Rambo: Tentative no more?

Has Bacarri Rambo fully shaken off the effects of the concussion he sustained late last year?

Early this season, Georgia head coach Mark Richt would have answered no to that question. But now Richt thinks his starting safety is back to playing full-speed.

“And he’s playing very physical in my mind. I don’t see him looking hesitant at all,” Richt said. “I thought there was a little bit of that in the spring and fall. I was a little concerned.”

Rambo had to be carted off the field near the end of last year’s Auburn game, and missed Georgia’s final two games. He earned a starting job in the spring, but even when the 2010 season started Richt sensed that Rambo was a bit hesitant from a “physical nature, a striking point of view.”

Rambo seemed to confirm that.

“The only time I was kind of shaken up about it, or real worried about it, was probably the spring,” Rambo said. “But when I went through the spring, and when I got to summer camp, and I didn’t show any symptoms of it, I just thought I was over it and I just kept on going.”

Rambo is Georgia's second-leading tackler this season, with 44, and is tied with Akeem Dent for first with 28 solo tackles.

There are times, Rambo admitted, he still thinks about the concussion, but puts it behind him and returns to full-speed. He’s adopted a philosophical view on concussions, having gone through one himself.

“If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,” he said. “You could fall out of the bed, or you could get hit in the head with a basketball or something.”

Rambo, Richt and another Georgia safety had more to say on the helmet-to-helmet issue, which is raging in football this week. I’ll have a story on it in Thursday’s papers.