Archive for July, 2010

ATHENS – Get Aaron Murray ready to start at quarterback. Complete the installation of the 3-4 defense. Find out if Trinton Sturdivant is healthy enough to play on the offensive line. Sort out the starters at a couple of unresolved positions in the secondary.

Those are among the items on Georgia’s to-do list for preseason football practice, which begins Monday.

“We’re very anxious to get this thing started, to get ‘em in camp,” coach Mark Richt said.

For Richt, this will be his 10th preseason at Georgia — his first coming off a five-loss season.

Much has happened in Georgia’s football program since the end of last season: three new defensive coaches hired, including coordinator Todd Grantham, and seven players arrested, including three who were subsequently kicked off the team.

Not to mention the DUI arrest and resignation of the athletic director. And AgentGate.

On Monday, the focus shifts — the Bulldogs hope — to preparing for the season.

“It’s kind of a relief in the sense …

Continue reading Time for football: Bulldogs open camp with long to-do list »

Three quick notes to start the weekend:

• Quarterback Aaron Murray sustained what Georgia associate AD Claude Felton described as a “very minor” injury in a conditioning drill earlier this week -– a bruise under his left eye. Felton said Friday afternoon that when he saw Murray in the locker room on Thursday, the bruise was “noticeable but not prominent.” It doesn’t sound as if the injury will be any sort of factor when practice starts next week; a black-eyed Murray joked to Marc (Athens Banner-Herald) Weiszer, “I think I could be blind and still throw it up and [A.J. Green would] catch it.”

• Georgia basketball player Trey Thompkins recently was named a second-team preseason All-American by ESPN’s Dick Vitale. Thompkins is the top-ranked SEC player on “Dickie V’s Preseason All-America” teams. “We’re very excited about Trey and his development and his return to school,” UGA coach Mark Fox said a few days ago. “He’s very hungry to win.”

• And a happy birthday to A.J. Green, …

Continue reading Murray’s ‘very minor’ injury, Thompkins’ honor, A.J.’s birthday »

Although season tickets are again sold out, Georgia will put a “limited number” of single-game tickets to three home football games on sale to the general public next week.

Tickets to the Sept. 4 season opener against Louisiana-Lafayette, the Sept. 18 game against Arkansas and the Nov. 6 game against Idaho State will be available starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday by phone (1-877-542-1231) and online (www.georgiadogs.com). The tickets are $45 apiece.

The tickets are available  because the opposing team did not require as many seats as for some other games and/or because UGA season-ticket holders did not request as many additional seats as for some other games. Georgia typically has a small number of single-game tickets available to the general public for a couple of home games each year, but it’s surprising that the Arkansas game — the Bulldogs’  first SEC home game and a potential matchup of Top 25 teams — is available.

Georgia said the single-game orders will be filled on a …

Continue reading UGA football tickets available for three home games »

Georgia will be the first SEC team to start preseason practice when the Bulldogs take the field at 3:25 p.m. on Monday. By the end of next week, every SEC team will be in camp. Each team can have 29 practices, the NCAA-allotted maximum, before the opening game.

Georgia generally will practice every day except Sundays through August, with two-a-day drills planned for only one day (Aug. 9).

Here, FYI, are the calendars for SEC teams:

Team                First practice      First day/full pads           First game

Alabama           Aug. 5                          TBA                        Sept. 4 vs. San Jose State

Arkansas          Aug. 5                          Aug. 9                    Sept. 4 vs. Tennessee Tech

Auburn             Aug. 4                          Aug. 8                     Sept. 4 vs. Arkansas State

Florida              Aug. 5                         …

Continue reading Check out SEC practice schedules here »

A hot rumor spread from the West Coast on Wednesday that the USC football team would come to Atlanta to play Georgia in the 2011 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. (It spread the new-fashioned way, from Twitter to message boards.) But Gary Stokan, the game’s president, denied the rumor when I called to ask him about it Wednesday night.

He said there have been talks with USC about a possible appearance in the 2011 game — but not, he said, against Georgia.

“Georgia is not a possibility for 2011,” Stokan said.

He said UGA, through former athletic director Damon Evans, expressed interest in playing in the season-opening game in the Georgia Dome at some point in the future but indicated the next few years wouldn’t work schedule-wise.

Georgia is scheduled to open the 2011 season against Louisville in Athens.

As for USC, Stokan said Trojans coach Lane Kiffin sent him a text message in February to suggest a 2011 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game matchup against his former team, Tennessee. “It’d be a …

Continue reading Stokan denies Georgia-USC rumor »

Georgia’s starting quarterback has never played in a college game, but the extensive experience around him has Mark Richt notably enthused about the Bulldogs’ offense.

“I’d much rather have that kind of maturity around a young quarterback than a very veteran quarterback surrounded by a bunch of puppies,” Richt told the Greater Atlanta Bulldog Club this week.

Particularly comforting to Richt is the experience on the offensive line, where senior Chris Davis has 37 career collegiate starts, senior Clint Boling 36, junior Ben Jones 23, junior Cordy Glenn 22 and senior Josh Davis 9. That’s a combined 127 starts.

Boling, Jones and Glenn have started since their true freshman seasons and Chris Davis since his redshirt freshman season.

“They played before they should have had to play,” Richt said, “but now they’re mature. They’re so much more ready for these games. They’re bigger; they’re stronger; they’re wiser. They have the confidence to know they can play in any SEC venue and have …

Continue reading Young UGA QB surrounded by experience on offense »

(Click here for lots of notes from last night’s Greater Atlanta Bulldog Club meeting.)

Georgia linebacker Akeem Dent, a projected starter, had surgery early this morning on an injured toe and is expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks, UGA said.

That timeline means Dent will miss most, if not all, of preseason practice and makes him questionable for the Sept. 4 season opener against Louisiana-Lafayette.

Georgia said Dent injured his left big toe in an off-field accident last week. Details on the injury were not released.

Dent had outpatient surgery performed at St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens by orthopedic physician Dr. Joe Johnson, the UGA football team’s foot and ankle specialist.

The surgery came on the morning after coach Mark Richt told the Greater Atlanta Bulldog Club that the team seemed set to enter preseason camp “the healthiest we’ve been since I’ve been at Georgia.”

Dent, a senior from Atlanta, came out of spring practice No. 1 on Georgia’s depth chart at …

Continue reading Georgia starting linebacker Dent has surgery, out 4-6 weeks »

OK, here’s the final word (I think) on whether the Bulldogs will have any two-a-day practices this summer:

They’ll have one session of two-a-days.

Georgia’s original practice schedule called for no days of double drills, but the revised schedule calls for two practices on Aug. 9. Otherwise, the Dogs will have single practices almost every day in August except for Sundays, when they’ll be off.

“My goal with this whole thing was . . . instead of the old ‘let’s break them down and build them back up’ . . . was to just build them up from the get-go,” Mark Richt said Monday night before speaking to the Greater Atlanta Bulldog Club gathering at the Cobb Galleria Centre. “We get two more weeks of really good [weight-]lifting cycle. . . . When we start the season, I’m hoping we’ll be stronger and healthier. Plus, when you go a lot of two-a-days, you tend to fatigue, tend to pull muscles. I’m trying to keep that from happening if possible.”

Richt also noted that under current NCAA …

Continue reading Notes from Greater Atlanta Bulldog Club meeting »

(Updated 6:50 p.m. )

The NCAA has informed the University of Georgia that investigators will interview one UGA student-athlete “to determine his knowledge of or involvement in, directly or indirectly, any violations of NCAA legislation,” according to a document obtained Monday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The athlete’s name was redacted before the document -– a copy of an e-mail from the NCAA to UGA -– was turned over to the AJC in response to an open-records request.

The e-mail was sent by NCAA Assistant Director of Agent, Gambling and Amateurism Activities Marcus M. Wilson to UGA Assistant Athletic Director of Compliance Eric Baumgartner shortly after the NCAA informed UGA by phone last Wednesday that investigators would come to the Georgia campus to conduct an “inquiry.”

The probe is believed to be the latest in a series of investigations of possible improper benefits received by college football players from sports agents. Investigations also are underway at North …

Continue reading NCAA notice to UGA: One Bulldog under scrutiny (UPDATED) »

A few quick items to start the week (more later today):

• The University of Georgia has placed a want ad for what might well be your dream job: running the Bulldogs’ athletics department.

UGA posted the ad for its vacant athletic-director position on the NCAA’s website. The ad says the position “requires someone who has considerable expertise in intercollegiate athletics management, a keen business sense and an appreciation for the important role athletics plays in a great public university.”

Eighteen “duties and responsibilities” of the job are listed, ranging from “coordinating the recruitment, selection and evaluation of all coaches” to “serv[ing] as the primary spokesperson of the Department.”

Interested? Click here for the ad, which includes info on how to apply.

• Georgia’s annual Bulldog Club tour ends Monday night with the “Celebration of Georgia Athletics” at the Cobb Galleria Centre. Social begins at 5:30 p.m. and program at 7 p.m. Admission and parking are …

Continue reading Georgia posts want ad for AD »

Back from Hoover, Ala., with some leftovers:

• Amazing, how quickly the subject changes in college athletics. When the SEC held its spring meetings in Destin, Fla.,  in early June, the dominant topic was conference expansion/realignment. Seven weeks later at Media Days, that subject was hardly broached, replaced by the new Hot Topic: the agent mess.

• And for that matter, I only heard two questions in Hoover about Damon Evans. The news cycle moves fast.

• One of my favorite moments of Media Days was hearing Derek Dooley praise his high school coach, Billy Henderson, from the stage.  “Probably had as big an impact on my coaching style as anybody,” Dooley said. “Just an incredible way with people.” I had the good fortune of covering Henderson’s Clarke Central High School teams long ago, and it was nice to hear Dooley spreading the word about the greatness of his old coach.

• One more thing from Dooley on stage, talking this time about his dad Vince:

“The first couple of weeks …

Continue reading One last notebook from SEC Media Days: A.J. on season, Spurrier on arrests, more »

HOOVER, Ala. – More than 85 percent of the voters in the SEC’s annual preseason media poll picked Florida to again win the East Division, with Georgia the choice to finish second.

The Gators got 153 of 177 votes to win the East in the survey, announced Friday as SEC Media Days wrapped up. Georgia got 15 first-place votes, South Carolina eight and, inexplicably, Vanderbilt one.

Alabama was the media’s overwhelming pick to win the West Division, with Arkansas second.

And in the SEC Championship Game, Alabama will beat Florida, according to the poll. The Crimson Tide drew 143 of 177 votes to win the Dec. 4 game in Atlanta, while the Gators got 17 votes. Two voters picked Georgia to win the championship game.

Now, it should be noted that the preseason media poll does not have a good track record for predicting the SEC champion. Only four times in the past 18 years has the team picked to win the league actually done so.

The media correctly forecast Florida’s championships in 1994, …

Continue reading Media vote: Gators over Dogs in landslide; six Dogs preseason All-SEC »

HOOVER, Ala. –- Georgia coach Mark Richt and star wide receiver A.J. Green showed up at SEC Media Days Thursday morning, less than 18 hours after UGA received word of an impending NCAA investigation.

If Richt or Green is worried about what’s ahead, they weren’t showing it to the hundreds of reporters here.

Richt said he doesn’t believe the NCAA investigation will necessarily bring bad news for the Georgia program, and Green said he has “never even been” to Miami, scene of a sports agent’s party that has drawn much scrutiny from the NCAA.

Georgia officials were informed by the NCAA late Wednesday afternoon that investigators will come to the UGA campus to conduct an “inquiry” –- the latest in a series of investigations of possible improper benefits received by players from agents. Investigations also are underway at North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Alabama.

“I don’t know if it is [bad news] or not, quite frankly,” Richt said of the NCAA inquiry at Georgia. “I don’t …

Continue reading AgentGate follows Georgia, others around SEC Media Days »

(11:29 a.m. and 12:04 p.m. updates below)

HOOVER, Ala. – Georgia’s delegation arrived here this morning for SEC Media Days and immediately faced questions about Wednesday’s news that the NCAA will send investigators to campus for an “inquiry.”

In interviews before their formal appearances before the media later this morning, Georgia wide receiver A.J. Green said he has “never” been to Miami, where various players’ attendance at an agent’s party reportedly led to NCAA probes at three other schools, and coach Mark Richt said he doesn’t believe the NCAA inquiry will necessarily bring bad news.

“I don’t know if it is [bad news] or not, quite frankly,” Richt said. “By the way you posed the question, you’re saying it’s never good news [when the NCAA investigates]. Then you’re saying it’s bad news. I don’t necessarily think it is bad news.

“I’m sure they’re gathering information, but we’ll see what they gather.”

Richt said he does not believe the NCAA probe will be a distraction to …

Continue reading Richt on NCAA probe: ‘We’ll see what they gather’ (UPDATED) »

(Last updated 1:05 a.m. Thursday)

HOOVER, Ala. –- The NCAA, in the midst of a crackdown on improper dealings between college football players and agents, informed the University of Georgia late Wednesday afternoon that it will send investigators to campus to conduct an “inquiry.”

The probe is believed to be the latest in a recent string of NCAA investigations looking into possible improper benefits received by college football players from agents.

Investigations are known to be underway at North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Alabama.

Georgia associate athletic director Claude Felton confirmed Wednesday’s call from the NCAA and said UGA Athletic Association officials responded by pledging full cooperation.

Felton said the NCAA requested that UGA officials, coaches and student-athletes refrain from further comment on the matter “until the inquiry is completed.” Georgia interim athletic director Frank Crumley declined to comment when reached by the AJC.

The NCAA’s call to …

Continue reading NCAA will make ‘inquiry’ at Georgia (UPDATED) »

HOOVER, Ala. – Georgia’s football season opener vs. Louisiana-Lafayette Sept. 4 in Sanford Stadium will start at 12:21 p.m. and be televised by the SEC Network, UGA said today.

This means Georgia’s first three games will be early starts. The Sept. 11 game at South Carolina and the Sept. 18 game against Arkansas in Athens were previously announced as noon starts on either ESPN or ESPN2.

Times also were previously announced for two other UGA games: The Oct. 2 game at Colorado will begin at 4:30 p.m. (ET) on Fox Sports Net and the Oct. 30 game vs. Florida in Jacksonville at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.

Kickoff times for the remaining Georgia games generally won’t be announced until 12 days in advance, per the SEC’s television deals.

Continue reading Game time set for UGA football opener »

HOOVER, Ala. — Starting the barrage of notes from SEC media days:

• Among the first installments in the mountain of paperwork that will be distributed here during the next three days: a national composite Top 25 based on seven preseason magazines.

Georgia, I thought you’d want to know, is tied for 22nd.

The Bulldogs’ highest ranking among the seven publications came from Athlon (No. 15) and their lowest from Sporting News and Blue Ribbon College Football Yearbook (uranked in both).

Alabama is No. 1 in the composite poll, with Ohio State, Boise State, Florida and Oklahoma completing the top five in that order. Other SEC teams: Arkansas No. 18, LSU No. 20, Auburn No. 21. Georgia is tied with Penn State for No. 22.

Georgia Tech? No. 19.

• Georgia is distributing a new batch of media guides hot off the press — the reprinted version with references to the former athletic director removed.

Damon Evans‘ bio has been replaced with one of Frank Crumley, the interim AD.

Some 14,000 …

Continue reading UGA No. 22 in preseason composite poll; new media guides hot off the press »

At a news conference on July 6, someone asked UGA President Michael Adams if interim athletic director Frank Crumley would receive the same salary that former AD Damon Evans drew.

“He wishes,” Adams said with a smile.

Instead, Crumley will receive a $10,000-per-month supplement in addition to his existing $190,000-per-year salary during the time that he serves as interim AD, according to a memorandum from Adams to Crumley obtained by the AJC under Georgia’s Open Records Act:

In accordance with your acceptance of my offer to you to assume the duties of Interim Athletic Director, I am authorizing a $10,000 per month supplement to your existing salary. This additional monthly salary supplement shall be effective July 6, 2010 and shall remain in effect until a permanent Athletic Director assumes duties here at the University.

Again, I want to thank you for your willingness to take on these additional responsibilities at a critical time.

Crumley has worked for the UGA Athletic …

Continue reading Interim AD gets $10,000 per month salary supplement »

Georgia placed six players on the coaches’ preseason All-SEC teams named Tuesday, including four players on the first team.

Wide receiver A.J. Green, offensive lineman Clint Boling, punter Drew Butler and placekicker Blair Walsh gave Georgia more representatives on the first team than any other school except defending national champion Alabama, which had six.

Two other Georgia players, offensive lineman Cordy Glenn and kick returner Brandon Boykin, made the second team.

No Georgia player was named to the first- or second-team defense. Outside linebacker Justin Houston was a notable omission after leading the SEC in tackles-for-loss per game and ranking second in the league in sacks per game last season.

Florida had the most total selections with 10 -– three on the first team and seven on the second -– followed by Alabama with nine and Auburn and Georgia with six apiece.

For full list of selections, go here.

In other UGA football news today:

Georgia moves back start of football …

Continue reading Four UGA players named first-team preseason All-SEC by coaches »

Just a quick note to start the day, and I’ll have more later this morning:

• Georgia is in the process of changing its preseason practice schedule. The first day of practice has been moved to Monday, Aug. 2. On the original, tentative schedule, practice was to have started July 31.

Georgia associate athletics director Claude Felton said in an e-mail this morning that the schedule is changing because “after reviewing the tentative preseason practice schedule, it was concluded that the formula determining our permissible practice opportunities was not properly applied.”

The NCAA allows 29 practices before the first game but also has various restrictions on how they can be scheduled.

So . . . will there be any two-a-day practices on Georgia’s new schedule?

The original schedule had none, and offensive coordinator Mike Bobo talked in a meeting with reporters last week about the elimination of two-a-days — the stuff of legend among generations of football players — from the …

Continue reading UGA moves back start of practice; will new schedule include any 2-a-days? »

A few quick notes to start the week:

• Former Georgia quarterback D.J. Shockley, recently released by the Falcons, will attend mini-camp with the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League next weekend, according to the National Football Post. The UFL is preparing for its second season, Omaha’s first in the league.

• The momentum Mark Fox is building within the Georgia basketball program was evidenced by the enthusiastic buzz that circulated around Bulldog Nation Saturday night and Sunday regarding the commitment to UGA by highly touted prospect Kentavious Caldwell. A shooting guard from Greenville High, Caldwell is ranked the nation’s No. 11 overall prospect and this state’s No. 1 prospect by ESPN.com. Check out the story from the AJC’s Michael Carvell here.

• You should know by mid-week the kickoff time for Georgia’s football season opener vs. Louisiana-Lafayette Sept. 4 in Sanford Stadium. The SEC plans to unveil the full TV schedule for the first three weeks of the …

Continue reading D.J. Shockley to Omaha, Kentavious Caldwell to Athens, SEC media to Hoover »

The University of Georgia released cell-phone records Friday that show about 250 text messages exchanged, over a period of a few weeks, between former athletics director Damon Evans and the woman who was in the car with him when he was arrested.

The records show that Evans and Courtney Fuhrmann, 28, exchanged four texts shortly after 9 a.m. on July 1, the morning after both were arrested in Atlanta -– Evans on a DUI charge and Fuhrmann on a charge of disorderly conduct.

The records also show that Evans placed two phone calls to Fuhrmann, lasting a total of eight minutes, on the night of July 1, about an hour after he held a news conference in Athens to apologize for the arrest.

Georgia released Evans’ cell-phone bill for the month beginning June 7 on Friday afternoon; it was not available when UGA handed over about 500 pages of documents earlier this week in response to an open-records request from the AJC.

The records released earlier included a May 21 e-mail from Fuhrmann to …

Continue reading Phone records: Evans, Fuhrmann exchanged about 250 texts »

ATHENS – Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham sat Thursday at the head of the long table in the large conference room in what used to be Damon Evans‘ office suite on the fourth floor of the Butts-Mehre building, talking football with a roomful of reporters:

• Grantham said junior DeAngelo Tyson will enter preseason practice as the likely starter at the nose position on Georgia’s defensive line, but that doesn’t mean Grantham sees Tyson as exclusively a nose.

“He’s the No. 1 [nose], but he’s a guy who can give us flexibility and play an end position, too,” Grantham said. “Based on how other guys come on at both nose and end, he can move.”

Grantham is looking for Kwame Geathers, a redshirt freshman, and Justin Anderson, a junior who is shifting from the offensive line, to provide options at nose.

Geathers had a good spring, and his continued development in preseason practice is “critical,” Grantham said.

Anderson missed spring practice with a shoulder injury, so Grantham …

Continue reading Talking football with Todd Grantham: ‘We want to attack. We want to be relentless.’ »

Georgia plans to reprint some 14,000 football media guides — at a cost of about $50,000 — to remove references to ousted athletics director Damon Evans.

The Bulldogs’ annual media guide, which is distributed to donors, recruits and the media, as well as sold to the general public,  was printed shortly before Evans’ June 30 DUI arrest and subsequent resignation.

“The timing made it a very unusual circumstance,” Georgia associate athletics director Claude Felton told the AJC. “After discussions among Alan Thomas in the development office, [interim AD] Frank Crumley and myself, we felt like the best thing under the circumstances would be to do a partial reprint.”

Approximately 21,000 media guides were in the original printing, Felton said. Although some have been distributed, mostly to media and recruits, the majority remain in boxes.

UGA is holding off on distribution to about 9,000 donors until the guides are reprinted. The reprints also are expected to be distributed at SEC …

Continue reading UGA will reprint football media guides to edit out Evans »

ATHENS — Georgia backup tailback Dontavius Jackson, arrested on DUI and other charges last weekend, has decided to transfer to another school, UGA said Wednesday night.

The latest development came three days after Jackson, a redshirt sophomore, was suspended for at least the first six games of the 2010 season by Georgia coach Mark Richt.

Jackson will leave UGA after summer semester. He played in four games last season, rushing for 38 yards on four carries. He was well behind Washaun Ealey, Caleb King and Carlton Thomas on the Bulldogs’ depth chart at tailback.

Jackson was arrested by UGA Police early Saturday and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, underage possession of alcohol, leaving the scene of an accident, following too closely, violation of the move-over law and  violation of learner’s permit.

He is the fourth player to leave the Georgia football program after arrests this year. Richt dismissed linebacker Montez Robinson, quarterback Zach Mettenberger …

Continue reading Arrested tailback will transfer from UGA »

ATHENS –- When Georgia’s football team opens preseason practice, Logan Gray likely will be working full-time at wide receiver. But if Aaron Murray gets hurt early in the season, Gray “naturally” would be called on to play quarterback.

That’s how offensive coordinator Mike Bobo sized up Georgia’s backup-quarterback situation Wednesday.

The Bulldogs’ quarterback depth chart has Murray No. 1, Gray No. 2 and freshman Hutson Mason No. 3. But the picture behind Murray has been muddled since April, when coach Mark Richt said Gray would be given a chance, as he desired, to earn playing time at receiver.

“It’s not 100 percent, but right now [Gray] is going to be working full-time receiver and trying to get in that mode to see if he can help us there,” Bobo said Wednesday. “We don’t want to jerk the kid around and say you’re doing this one day and [that] the next day.”

But who, then, would take over at quarterback if Murray, a redshirt freshman, is injured in preseason or early in the …

Continue reading Logan Gray: full-time wide receiver AND backup quarterback? »

ATHENS –- Georgia will abandon a piece of football tradition this summer: two-a-day practices.

The Bulldogs have a tentative practice schedule that, for the first time anyone around the UGA program can recall, calls for no two-a-days.

Two-a-days -–  the stuff of legend among generations of players –- have been on the wane with Georgia and most other college teams in recent years. Georgia had three sessions of two-a-days last summer.

NCAA rules limit teams to 29 practices before the first game, and Georgia basically decided that preparation for the season can be more productive with 29 one-a-days, allowing time between sessions for more film review and walk-throughs.

But it is a break with tradition, to be sure.

“The older you are, the tougher it was back then,” Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo said Wednesday. “Talk to the older coaches on our staff; they had four- or five-a-days. That’s how Coach [Stacy] Searels and Coach [Rodney] Garner would like to say they had it at …

Continue reading Bulldogs buck football tradition, drop two-a-day practices »

A Facebook campaign is underway for Matt Stinchcomb as Georgia’s next athletics director.

A “Stinchcomb for AD” page went up in the past few days, and last time I looked, 360 people “liked” it.

Stinchcomb, of course, is one of the best and brightest of former Georgia football players: an All-American offensive tackle in the 1990s, a member of the athletics program’s Circle of Honor and a summa cum laude graduate (3.96 GPA) with a degree in finance.  He currently works, along with former Georgia quarterback David Greene, as a client executive in Atlanta for Seacrest Partners, a Savannah-based insurance brokerage and consulting firm.

The “Stinchcomb for AD” page calls him “a perfect selection for Athletic Director.  A model husband and father, humanitarian, and successful member of the business community.”

Stinchcomb’s reaction to the Web site pitching him for AD:  “I like the pictures.”

“I heard about that the other day,” Stinchcomb told me this morning. “I was at J.T. Wall’s …

Continue reading Facebook campaign likes Matt Stinchcomb for Georgia AD »

(Updated 5:30 p.m.)

ATHENS — The University of Georgia turned over about 500 pages of documents regarding ousted athletics director Damon Evans on Tuesday, one of them an e-mail from Courtney Fuhrmann, the woman who was in the car with Evans on the night of his DUI arrest in Atlanta.

The e-mail indicated that Evans and Fuhrmann met on the night of May 20, about six weeks before the arrest that led to Evans’ resignation as Georgia’s AD.

“Wanted to thank you all again for last night,” Fuhrmann wrote to Evans in the e-mail, which was sent at 11:04 a.m. on May 21. “We had a great time and it is always refreshing meeting what is the phrase of the night — ‘good people.’

“Hope everyone made it home safe,” wrote Fuhrmann, 28, who lives in Atlanta. “Look us up next time you are in town if you like. Take care and look forward to a great football season.”

The documents released Tuesday by Georgia, in response to an open-records request from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, show that …

Continue reading Evans documents include e-mail from Courtney Fuhrmann (UPDATED 5:30 P.M.) »

UPDATE, 3:45 P.M. MONDAY:

ATHENS — Two teammates of arrested Georgia football players Dontavius Jackson and Tavarres King are named in the UGA Police Department’s report on the weekend incident.

Cornerback Branden Smith was a passenger in the vehicle driven by Jackson but was the only one of the five people in the 2003 Chevrolet Avalanche not arrested because he “was determined to have not been drinking,” according to the police incident report obtained by the AJC today.

Also, an identification card issued to Vance Cuff, a Georgia cornerback, was found on a female passenger in the vehicle and taken into evidence, according to the incident report. Cuff was not in the vehicle.

The report said Jackson, who was arrested on DUI and five other misdemeanor charges, “admitted to having consumed 2 shots while downtown” after initially telling police he had not consumed any alcohol.  Jackson “appeared to not be trying to provide a sufficient sample” on the breath test, according to the …

Continue reading Two other UGA players named, not charged, in police report (UPDATED) »