Head Coach Mark Richt
Opening Statement…
“We have Alabama this week, one of the best teams in the
country, obviously. The last five years they’ve won 59 games. That’s the most
in the history of the SEC, and the last four years they’ve won 48 games. That’s
just one off of the NCAA mark in that period of time. If they beat us they
would tie it, and if they win the next game they would break the national
record. They’re just at a time where they’re dominating college football
really. So we have a lot of respect for them obviously. Coach (Nick) Saban has
done a wonderful job there, no doubt.”
“They’re just a very complete football team, a very solid
football team, a team that rarely loses. We know we have our work cut out for
us. Our guys are excited about the opportunity to compete with them, and we’re
working hard as a staff, getting our plan together. Yesterday was the only
practice we had so far, but they came out with good energy and Coach (Joe)
Tereshinski said they got in a good lift, so today will be a big day to put the
pads on and do the physical part of the preparation we have to get done.”
On whether he senses a
more confident team than last year’s team entering the SEC Championship…
“I think last year after 6-7 the year before and 0-2 to
start, we were just fighting for our lives. We had won 10 in a row, and we were
able to win the Eastern Division after going down that opening game. It was a
cause for celebration. This year we definitely celebrated those things. They
are very important to us. Winning the East is a big deal, and beating Georgia Tech is always a big deal to us, so we celebrated those things. I think they’re
hungry for some more, and we just want to have a better performance than we had
a year ago in Atlanta. I think the celebration wasn’t quite as hard as it was a
year ago.”
On Georgia over the
years and its similarities to Alabama…
“We really haven’t changed much offensively. We actually
have done a lot more up-tempo stuff. I don’t think Alabama is really interested
in trying to go that up-tempo. As far as the pro-style type that we’ve had,
it’s really what we’ve been doing for a while. What is different is when I
hired Todd Grantham. If we go back to that time, I wasn’t necessarily looking
for a 3-4 guy or a 4-3 guy. I was just trying to find the best man for the job,
and I thought Todd was that guy. As it turned out, it’s very similar to what
Alabama does defensively. I think it’s probably more coincidence than anything,
but Todd has certainly done a great job. I don’t think the 3-4 scheme is the
reason why we are having success as much as we have the right coaches and the
right players performing well. I think you could be a 4-3. There are a lot of
different ways to line up defensively, and a lot of teams are having a lot of
success. I wouldn’t say LSU is a 3-4. When they start out they’re more of a 4-3
look, and they’re pretty good. South Carolina is the same way. It just so
happened that Todd was a 3-4 guy and I felt like he was just the best man for
the job.”
On whether he can take
anything away from Texas A&M’s game against Alabama…
“I don’t know if it was the tempo they had problems with as
much as Johnny Manziel. He creates problems for everybody because he can
scramble like he can. If you come at him too hard you create these seams and he
takes off. You just can’t account for that. If you decide to contain him in the
pocket, then you aren’t rushing quite as hard, so he’s standing there holding
the ball a while. I think it changes the mindset of defenses as to how they’re
used to playing the game. I think that was probably more problematic. Not to
say the tempo wasn’t an issue as well, but if you had to say the one factor I’d
say it would be Johnny Manziel.”
On Georgia’s offensive
pace…
“We can go very fast, we can go relatively fast, or we can
just be at the line of scrimmage a long time. We really have about three
different tempos we try to use. So we’re not like the Oregons of the world
where every single play we’re going at breakneck speed, but we can go at a
pretty good pace. I think one of the rules that changed was the 40-second clock
rather than the old 25-second clock. I think that has sped up the operation of
the officials in our league. I think they were very methodical before with the
25-second clock where that ball wasn’t going to get set until about 13 seconds
after the play was over. Now to me, they’re more apt to set the ball and let
you play if you don’t substitute. If you don’t substitute our officials will
let you play about as fast as you want to play.”
On Georgia’s football
program in the 1980s and what it means to him today…
“When I first came to Georgia I was a first-year head coach
and I was just hoping to survive. I was hoping to do a good job, and I felt
like the Lord was leading me to this opportunity, and my wife and I took it in
faith. We just started trying to do things that in a way we hoped would be able
to sustain itself over time. I felt like Georgia had all the resources, the fan
base, the passion, the administration, facilities, the talent base in the state
of Georgia. I thought it had all the ingredients to be one of the best - if not
the best -teams in the country. I really didn’t know a lot of history. I knew
about the Herschel Walker era, the Vince Dooley era and the national
championship of 1980. I was surprised to hear it had been 20 years since
Georgia had won the Southeastern Conference, but I found that out after I got
here. My goal really has been to try to on a daily basis do the best job I can
do. We have a lot of people excited about the possibilities of what’s happening
right now, but that’s something that I can’t really focus on right now. It’s
fun for the fans, but right now I have to keep my vision on the things I can
control.”
On his relationship
with Nick Saban and the similarities of what Alabama is doing now compared to
when Georgia faced LSU under Saban…
“I have a lot of respect for Coach Saban. I think there is a
mutual respect among all the coaches in the league. We know everybody has a
tough job, and we know it’s hard to win in this league. He’s won more than
anybody really the last few years. You have to have a lot of respect for that.
I don’t know if any of us have a lot of time to get to know each other on a
personal level, but I think we all respect each other very much.
“I guess we’ve played five times in the past – three
at LSU and two at Alabama. I think they’ve changed a little bit. Back in the
LSU days when we were playing them, I think defensively they were more apt to
blitz and pressure people, play press coverage and maybe not as much help on
the back end. Now they tend to line up a little more often in more of a two
shell defensive look, and they’ll play coverage a little more. They put the
pressure on by having four beasts up front that they don’t really need to blitz
with. I think they are a little bit more apt to play coverage than they did in
the past. I think in the past they’d try to bring one more than you could block
and try to knock the quarterback out and tell their DBs to lock up and take
care of business. I think they’ve changed just a little bit in that way.
Offensively, I think they’ve always been very serious about running the
football, protecting the ball and playing great special teams, defense, running
the ball physically and wearing people down. I don’t think that’s changed.”
On whether this season
has been rewarding…
“When we win I’m thankful. I don’t get too carried away with
‘my this or my that.’ I do enjoy coaching and enjoy competing and winning as
much as anybody, but I do enjoy watching the players celebrate victories and
the coaching staff do the job they’re doing. Quite frankly our coaches are
doing a great job. This staff has just been phenomenal. I’m trying to manage
the big picture, and there are certain things that a head coach has to do, but
as far as the X’s and O’s, I still get involved to a certain degree offensively.
I’ll have some thoughts about defense or special teams, but the reality is this
coaching staff is really taking care of business right now, and I’m really
pleased to see that for them too.
“My job is to get everybody in position to win. That’s how I
see it. My job is to get the coaches and players and everybody involved in this
program in position to do their job the best they can do it so we can win. It’s
different than the day I got here. I was coaching quarterbacks and offensive
coordinator and playcaller, so that role as changed over the years. It’s
challenging nonetheless. Of course recruiting is a huge part of this entire
picture too, so to manage everything that had to be managed in the right way
and get everybody in position to have the freedom to go coach and play and do
their thing, that’s a challenge as well.”
On the play-off
type aspect of this game…
“It’s different. I guess technically we don’t know for
certain, but everybody’s pretty much saying that the winner is going to go play
for the national championship, so that certainly adds something to it. I said
it the other day that the Southeastern Conference Championship to me stands
alone as something that’s really, really special. Just look at our game, the
ticket sales, and the people trying to get tickets. I was listening to the
radio on the way in and somebody said that the cost of these tickets rival any
BCS National Championship game. There’s something about our league that’s
special. If you win the Southeastern Conference, you’ve really done something
special, and if you win the East, you’ve done something special in my opinion.
I think our fans really understand that and embrace that. When I came from
Florida State to Georgia, that’s one of the things that I learned. Every
victory is precious in this league, and the style points don’t really matter
all that much. Just win. Whereas before when I was at Florida State, we were
wanting to win, but we wanted to win with a certain flair or a certain style.
At Georgia I realized really fast that it doesn’t matter if you have style
points or not. Just win. This league is so competitive on all levels, so it’s
just fun to be a part of.”
On the importance
of the SEC Championship game over the years…
“I don’t think the championship game has changed much
since I’ve been here. I think it’s a huge game. It’s a monster game. It’s a
sellout, and people are always fighting to get tickets. It’s a game that I
think everybody across the country wants to watch. Of course, this game in
particular because everybody’s sitting there saying that the winner is going to
go play for the national championship. Everybody already knows Notre Dame is
in. I think there will be a different focus maybe nationally even more so than
what we normally get, but what we normally get is pretty good. I’m sure that
maybe there will be a little bit more interest in this one than in some of the
ones in the past. The last six or seven years, the winner (of this game) has
gone on to play for the national championship, so it’s not all that new.”
On the importance
of emotion for the defense…
“If they get their blood high, I think they play better.”
On the friendship
between Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo and Alabama defensive
coordinator Kirby Smart…
“They are good friends, and they’re going head-to-head
basically. It’s our offense vs. their defense, so there’s a lot of pride there.
They want to win. They’re both highly competitive guys. They love football, and
they’re great football coaches. They’re super-competitive, they want to win,
and they certainly want to win against one of their best friends in life that
they’re going to have to talk with and deal with for the rest of the year and
the rest of their career. That is an interesting match-up right there.”
On Bobo and Smart
coaching together for Georgia in 2005…
“They were just like two peas in a pod. I don’t know if
they were trying to relive any of their glory days back in college, but they’re
just good ball coaches and good people.”
On comparing the
current Georgia team to UGA squads of the past…
“I think we’re probably more similar to the 2002 team. I
felt like as the season went on that year, we just got better and better. I
thought we slowly improved as we went, and we weren’t very apt to shoot
ourselves in the foot. We seemed to be the kind of team that we were going to
make somebody beat us. I don’t know what’s going to happen Saturday, but that’s
kind of the direction we’ve gone.”
On Damian Swann…
“Damian is a very talented guy, and he’s really the
youngster in our defensive backfield right now. As soon as this class leaves,
he’s going to be the veteran. He has ball skills of an offensive player. He’s
got good length, and he’s got great coverage skills. He can make acrobatic
interceptions, and he made a big jump in his physicality from a year ago. He
got very serious about getting in the weight room and getting stronger and
about playing more physical. He’s been in the nickel position which is a run-support
guy to the field side, more so than your field corner. Of course your boundary
corner is a support guy, as well. I think Swann has the cover skills to play in
the field, and he’s got the physicality to play the nickel or the boundary
corner. I think he could play safety, as well. He’s really a pretty good
player.”
On the future
four-team playoff format…
“I’ll say this. I’m not sure of the format. I would say
that if there is a four-team playoff and each league can only have one team in
it, I don’t think I would like that as much as the format now. But if you’re
allowed to have at least two teams in it, I think it would be good.”
On Aaron Murray’s
decision not to talk to media this week…
“He really loves to submerge himself into the film study
of every game, and this one he just wants to focus on nothing but Alabama. He
doesn’t want to have any other distraction, so that’s okay with me.”
On the emotion of
the defensive players…
“They’re all young and excited, and they say what they
want to say sometimes. I don’t think it’s going to matter much what everybody
says before the game. I think it’s going to matter when we kick it off, so I’m
not too worried about that.”
On the play of special
teams this season…
“My goal this year was for us to be solid on our special
teams. My goal wasn’t to try to lead the nation in any one category. I wanted
to make sure that every time we force them to punt, I want to make sure we have
the ball. If someone makes a fair catch, that’s okay with me. At the end of the
kickoff, I want to make sure we have the ball in our hand. Let’s have a good,
solid return, secure the football, and do well. Of course when you punt, you
have to make sure you protect. My goal is just to kick that sucker high and
have the least amount of big plays in that situation. We did have the one
returned for a touchdown, but other than that, we’ve given up very few return
yards. Now is our net punt quite as high as Alabama’s, which is almost 44
(yards)? No, but even if it’s 38 or 39 yards and it’s got good hang time and we
fair catch it, we can then move the ball for four downs and get a good play out
of it. My goal was for a really solid kicking unit this year, and I think we
are solid. In the kickoff return, Malcolm (Mitchell) returns it back to the 50.
It’s not like we’re not trying to get a touchdown. We had Todd Gurley return
one for a touchdown, and we blocked a couple punts this year. We’ve done some
good things in there, but the big thing is to make sure that they don’t become
a huge momentum play for the other team.”
On coaching hires…
“I didn’t hire Todd Grantham because he worked for Nick
(Saban) 20 years ago. He did work for him and there’s some influence there, but
Todd had a lot of experience. (Stacy) Searels was not directly from Coach Saban
because he was with Les Miles at the time. When I hired Coach Searels, I
watched the film of LSU’s offensive line and I felt like they were the best
line in our league. I felt like they were the best-coached bunch. It wasn’t
like I had to get a guy that had that experience. There’s a bunch of good
coaches out there.”
Split End Rhett McGowan
On the defense’s
preparation for another big game…
“You can always learn from something like [the loss to South
Carolina]. You want to forget the bad things, but you also want to learn from
it and I think we have. That will benefit us going into another big game like
this one. To be on a big stage again, like we were at South Carolina – I
think maybe we were a bit over-hyped for that game. But it also gave us
experience that will help us.”
On the Georgia
defense…
“You don’t want to get them mad. They’re physical guys. They
love contact and they’re not going to shy away from it. They love the game of
football. When their blood gets hot it makes them better.”
On the receivers…
“The injuries we had earlier in the year helped us in that
it gave some other guys opportunities to get out on the field. We all got more
experience than we had already had, which will help this coming week. We’ve all
played in big situations this year and have shown that we can execute. We are
all confident in each other.”
Tight End Jay Rome
On the mindset heading
into this SEC Championship vs. last year…
“We’re a more confident team. The guys that played last year
know they came up short, and after they tasted that victory they didn’t get it.
I feel like the taste was left in their mouths all year and we’ve had that in
the back of our minds. All year we’ve wanted to get back and finish the drill.”
On the tight ends…
“We’ll have a key role in the passing game and running game.
Over the past couple weeks we’ve come on a bit more in the passing game, and
we’re taking the opportunity to get better and make plays. We’re ready for
what’s thrown our way, and if it is, we’re going to make plays.”
Linebacker Amarlo
Herrera
On being labeled as
one of the best defenses in the nation…
“I feel the same as some of my teammates that have been
saying we’re the best, I back those guys up. I haven’t seen anybody play as
well as we have in the second half of the season. You can probably say that we
were lacking some confidence early in the year because we weren’t playing as
well as we should have been, but now we have the swagger back and we’re feeling
like the best again.”
On playing with
emotion…
“We just have to play with more confidence and keep up the
same level of confidence that we’ve been playing with these past couple of
weeks. It all goes back to what Shawn [Williams] said earlier this season, and
that whole week of practice leading up to the Florida game. It has a lot to do
with the way we prepared for that week and how we’ve been preparing from that
day on and really playing up to par.”
On playing in the SEC
Championship…
“It wouldn’t matter where we’re playing at. It doesn’t
matter how big the stage or where we’re playing, we’re just going to go out
there and keep playing the way we have been all year, especially the second
half. We’re going to play just like that. It’s a big difference having gone
through the same experience last year, because now we know what to expect. We
know to try and control our emotions and not let them overwhelm us because I
think that’s what happened last year. Our emotions ran out and we stopped playing
with confidence and with the crowd emotion. I think we’re feeling more
confident going into this game because we’ve had a great year and we’ve been
playing together for a long time now”
Linebacker Christian Robinson
On turning around the
defensive play in the second half of the season…
“It’s kind of a tale of two seasons. The first half of the
season we didn’t really live up to anybody’s expectations on defense, and now
we’re winning the way people thought we should have been winning all along. Now
we have a chance to really do something special, something that hasn’t been
done here in a long, long time so now we have to see it all the way out.”
On getting to play in
the SEC Championship game…
“When you live around the metro (Atlanta) area, getting a
chance to play in the (Georgia) Dome is something that you dream about.
Especially on this stage, and with what this game means, everybody from around
that area knows the significance of this game. This is huge. This is everything
that we’ve dreamed of our whole lives and now we’ll have the world watching
us.”