After more than a month on the sidelines, the news finally appears a bit brighter for tailback Caleb King.
The sophomore running back has been out with a sore hamstring since Aug. 12, but head coach Mark Richt said he practiced fully each of the past two days and his prospects for playing Saturday against Arkansas look good.
“It looks like very probable,” Richt said. “I’d be surprised if he didn’t play at this point.”
Richt said he couldn’t guess how many reps King is likely to play, but he said the addition to the running back depth chart, currently manned by Richard Samuel and Carlton Thomas, would be a benefit for the Georgia offense.
“It’s going to help us because he’s definitely a different style of runner,” Richt said. “I’m anxious to see what he can do. He’s always had good vision, good balance and he’s got to be pretty fresh.”
Samuel has been the go-to runner for Georgia in the first two games of the season, getting 20 carries against Oklahoma State and 15 against South Carolina.
It’s expected that Samuel will continue to handle the bulk of the load, but Richt said the return of King will allow the team to spread the carries out a bit more than it had previously.
“The tailback position is set for us now where we’re not going to ask just one kid to carry the entire load, so they’ll be able to help each other out,” Richt said.
GOING BACK INSIDE
Senior defensive tackles Geno Atkins and Jeff Owens saw plenty of action at an unfamiliar position in Georgia’s first two games, but their experiment at defensive end might be coming to an end.
With the return of Justin Houston from a two-game suspension, Richt said he didn’t expect the Bulldogs would need to use Atkins or Owens, who totaled around 50 reps at end during the first two games, to work off the edge as much going forward.
“I doubt we see them much out there,” Richt said, “but it depends on how the game goes.”
Atkins said he didn’t mind the transition, but he said he’ll be happy to get back to doing what he does best and leaving the surprisingly tough task of defensive end to the players who’ve been doing it a bit longer.
“I had to keep the contain, look for the reverse and focus my eyes on the quarterback to see if he takes it and runs with it or gives it to the running back,” Atkins said. “Now I know what the D ends are going through because they’ve got so much responsibility.”
WILLIAMS BACK AT WORK
After missing last week’s game against South Carolina with a hamstring injury, linebacker Nick Williams said he’ll be available for duty this week.
“It’s good now,” Williams said. “I’m back.”
Williams said the injury occurred in Georgia’s first game against Oklahoma State when he was jamming receiver Dez Bryant and felt a pull, and he immediately knew it was his fault he was hurt.
“I’m bad at stretching,” Williams said. “I never did it in high school, so they’ve had me on a strict stretching program now.”
THE BIGGER THEY ARE…
At 6-foot-7, Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett will be one of the biggest targets Georgia’s defense has faced in a while, but Rennie Curran said he’s not too concerned.
Curran said the biggest quarterback he could remember facing previously was Kentucky’s Andre Woodson, who was 6-5, in 2007.
In that game, Georgia had five sacks, which reinforced Curran’s philosophy about big quarterbacks.
“They’re all the same to me,” Curran said. “They all throw the ball, they just fall harder than others.”
THE BATTLE’S OVER
After defensive end Rod Battle went down with a season-ending knee injury, Richt was hopeful the senior might be able to apply for a sixth year of eligibility, but it appears that’s unlikely, and Battle’s career with Georgia could be over.
“My guess would be that he would not because his first (redshirt) year there was no injury involved in the red shirt,” Richt said. “You have to miss two seasons because of injury, and we have no documentation to help him with that.”
KEEPING CONFIDENCE
Branden Smith knows he didn’t instill a lot of confidence in his coaches on his first few attempts at returning kicks. Against Oklahoma State, he twice brought the ball out from deep in the end zone, and on his first return against South Carolina resulted in a fumble that set up a field goal for the Gamecocks.
But rather than give up on the freshman, coach Tony Ball sent him back out again, and Smith rewarded him with a 48-yard return to set the Bulldogs up with prime field position.
“I think it is a good thing that Coach Ball has confidence in me knowing that I have made a couple of bad plays,” Smith said. “At Oklahoma State I ran deep from the end zone and fumbled against South Carolina. By him putting me back out there I think that is a very good thing.”
ANOTHER ROUGH DAY
For the second straight practice, Richt said his team lacked much enthusiasm on the field, but he said he’s not concerned that the team will lack energy by game day.
“Today we were a little lethargic, I thought. There was not a ton of energy, but we grinded and we got it done. I think the boys are probably a little bit tired, but that’s the beauty of Thursday and Friday.”
Showing posts with label Ryan Mallett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ryan Mallett. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Media Days Notes: Slive Calls for 'Renewed Vows'
Commissioner Mike Slive gave SEC coaches a cease and desist order with regards to public mudslinging when they met in Destin, Fla., in June, a necessary step, he felt, with all the coaching turnover since the league adopted a compliance manifesto in 2004. He reiterated that message Wednesday.
"We cannot sustain our successes, which is now our ultimate goal, unless we avoid self inflicted wounds," Slive said, "unless we avoid calling attention to ourselves at the expense of others, and unless we remain committed to the conference, and, finally, unless we realize that we are inexorably tied to each other's athletic and academic successes, and we are tied to each other's athletic and academic failures."
Slive also addressed the spate of secondary recruiting violations that made big news this offseason. While Tennessee drew the most attention, Georgia self-reported several secondary violations, including excessive contact with recruits it attributed to a miscommunication between coaches. Slive claimed such violations were nothing new to intercollegiate athletics but did not brush them off, saying the conference reviews each report to determine its thoroughness and accuracy and reacts accordingly.
"When trends are detected, the penalties and corrective actions become more severe," he said. "As we told our coaches earlier this week in our SEC new coaches orientation program, any time any time they commit a secondary violation, they place themselves, their program, and the institution and the prospect at risk. The risk may be lost recruiting opportunities, lost ability to interact with prospects, and additional scrutiny for themselves and their program."
WHO DUNNIT?
Only three players were unanimous selections by the conference's coaches to the All-SEC team and the conference's most heralded player wasn't one of them. So on Day 1 of SEC Media Days, several reporters set out to find the coach who didn't vote for Tim Tebow.
"I don't know if you all are going to find the culprit," Vanderbilt's Bobby Johnson said, "but you can tell him it wasn't me."
Four SEC coaches took to the podium Wednesday and none confessed to leaving the former Heisman winner off their ballot. Tebow received 10 votes, and his coach, Urban Meyer, was not allowed to vote for anyone on his team.
The omission by the one anonymous coach seemed so odd that Arkansas' Bobby Petrino assumed the offending coach wasn't altogether coherent.
"I voted for Tebow," he said. "I'm not crazy."
Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, who was Tebow's offensive coordinator a year ago, was asked the question, too, and not surprisingly he had the Florida quarterback on his ballot as well.
The fourth coach to meet with reporters, Kentucky's Rich Brooks, said Tebow had burned the Wildcats so badly during the past two seasons that he had no choice but to vote for him, too.
So the mystery continues, whether or not anyone will actually admit to the snub.
A SCARY REPUTATION
A reporter asked Kentucky left tackle Zipp Duncan to name the toughest defensive linemen in the SEC to block. He didn't need much time to come up with his answer: Georgia's Geno Atkins.
"He's just a dynamic athlete," Duncan said. "He gets off the ball quick. He's got the speed to beat you and the strength to beat you, so he presents a really tough matchup."
PLENTY OF SEC ON ESPN
A new twist to the kickoff of SEC Media Days this year involved a special presentation by ESPN's John Wildhack, the network's executive vice president for programming acquisition.
ESPN and the SEC agreed to a new 15-year deal this year that will dramatically increase coverage of the league's sports, including football. Wildhack said 23 more SEC games would be televised this season than last year, including a regional game of the week, which will air on a newly launched platform called The SEC Network. Wildhack also said he expects SEC games to be featured more prominently on ESPN's regular Thursday night packages.
"Our goal is to serve the SEC football fan better than ever before," Wildhack said. "Last year, 77 million people watched SEC football on ESPN or ESPN2. We expect that number to increase significantly this season."
Each of Georgia's first three games will be carried on one of the network's platforms. The Bulldogs' opener against Oklahoma State kicks off at 3:30 p.m. on ABC, with the SEC opener against South Carolina a week later airing on ESPN2 at 7 p.m. Georgia's road date with Arkansas in Week 3 will be carried by either ESPN or ESPN2 and is set to kick off at 7:45 p.m.
RETURN ENGAGEMENT
New Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen knows that selling his team on a new system is no easy task, which is why he's so happy to have senior linebacker Jamar Chaney back in the fold has been such a blessing.
Chaney, who was originally a Georgia signee, figured to be the anchor of the Mississippi State defense a year ago, but a leg injury suffered in the first game cost him the entire season. He accepted a medical redshirt and decided to return to the Bulldogs for a second shot at his senior season – this time with a new head coach and a new role as salesman.
"From Day 1, he walked into my office and said, 'Coach, I'm going to believe in everything you're doing,'" Mullen said of Chaney. "Having a personality back like that, especially when you take over a new program, to help build that foundation of what we wanted the message we're trying to get across to our team … it's just fantastic."
PREPS AREN'T PREPARED
Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino thinks some changes need to be made in the way high school coaches are preparing quarterbacks for the next level. With more programs employing spread offenses, Petrino said many young quarterbacks aren't getting the necessary experience playing under center, and it's making the job of recruiting pocket passers a tough one for college coaches.
Petrino pointed to one of his own quarterbacks, Tyler Wilson, as a prime example of the problems of playing too much out of the shotgun. Wilson took every snap of his high school career in a no-huddle shotgun formation, and he has struggled since arriving at Arkansas with things as simple as the quarterback-center exchange or handoff placement on running plays.
The solution, Petrino said, might be mandating how high school coaches use their quarterbacks.
"I'm really happy that high schools are throwing the ball," Petrino said. "I just wish they would maybe put a rule in that they have to have at least 25, 40 percent from underneath center."
SLIM AND TRIM
Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett has always been described as having an NFL body. It's just a little slimmer now.
Mallett, the strong-armed, 6-foot-7 quarterback who emerged from the spring as the Razorbacks' projected starter, weighed 265 pounds when he transferred from Michigan last year. Since then, he's slimmed down to 238 pounds, something head coach Bobby Petrino hopes will help him be more elusive in the pocket against the SEC's quick defensive fronts.
"In him losing the weight, being more mobile, we're not going to lose our movement game, our ability to run sprint outs, run the bootleg game, be able to move the pocket," Petrino said. "In this league, with the defensive ends we face, the speed and athleticism of the defensive fronts, it's important that you change the launch point, and you can set your quarterback at different spots, take some pressure off the offensive line and running backs at times."
* The Ledger-Enquirer's Andy Bitter contributed to these notes.
"We cannot sustain our successes, which is now our ultimate goal, unless we avoid self inflicted wounds," Slive said, "unless we avoid calling attention to ourselves at the expense of others, and unless we remain committed to the conference, and, finally, unless we realize that we are inexorably tied to each other's athletic and academic successes, and we are tied to each other's athletic and academic failures."
Slive also addressed the spate of secondary recruiting violations that made big news this offseason. While Tennessee drew the most attention, Georgia self-reported several secondary violations, including excessive contact with recruits it attributed to a miscommunication between coaches. Slive claimed such violations were nothing new to intercollegiate athletics but did not brush them off, saying the conference reviews each report to determine its thoroughness and accuracy and reacts accordingly.
"When trends are detected, the penalties and corrective actions become more severe," he said. "As we told our coaches earlier this week in our SEC new coaches orientation program, any time any time they commit a secondary violation, they place themselves, their program, and the institution and the prospect at risk. The risk may be lost recruiting opportunities, lost ability to interact with prospects, and additional scrutiny for themselves and their program."
WHO DUNNIT?
Only three players were unanimous selections by the conference's coaches to the All-SEC team and the conference's most heralded player wasn't one of them. So on Day 1 of SEC Media Days, several reporters set out to find the coach who didn't vote for Tim Tebow.
"I don't know if you all are going to find the culprit," Vanderbilt's Bobby Johnson said, "but you can tell him it wasn't me."
Four SEC coaches took to the podium Wednesday and none confessed to leaving the former Heisman winner off their ballot. Tebow received 10 votes, and his coach, Urban Meyer, was not allowed to vote for anyone on his team.
The omission by the one anonymous coach seemed so odd that Arkansas' Bobby Petrino assumed the offending coach wasn't altogether coherent.
"I voted for Tebow," he said. "I'm not crazy."
Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, who was Tebow's offensive coordinator a year ago, was asked the question, too, and not surprisingly he had the Florida quarterback on his ballot as well.
The fourth coach to meet with reporters, Kentucky's Rich Brooks, said Tebow had burned the Wildcats so badly during the past two seasons that he had no choice but to vote for him, too.
So the mystery continues, whether or not anyone will actually admit to the snub.
A SCARY REPUTATION
A reporter asked Kentucky left tackle Zipp Duncan to name the toughest defensive linemen in the SEC to block. He didn't need much time to come up with his answer: Georgia's Geno Atkins.
"He's just a dynamic athlete," Duncan said. "He gets off the ball quick. He's got the speed to beat you and the strength to beat you, so he presents a really tough matchup."
PLENTY OF SEC ON ESPN
A new twist to the kickoff of SEC Media Days this year involved a special presentation by ESPN's John Wildhack, the network's executive vice president for programming acquisition.
ESPN and the SEC agreed to a new 15-year deal this year that will dramatically increase coverage of the league's sports, including football. Wildhack said 23 more SEC games would be televised this season than last year, including a regional game of the week, which will air on a newly launched platform called The SEC Network. Wildhack also said he expects SEC games to be featured more prominently on ESPN's regular Thursday night packages.
"Our goal is to serve the SEC football fan better than ever before," Wildhack said. "Last year, 77 million people watched SEC football on ESPN or ESPN2. We expect that number to increase significantly this season."
Each of Georgia's first three games will be carried on one of the network's platforms. The Bulldogs' opener against Oklahoma State kicks off at 3:30 p.m. on ABC, with the SEC opener against South Carolina a week later airing on ESPN2 at 7 p.m. Georgia's road date with Arkansas in Week 3 will be carried by either ESPN or ESPN2 and is set to kick off at 7:45 p.m.
RETURN ENGAGEMENT
New Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen knows that selling his team on a new system is no easy task, which is why he's so happy to have senior linebacker Jamar Chaney back in the fold has been such a blessing.
Chaney, who was originally a Georgia signee, figured to be the anchor of the Mississippi State defense a year ago, but a leg injury suffered in the first game cost him the entire season. He accepted a medical redshirt and decided to return to the Bulldogs for a second shot at his senior season – this time with a new head coach and a new role as salesman.
"From Day 1, he walked into my office and said, 'Coach, I'm going to believe in everything you're doing,'" Mullen said of Chaney. "Having a personality back like that, especially when you take over a new program, to help build that foundation of what we wanted the message we're trying to get across to our team … it's just fantastic."
PREPS AREN'T PREPARED
Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino thinks some changes need to be made in the way high school coaches are preparing quarterbacks for the next level. With more programs employing spread offenses, Petrino said many young quarterbacks aren't getting the necessary experience playing under center, and it's making the job of recruiting pocket passers a tough one for college coaches.
Petrino pointed to one of his own quarterbacks, Tyler Wilson, as a prime example of the problems of playing too much out of the shotgun. Wilson took every snap of his high school career in a no-huddle shotgun formation, and he has struggled since arriving at Arkansas with things as simple as the quarterback-center exchange or handoff placement on running plays.
The solution, Petrino said, might be mandating how high school coaches use their quarterbacks.
"I'm really happy that high schools are throwing the ball," Petrino said. "I just wish they would maybe put a rule in that they have to have at least 25, 40 percent from underneath center."
SLIM AND TRIM
Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett has always been described as having an NFL body. It's just a little slimmer now.
Mallett, the strong-armed, 6-foot-7 quarterback who emerged from the spring as the Razorbacks' projected starter, weighed 265 pounds when he transferred from Michigan last year. Since then, he's slimmed down to 238 pounds, something head coach Bobby Petrino hopes will help him be more elusive in the pocket against the SEC's quick defensive fronts.
"In him losing the weight, being more mobile, we're not going to lose our movement game, our ability to run sprint outs, run the bootleg game, be able to move the pocket," Petrino said. "In this league, with the defensive ends we face, the speed and athleticism of the defensive fronts, it's important that you change the launch point, and you can set your quarterback at different spots, take some pressure off the offensive line and running backs at times."
* The Ledger-Enquirer's Andy Bitter contributed to these notes.
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