UGA Sports

– Fifteen players on Tennessee Tech’s roster are from Georgia. My AJC colleague Ken Sugiura talked with one of them this week, defensive end Kelvin Quarles, who went to high school at Meadowcreek in Gwinnett County.

“It’s a big deal for all of us,” Quarles, a Tennessee Tech captain, said of  Saturday’s game against Georgia in Sanford Stadium.  “We want to prove to Georgia’s coaches and players we’re from Georgia, too, and we can play ball with them.”

Quarles  originally signed with Connecticut before transferring to UAB and then to Tennessee Tech.

Quarles told Sugiura he is close friends with Georgia tailback Caleb King, who will make his first collegiate start Saturday.  Quarles and King have  talked at least a couple of times in the past week.

“We actually played Rec ball together at Lilburn Park,” Quarles said. “The Lilburn Patriots.”

Good team?

“We were unbelievable We were a winning team every year. Our last year together, we won the county championship.”

– Full …

Continue reading Tennessee Tech’s Georgia connection »

ATHENS — The final question of Mark Richt’s press conference on Tuesday: There’s sort of a sentiment that maybe you’re too nice of a guy to make the hard decision if it came to that. Do you think people misread your leadership?

Thought you might like to read Richt’s full reply:

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not reading that because I’m not reading anything, but I guess you are saying that’s what is out there. Coach [Bobby] Bowden made that comment way back when I got the job.

“And let’s face it: We’ve had the best winning percentage in the history of Georgia football. We’ve done pretty well. This year we have not, OK?  We are averaging, you know, 10 wins a year and won the SEC twice, and [Georgia] hadn’t won one in 20 years.  So it’s not like we’ve just been floundering around.  Now, this year we have been, let’s face it. And I don’t like it.

“People that know me well or the team or the coaches -– they know that I’ve got another edge to me that maybe  I don’t show publicly …

Continue reading Richt on his record »

Look for Caleb King to start at tailback for Georgia against Tennessee Tech on Saturday.

Coach Mark Richt expressed concern on his weekly radio show Monday night about Washaun Ealey’s pass-protection performance and said King “will probably start for us” this week

If so, it would be the first collegiate start for the former Gwinnett County prep star, a redshirt sophomore. And he would become Georgia’s third starter of the season at tailback.

Richard Samuel, who won the job while King was sidelined with a pulled hamstring in preseason, started the first six games. Ealey, a true freshman, has started the past two games against Vanderbilt and Florida, although Richt said after the Vandy game that the choice between King and Ealey to start came down to which play Georgia decided to call first.

Ealey had 17 of Georgia’s 33 rushing carries and 70 of its 121 rushing yards against Florida last week.

“Washaun certainly ran the ball well,” Richt said Monday night. “He still needs to …

Continue reading Caleb’s turn to start at tailback? »

UGA President Michael Adams resigned this week as chairman of the NCAA Executive Committee, the powerful group that ultimately will choose a successor to the late Myles Brand as NCAA president.

Although the move probably will further fuel speculation about Adams as a candidate for the president’s position himself, he said on a teleconference that he stepped down with six months left on his term to ensure that those who choose the next president will be the ones still in place to work with him or her.

“It is time for new leadership at the executive committee level,” Adams said. “I feel very strongly that the group of the executive committee who will work with the next NCAA president needs to be the ones in charge of the search and in charge of that process.

“I feel like, frankly, that I have done what I came to do, and I have done what I promised Myles I would do. . . . And after almost three years of this, and particularly the amount of time it has required of me the last nine …

Continue reading Adams resigns key NCAA post »

Something a bit different today. . . .

My AJC colleague Matt Dempsey has been crunching numbers and has come up with some interesting perspective on where A.J. Green stands in the UGA record book.

Based on Green’s statistics for the first seven games of the season, Matt found six  UGA single-season or career lists on which the super sophomore could reach the top five by the end of the regular season.

Here’s what he came up with (Green statistics are through the Vanderbilt game). Hope you enjoy:

Pass Receptions, season

Name                                                   Number          Year

1.  Brice Hunter                                  76                 1993

2.  Terrence Edwards                       59                 2002

2.  Brice Hunter                                  59                  1994

4.  Mohamed …

Continue reading A.J. Green and the record book »

A few notes on Monday of Georgia-Florida week:

— Oddsmakers have made Florida a whopping 16-point favorite over Georgia on Saturday, even though the Gators have won their past three games by an average of 7.7 points — 10 over Mississippi State, 3 over Arkansas and 10 over LSU.

— As you know, Georgia is coming off a bye week and Florida is not. So here’s the data on open dates as they relate to the Georgia-Florida series: Georgia is 3-2 vs. Florida when coming off a bye week, while Florida is 14-4 vs. Georgia when coming off a bye week. The Bulldogs’  most recent win over the Gators -– in 2007 -– followed a UGA open date. That’s the only time since 1991, until this year, that Georgia had an open date before the Florida game. Florida, on the other hand, has had a bye week before playing Georgia 13 of the past 16 years.  For whatever all of that is worth.

– Mark Richt was asked Sunday about  the impact  of the bye week. “With this game or series, I think there’s …

Continue reading Gators favored by 16; does the bye week matter? »

Athens — Florida coach Urban Meyer made a confession on the SEC coaches’ teleconference this week:  He once was an avid Georgia football fan.

“I was a Herschel Walker fan, like nuts about him, when I grew up,” Meyer said. “He was [at Georgia] right at the point I was in high school [in Ohio], and I was actually a huge Georgia Bulldog fan because of Herschel Walker.”

As you’ve probably heard, Meyer’s quarterback, Tim Tebow, is one rushing touchdown shy of matching Walker’s SEC career record of 49, achieved in 1980-82.   Tebow could be in position to tie or break the record against Walker’s old team next week — unless he does both against Mississippi State on Saturday night.

Said Meyer: “Since my era was Herschel Walker, [I'm] a little bit –- and I don’t want to say it too publicly –- in awe of here’s Tim Tebow, a guy I get to see every day, and you mention him in a rushing record [with] Herschel Walker. That’s pretty powerful.”

Couple of other notes:

– A.J. Green said he …

Continue reading When Urban Meyer was ‘a huge Georgia Bulldog fan’ »

Mark Richt’s weekly radio call-in show was much tamer last night. Whereas a week before most callers vented about Georgia’s performance at Tennessee,  last night’s callers mostly commended the win at Vanderbilt.

A couple of interesting items from Richt’s comments, which came by phone from his pickup truck in a Columbus parking lot after a speaking engagement:

On last week’s practice-field move of backup linebacker Charles White to fullback: “[He] hasn’t been getting a lot of reps at the linebacker position, and we feel the best chance he can help this football team in the future is at fullback,” Richt said. “So we have made a change for him to play fullback in mid-season because we don’t believe we are pulling away from the defense and he can still play special teams. We will have two senior fullbacks next year [Shaun Chapas and Fred Munzenmaier], so we need to cultivate another fullback.”

White, a redshirt sophomore, has two years of eligibility remaining after this …

Continue reading On White’s move to fullback — and Samuel’s future »

Stray notes and quotes to start the week:

– If you lost count, Georgia had eight players run the ball and 10 catch it in Saturday’s win at Vanderbilt.

– Prince Miller’s punt-return stats for this season before Saturday: nine returns for 63 yards. Miller’s stats on Saturday: two returns for 95 yards. “We did the same thing we’ve been trying to do all year,”  he  said. “But we got some opportunities, and guys made great blocks.”

– UGA’s 34 points were the second most scored against  Vandy since the start of last season, topped only by Florida’s 42 last year.

– On the occasion of Georgia’s bye week, Mark Richt was asked on his teleconference Sunday what he likes most and what concerns him most about this season so far. What he likes most:   “I would say I like the players themselves as far as they are staying together, they are battling away, they are keeping the faith and they keep grinding.” And what concerns him most: “The thing I haven’t liked so much is just the …

Continue reading Emptying the notebook . . . »

Athens — Mark Fox’s first Georgia basketball team opens preseason practice at 5 p.m. today.  “Certainly, we’re excited about the start of our season –- the chance to do what we all love to do, which is get into a gym and coach our players and train our team,” he said.  In a meeting with the media this week,  Fox  touched on these topics:

The benefit to Trey Thompkins of playing on the U.S. Under-19 team that won a gold medal at the World Championships in New Zealand over the summer: “He was able to play on Team USA . . . a privilege few of us ever have a chance to experience. I think he was really able to gain an appreciation of that. But also playing for [the team's coaching staff of] Jamie Dixon [Pittsburgh], Chris Lowery [Southern Illinois] and Matt Painter [Purdue], he was able to play for three proven defensive coaches, proven winners, and I think get a taste of different philosophies that will improve him. Jamie is a long-time friend of mine, and he was very …

Continue reading First practice for Fox’s first team »