one of those guys, but will it
be the same reps that Rambo was getting? Probably not.”
On Bacarri
Rambo…
“All the testing he did was fine. He’s out this week, and
we’re just going to hope he’ll stay symptom-free for the rest of the week.”
On the status of Bacarri Rambo and A.J. Green for the Georgia Tech game…
“I’d say we just don’t know, but we haven’t counted it out.
We haven’t counted either one of them out. These are kind of day-to-day type
situations. With one you have a pain issue and a healing issue, and you have
the other young man Rambo with just wanting to make sure all the symptoms are
clear and he’s safe.”
On Georgia’s three
senior defensive tackles Geno Atkins, Jeff Owens and Kade Weston…
“We honor all of our seniors as captains, so every senior
will have a ‘C’ on his jersey. But there are only four who can come out. We
pick offense, defense and special teams; usually one or two offense and if
there are two offense, it’s one defense and one special teamer. We go to
deciding who are the captains to walk up for the coin toss, and I say we I’m
talking about the staff. Joe Cox on offense and defense you have Kade, Jeffrey and Geno. On the
special teams it could have been Justin Fields or Prince (Miller), and we
decided to go with Prince. Then you have those three guys. You can’t have five;
you can only have four, so there are only two spots left. We pretty much had to
flip a coin. It ended up being Jeffrey and Kade as
the guys who would walk out. I almost thought about not doing a special teams
guy or just saying can we throw five guys out there, because all three of those
guys deserve to walk out there. I think they’ve done very, very well. I think
the guy who made the most improvement from his junior year to his senior year
was Kade Weston. Kade went
from a guy who was a pretty good football player, a good, solid football player
to a guy who really started to dominate. It all started with his offseason.
That guy trimmed his body. That guy got in the best shape of
his life and he changed his physique and his changed his quickness and the
ability to change direction and his ability to play hard every down without the
fatigue factor. Jeffrey and Geno kind of had
those kind of productive years prior to this one, but Kade
I think made the biggest jump from last year to this year.”
On Prince Miller…
“Prince did a great job for us in his career, and he
actually this year took on more of a leadership role in a verbal way with the
young corners that he’s trying to help mold. Even the secondary in general,
he’s being a little more demanding of his teammates in practice that I’ve seen.
Just to play as many snaps as that guy plays, punt return, gunner. That gunner,
he’s one of the best, and he’s almost playing every snap on defense. He’s
probably played more plays than anybody on our team this season. He hasn’t
complained one time. Early in the season when it’s hot it is tough. It’s cooled
down a little bit and I think it’s been a little easier on him. Prince has been
very solid in a lot of areas and has been a great Bulldog for us.”
On Georgia’s bowl
scenarios…
“It seems like there is a big wad. You have two guys over here, one kind of over here and then there is a big wad.
We’re in the middle of that wad, and I’d like to separate from that group if we
could and convince the bowl people that we’ve done that. It’s going to be
interesting.”
#14 Joe Cox
On playing in night
games…
“I like night games. I think it gives you a chance to get
good sleep and to really just be able to relax on the way up to the game. It’s
tough having early games because you wake up at like seven or eight, you eat
and then it seems like you are on the way to the stadium and you’re ready to
go. You don’t really have a chance to think about anything or calm down or be
able to relax. You really just don’t have a chance. I think everybody really
enjoys night games being able to kind of sit around all day and think about
what we have to do and get relaxed about it.”
On if it is motivating
to know that if Georgia wins against Kentucky it will be 5-3 in the SEC and
finish second in the Eastern Division behind Florida…
“Absolutely. That’s the best we can do now, and we
definitely want finish up that way. It’s not what we wanted, but I would still
be proud of finishing up this year strong and being right behind Florida in the
east. That’s definitely what we are shooting for at this point.”
On throwing a deep
pass compared to a short pass…
“A lot of times on shorter routes you are dealing with
people in your face, you got to have a lot quicker feet, it’s placement and
people are breaking in and out. On a deep ball, you kind of just get to take a
good drop and you don’t have to worry about anybody knocking it down. You kind
of just get to throw it out there for somebody to run under, and if you’ve
practiced it enough, it’s something you’ve been doing as long as you’ve been
playing quarterback. I do enjoy throwing the deep ball, and I always have. It’s
something I got used to high school with Mohamed Massaquoi.
As long as we can keep hitting them, I think that’s really helping out because
big plays produce momentum.”
#28 Israel Troupe
On addressing his
limited amount of playing time throughout first part of the season…
“I kept my head up the whole time. I knew that sooner or
later my chance would come around, so I went out and practiced hard every week
and practice pays off.”
On his touchdown catch
against Auburn…
“I just couldn’t believe it was coming to me actually. I
just blocked everything out and just concentrated on the ball, and when I
caught it and saw the end zone I was just like ‘get there as fast as I can.’ I
kind of stumbled getting in there, but I made it.”
On having a big game
against Auburn…
“I went out and worked hard everyday. I knew that one day, and you don’t want it to happen the way it did with
A.J. (Green) going down, but I knew that one day my opportunity would come. It
came, and I made the best of it.”
On his perspective
looking forward for the rest of the season…
“I’m just trying to level-headed and work hard like I do at
practice. I’m not really worried about starting this week. We’ll see what
happens when game day comes along, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get my snaps as the
day goes along. We’re just working on preparing to beat a real good Kentucky
team. We watched them on film. They are a real physical team. Their defense has
played well and they actually held Auburn to less points
than we did, so they are going to come out ready to play. We got to be on our
‘A’ game to play them this weekend.”
#81 Aron White
On if he feels like
he’s answered any question marks surrounding his play that existed coming into
this year…
“I feel like I’ve come out and really proven to people that
I can play this position [tight end] despite my size disadvantage. Out there
week-to-week, I definitely feel like it was a challenge early on but the longer
I’ve been here the more confidence I’ve built, the stronger I’ve gotten and the
more I’ve developed as a player. I definitely feel like I’ve come out and proven
those people wrong that said I’ve never played tight end and move me back to
wide receiver. It was one of my goals this year to prove, not only to the fans,
but to my teammates and coaches, that I’m somebody they can depend on and
somebody who is going to be a factor for as long as I play here.”
#83 Cornelius
Washington
On how the win against
Auburn helps the team for the rest of the season…
“It gives us a lot of confidence and momentum into the next
couple of games. We really just try to focus on the next team and going into
each game and trying to win.”
On feelings about the
defense when the offense is successful…
“It keeps the other offense off the field, which is the main
thing. It also gives us a lot of rest so when we do get back on the field we
are well rested, have a lot of energy and are ready to go.”
On challenges when
playing against a guy like Randall Cobb…
“He is a special type of guy. They put him at receiver
sometimes and then at quarterback so he is there hybrid type of guy. We are preparing
for him as much as we can, so we just have to do what we can to prepare and
hope for the best.”
#35 Rennie Curran
On thoughts on Senior
Day Saturday…
“It is going to be awesome to see them all honored and to
see them running down that line of all of us congratulating them.”
On thoughts on this
maybe being his last game between the hedges…
“It is a thought that runs through my mind, but at the same
time I do not have any decision made up yet. I have to sit down with my family
and it is something that I have to pray about and leave it up to God. Whatever
it looks like at the end of the season is what I’ll go by. I’ll talk to Coach Richt and everybody; I am just going to try and make the
most informed decision and a smart decision.”