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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Richt speaks, I blog

We just heard from Mark Richt after Georgia's second football practice. Some highlights:

- A couple small injury updates. Junior guard Tanner Strickland was in a green jersey after a shoulder injury flared up. But the staff just wanted him to avoid contact for now.

Meantime, junior tackle Trinton Sturdivant's return is going "so far very well," according to Richt. The training staff said Sturdivant's knee has not had any swelling yet.

- The defensive players are picking up the 3-4 pretty quickly, the coach said, relaying word from defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. The players have clearly been studying, and Richt quoted Granthamas saying "there's a lot of recall."

"That's a tribute to our guys, they want to win," Richt said.

- Richt singled out Shawn Williams, a sophomore strong safety, for praise:

“He probably dropped about 10 pounds. He is much quicker and you could tell he really studied. He’s gotten the attention of our coaching staff. And he’s just one example of that. There’s a lot of guys that it looked like they got very serious about learning as much as they could so they could compete better.”

Last month was tough for Williams and his family, whom lost their home in Early County to a fire.

“I hope the Georgia Bulldog nation is helping him any way that we can," Richt said. "And we’ll be keeping up with that situation to make sure that the family recover him … So we can help him within the rules.”

- Richt did have a senior moment, for a second straight day, blanking on Williams' name before offering up the praise. On Monday it was walk-on quarterback Greg Bingham. On Tuesday Richt started by saying he wanted to praise someone, then sheepishly had to ask for a depth chart.

"Cut all this out, will you?" he said, smiling. Then he saw Williams' name on the sheet. "Oh yeah, lemme start over."

Richt turned 50 earlier this year. Of course, in the interests of full disclosure, as I was writing this note, I had to ask my fellow scribes what Bingham's first name was.

- Richt also had good reports on several freshman, highlighted by offensive lineman Kenarious Gates.

“He looks like he’s gonna be a good one down the road," Richt said. "He’s certainly got a long ways to go, but he’s got a chance, if he works hard.”

Here's what Richt said about some other freshmen:

Quarterback Hutson Mason: “You could tell that kid studied all summer long.”

Brothers Alec Ogletree (a defensive back) and Alexander Ogletree (a linebacker): “You could tell that they’re just football players, and I like what I see there.”

Cornerback Derek Owens. “He’s very, very quick. And he’s made some good breaks on the ball.”

- As for the team as a whole, Richt said the team is in good condition, handling the heat well.

“It’s been a good start, been a very good start. I think it was very evident that a lot of guys worked very hard physically, but also worked hard mentally. A lot of guys made progress from a mental standpoint. So you know they were studying playbooks and just improving.”

- Finally, Richt said starting quarterback Aaron Murray has done a "fantastic job" of helping the three true freshmen quarterbacks.

“When they showed up at the meetings they had a pretty good working knowledge of what we were trying to do. Hutson has done a good job of taking a lot of information and being able to process it pretty quickly.”

4 comments:

bnwdog said...

Hey Seth,

I am going to fill your blog with an anonymous like post. Just finished reading sports and grits and needed to get this off my chest (without being a registered blogger you cant post to their site). Their Blog is basically fire Richt now. I have stayed out of this fray but can’t help myself anymore!

They are in fact idiots! Let’s compare long term.
UGA vs NC - not sure, but definitely not better than .956 under Richt
UGA vs GT .618, under Richt .889
UGA vs UK .803, under Richt .778
UGA vs VAN .735, under Richt .889
UGA vs SC .742, under Richt .778
UGA vs TN .432, under Richt .556
UGA vs UF - They win and I agree
UGA vs AU .495, under Richt .667
UGA vs AL .409, under Richt .750
UGA vs LSU .444, under Richt .500
UGA vs MSU .762, under Richt 1.000
UGA vs OM .714, under Richt 1.000
UGA vs ARK .750, under Richt 1.000

OK, so the man is above (and in most cases by a significant margin) UGA's long term winning % against every SEC team except UF and a slight margin not in his favor against UK. So basically you are going to fire the man for losing to UF. They have been the premier team in the SEC, not us, for quite a while. However, we remain in the mix. Couple breaks in our favor and were sitting here today with two shots at the MNC.

Look, let’s be honest I don’t like the losses to KY or VAN or consistently losing to UF. But seriously, were going to fire the most successful coach in UGA history to hire WHO? An unproven coordinator, yeah that makes sense? Honestly, we have two more seasons like last year, OK I'm on board. But until then STHU and quit pushing the Finebaum agenda.

the 3rd Richt said...

Bnwdog- I read that same blog and took it as satire comedy. If you read the rest of the sec coaches post they made you can clearly see its all for laughs.

Seth- keep up the good work, welcome to the bulldog family, and enjoy Athens.

Anonymous said...

Awesome work. Keep it up.

Lee @Suthrn_Shepherd said...

"Granthamas" that must be a new UGA holiday where we get 3 turnovers and hold our opponent to less than 10 points! Am i right?

Thanks for the info on the freshman, though i do have a few questions about them. Alexander (or Zander) Ogletree was rumored to possibly becoming a FB as well as getting a look at LB. Do you know where he is getting most of his reps? Thanks. Also i'm very interested in hearing how everyone is fitting in their new positions in the 3-4 Defense. Keep up the good work.