CB Smith has "academic issues"

The headline from Mark Richt’s post-practice media session is that cornerback Branden Smith, a sophomore and possible starter, is missing practice because of academics.

“Branden Smith is working through some academic issues,” Richt said, and left it at that. He repeated that phrase when asked a follow-up.

But the situation does not appear to be long-term. Richt expects the situation to be resolved by the end of this week.

Richt said Smith was the only player dealing with academic issues now.

Otherwise:

- Defensive back Quintin Banks had some swelling in his knee.

Inside linebacker Richard Samuel has a knee injury, the specifics of which Richt didn’t know for sure.

“We think that both of them are more than probable for our first ballgame,” he said. “Quintin’s more day-to-day, and Richard might be more like a week or two.”

- Richt opened by talking about the rain, and felt the offense

“I guess you’ve always gotta be ready for that,” Richt said. “It was like that at Arizona State.”

- Of the morning special teams practice, Richt said he liked the kickoff return unit, to the point he was at first worried the scout team on kickoff coverage wasn’t going very hard. But he changed his mind on watching film.

They didn’t do much field goal stuff. They’ll work on that in Tuesday’s scrimmage.

- Speaking of which, Richt said the scrimmage will involve a lot of situational stuff, like two-minute drills and working out from bad field position.

“I’d like it to be played cleanly. I’d really like for the No. 1 units to perform extremely well. This time of year the No. 1s are usually going up against the No. 2. So I hope the No. 1 offense plays great and I hope the No. 1 offense plays great.”