From the locker room

Mike Bobo did a “beautiful job” calling the plays, according to head coach Mark Richt, who also defended his offensive coordinator’s performance from last week.

“If you taken just last week’s game, if we had executed with all the plays that were called last week, we would’ve had another 150, 200 yards and about probably two or three more touchdowns,” Richt said. “We have to execute what’s called. Everybody that Mike’s been calling is very sound.”

Richt tied the offensive playcalling to the development of quarterback Aaron Murray, who seems to have improved every week.

“The more we execute, and the more Mike allows himself to be aggressive and feel like his quarterback can handle situations,” Richt said, not quite finishing the thought, but adding: “I think Murray’s grown up enough that Mike feels the confidence to feel a little more aggressive down after down.”

Bobo agreed that Murray has progressed, especially when it comes to his check-downs.

“He was boom, boom, boom, and if it wasn’t there he ran it,” Bobo said. “He went from one to two to three, if they were covered he ran. If two was open he hit it. It was good to see.”

- Georgia will not have another full-pads practice on Monday, despite the success it (apparently) had this week.

“We just wanted to kick-start (last week) off,” Richt said.

But another change may have staying power. Richt also led the team out of the tunnel for the first time, acting on a suggestion by a caller to his radio show.

“I’d been stretching all week,” Richt said. “It was kind of fun. I might do it again.”

- Caleb King and Washaun Ealey were the only tailbacks used, despite the absence of Carlton Thomas. The redshirt stays on true freshman Ken Malcome, at least for now.

The team still isn’t ruling out using Malcome, who stood near the coaches with his helmet on for much of the second half.

“Kenarious Gates played today and he hadn’t played all year,” Bobo said. “We’ve gotta do whatever it takes to win ballgames. Ken Malcome has worked hard and gotten better. I don’t know, if we need him he’ll play. Right now he’s not playing.”

Freshman Alec Ogletree said he played one play on offense, lining up at receiver for a toss sweep to Ealey. Playing offense was the coaches’ idea, the player said.

“That was the only play they had designed for me,” Ogletree said.

- Some other here-and-there quotes:

Tennessee QB Matt Sims on Georgia:

“They were excited to play, but nothing out of the ordinary for a conference game. Like I told you guys all week, that was the most talented 1-4 defense I’ve ever seen in my life, and I still believe that now. They’ve got a lot of good players over there, and they just outplayed us today.”

Tennessee RB Tauren Poole:

“It was Georgia. Georgia brought it today, and they made up their mind every play that they were going to out-compete us. And they did that. Hats off to them. We got our butt whipped. We’ve got to learn how to respond now.”

Bobo:

“I thought our guys played hard on both sides of the ball, and that’s a tribute really to coach Richt. You know you’re 1-4 and you’ve got a lot of people doubting you. For these guys to come out and play hard for each other shows the fight of this football team. …

“We can’t worry about what’s going on outside or what’s going on next week, what happened in the past, we’ve gotta worry about the process of getting better every week.”

Richt:

“I never lost hope, I never lost faith. I never felt like we’ve got a tremendous amount of problems. I knew that we weren’t finishing. I knew that we were so close to having a much better record than we did, but we didn’t finish a couple games.”