Richt makes two changes, including one suggested by talk-show caller
Amid a four-game losing streak, Mark Richt decided on at least two changes Monday:
- First, the Bulldogs practiced in full pads on a Monday during the season “for the first time since I’ve been at Georgia,” Richt said on his weekly radio show shortly after the practice ended.
In the past, the team has practiced in shorts and helmets on Mondays, focusing on conditioning and special-teams work. But Richt had the team don full pads because, as he put it on his radio show, “We’re not tackling good enough. We’re not blocking good enough. We’re not physical enough.”
The first-team offense went against the first-team defense, and the second-team offense vs. the second-team defense, in Monday’s practice. Richt called it “a very high-spirited, high-contact scrimmage.”
- The second change will come just before the start of Saturday’s game against Tennessee in Sanford Stadium. A caller on Richt’s radio show, “Jill in Hoschton,” told the coach that she’d love to see him lead the team out on to the field “clapping and high-fiving our players like [Alabama coach Nick] Saban does.” She said she’s never seen Richt do that in 10 years.
Richt promised to follow the caller’s suggestion.
“The reason I’ve been the last one to go is I want the players to be able to have their moment hitting that field,” Richt said. “But you make a good point, and here’s what I’m going to do, Jill. I’m going to lead the pack coming out of that tunnel, OK? Now, I hope I don’t pull a hamstring and I hope they don’t run me over.
“But I think it’s a good suggestion. So just look for Coach Richt to lead the pack.”
Another caller, “Will in Sylvester,” had a change in mind, too, asking Richt if he plans to begin calling the offensive plays.
“Right now Mike Bobo is calling our plays,” Richt said. “And that’s the way it is right now.”
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343 comments Add your comment
other option in Georgia
October 5th, 2010
12:53 pm
google Uga goes……. boweling swimming, horeseback riding, puttputt and two a days or slapping instead of tackling to the ground and see why we are soft thats why u guys are soft.
Phil
October 5th, 2010
12:56 pm
Hey Reverand Richt go preach at the mega church in Atlanta.They need another con man to preach to them.Richt you are a weak gutless two faced coward.You have disgraced our great university with your scam operation!You wave that bible while your young people go astray.You two faced phony!!!!Resign now!!!!!We do not want you anymore!!!!GET OUT OF ATHENS!!!!yOU PHONY TWO FACED GUTLESS SCAM ARTIST!!11
Go Dawgs!
October 5th, 2010
12:56 pm
@ SadDawg
October 5th, 2010
12:46 pm
Bobo and Martinez would have never been HIRED by Nick Saban!
Hugh
October 5th, 2010
12:57 pm
No more preachers at our university please.Good riddence Richt!Go to Liberty or start a football team at Bob Jones!
buckeyedawg
October 5th, 2010
1:00 pm
alan you sound of one that knows that life style quite well. are you one of those guys sitting at the bar with the horned man himself
Sam
October 5th, 2010
1:00 pm
Take it from a former player. Going full pads on Monday after losing 4 in a row is like drilling the troops at Valley Forge. I lived through that exact scenario many years ago and it accelerated our slide. The guys are already feeling bad enough about themselves and don’t need more beatings.
Bob
October 5th, 2010
1:01 pm
The sooner Rict is gone the better off our university and young people will be.He has never had control of his team.UGA needs a real man leading them not a religious phony delusional idiot.
Mark
October 5th, 2010
1:02 pm
Bye bye Richt!Good riddence!Cant wait for new real leadership at UGA.
Hit A Single
October 5th, 2010
1:03 pm
Anybody that stays at one school for any length of time will have some bad years. Especially in the SEC. The loyal and good coaches rebound and I am sure Coach Richt and the Dawgs will. It is bad to say, but now these players know they may not be as good as they thought.
Eisendawg
October 5th, 2010
1:05 pm
For all the naysayers, haters, etc., here’s your chance to win the lottery. UGA is favored by 12. Go ahead and bet your house on Tennessee, if you are more than talk.
wildbill
October 5th, 2010
1:11 pm
Dawgs lack just about everything, nothing but blanks in the ole gun. Tenn. 21- Dawgs 6.
dawg
October 5th, 2010
1:12 pm
Some of you guys are nuts. To you guys that want Richts head, you might want to look at his winning percentage first. Yes, he’s had trouble beating Fl. but who hasn’t, besides Alabama. What about beating Auburn the past four years and his record against Tech. Get a grip. You’re hurting recruiting.
buckeyedawg
October 5th, 2010
1:15 pm
it is a sad day when people start putting down a mans religious beliefs. this is why our country is becoming morally corrupt. people keep talking about leadership ga has more team captains in the nfl than any other school. just remember the devils way always seems right with more fun but you still end up in hell one day living a spiritual life is always hard wiyh many bumps but one day you do get to heaven
Delbert D.
October 5th, 2010
1:19 pm
Coach Richt and even Caleb King have answered the question about the final play by Georgia against Colorado. Never mind what I thought when I watched it; that is relevant only to me. However, here is what Colorado fans and whoever out west got their version of the telecast are led to believe. I replayed the video several times, and here is verbatim a transcript of the announcer’s call:
“Murray under center, ball’s in the center of the field..Buffs in a 3 man front, turns, hands off, King..tried the flea-flicker..the ball is loose, and Colorado’s got it! John Major recovers! What in the world kind of play was that by Georgia? It looked like he was trying to flip it back to the quarterback in a kind of flea-flicker, he got hit, ball popped out and Major recovered. And Georgia, who has been under the microscope by its fans, just called a stupid play and turned the ball over to the Buffaloes.”
From game video “Football vs. Georgia Highlights”
http://www.cubuffs.com
Kal
October 5th, 2010
1:40 pm
I want to thank the Mike Bobo detractors for venting because I needed the laugh. Bobo does not block, run and since 1998 hasn’t thrown a ball in a game.
Murray is a very good quarterback and the future is very bright. The defense needs to clean up their alignments because Colorado found too many holes to go through on Saturday.
Also, Green was in his first game and cramps came into the picture.
If you want to jump off the bandwagon and not go to games, there are a lot of family groups that will take them off your hands.
DAWGMAN
October 5th, 2010
1:45 pm
This is not a bump in the road. This sink hole is 50 feet deep, 60 feet long, and 70 yards wide. You can’t get there from here. Denial is the first stage in the painful journey to clear-headed acceptance of the situation. Old Coach Dooley would just as soon see Derek come home to mama at the end of next season as anything. The mistakes are all mental. The preceding sentence was pure BS. These guys have no heart. They aren’t Bulldawgs enough to beat Tennessee. I am a UGA graduate. I love UGA. Real love is tough love sometimes. This is one of those times. Now…Today. Wait until Saturday evening, if you like.
duvaldawg
October 5th, 2010
1:55 pm
hosay cosayco
we should send bobbo back upstairs to the booth, that might help.
I could not agree more. Bobo does need to go back upstairs to the coaches box, where he can see the field better. Being able to see the field and the defensive aligments of the opponent I believe will be a tremendous help to Bobo and have a positive affect on his play calling. I believe it will help Murray more also to have Bobo in the coaches box. An adjustment like that can make a big difference.
38 Yardline Dawg
October 5th, 2010
1:57 pm
I say, if you can fire the AD for one offense after years of good things for UGA sports, you can do the same for the football coach.
Folks, we’re at a point where Richt has radio callers suggesting things like “lead your team on the field to motivate them, as Saban does” and he takes it to heart. After nine seasons, is it just occuring to him to be more involved with motivating players?
Actually, no it isn’t. Richt got his butt beat in Tennessee a few years back, remember when we were big favorites to win? He said after that game that he realized he needs to be part of the motivating force of the team, and not just place the blame on the players.
I have had enough. Give me a coach that LOOKS and ACTS like he wants to win and looks a bit mad on the sideline before we’re about to loose…again!
Vu Du Huong
October 5th, 2010
2:22 pm
Try as you will but none of these ideas and suggestions will work. I’ve said all along that I know the only thing that is going to break the “Georgia Jinx” will have to take place at a home game. The vignette of Damon Evans expostulation on the evils of alcohol and drinking and driving MUST be played on the big screen. All else will fail.
Syrupmaker
October 5th, 2010
2:33 pm
Well one thing is we need to stop AL FL FSU and Auburn from getting our instate recruits before Richt got here that was the problem that’s why Tenn and FSU had so much success in the 90’s they were loaded with GA talent if you get home boys to stay they will have more passion to play for the school they grew up with all these FL and out of state players just use us as a stepping stone to the NFL and now we are in fierce battle with Auburn and AL for our boys with all of there new excitement
And if you look Tenn is playing with fire now is because most are freshmen or walk ons that love the Big T
Touchdown Tommy
October 5th, 2010
2:56 pm
Everybody’s mad, everybody’s upset… everybody wants to win! i do remember my junior and senior years at UGA. Neither was a winning year only if you count 6-5 two years in a row. Folks were saying that Dooley had grown soft and didn’t know how to compete in the SEC any more. Even a few rallys on campus where Dooley was burned in effigy. But we still had fun supporting the Dawgs, even on the road trip and loss to Vandy!!!
Following year after I left the Dawgs went to the Cotton Bowl and won. A few more years down the road was the national championship.
Problem I see is more with player mentality… wanting to make a play. Nobody is stepping up to make the big play. Coaches can’t make the big play, only players. Game plan will work if there are big play makers on both O and D.
Syrupmaker
October 5th, 2010
3:04 pm
All These guys don’t live in dorms they stay off campus its not like the old days with athletic dorms it looks like Richt trusts them too much and they let him down and how can you suspend people for any length of time when your as young as we are. Look what he faces from you idiots as it is. Satan is after the poor boy and he is using us as his puppets stay faithful Coach
Vick=Dog killing thug
October 5th, 2010
3:07 pm
If I can pick two teams to beat it would be Tenn and GT. Not sure about this weekend but we’ve GOT to beat GT GOT TO
Richard Dawson
October 5th, 2010
3:18 pm
Here is why you lose a football game. It is not because a player made a mistake that Richt is not responsible for. Richt is responsible for everything the players do. Regardless, this particular fumble was due to Richt’s highly predictable decision to run up the middle to set up a field goal. Colorado, I, and my dead grandma saw this coming from 1000 miles away. They blew up the play, forced a fumble, and won the game. Blame lies squarely and only with Mark Richt, who is responsible for the terrible, predictable playcalling (and why would you want to set up Walsh for a 40+ yard FG when he already missed one? Go for the TD. Go for the win.), responsible for Bobo’s playcalling, responsible for recruiting good players, and responsible for how they execute. Richt and Richt alone is responsible. Here’s what Colorado’s DC had to say on this horrendous decision.
From ESPN.COM:
During a timeout in the waning minutes and with the Georgia Bulldogs already in range for a game-winning field goal, Colorado defensive coordinator Ron Collins decided to turn linebacker B.J. Beatty loose on a blitz.
“I told him, ‘Let’s run it,” Beatty said. “Because we knew they were going to try to run the ball, milk the clock and kick a field goal. I knew I had the opportunity to come off the edge and maybe disrupt the hand-off.”
Lining up with the Buffs clinging to a 29-27 lead, Beatty was just hoping for the Bulldogs to run the ball, and sure enough, it played out exactly like he envisioned.
Beatty stripped Caleb King just as he got the handoff from quarterback Aaron Murray at the Buffaloes’ 30-yard line and he held King back while teammate Jon Major smothered the loose ball.
kennymon
October 5th, 2010
3:24 pm
Why cant our DBs stay somewhere near the opponents receivers. They are not covering or making tackles.
JoeCool23
October 5th, 2010
3:34 pm
F*ck “Jill in Hoschton”.
STINGER
October 5th, 2010
3:38 pm
THWG. YOU BUNCH OF WU$$E$.
Boston Dawg
October 5th, 2010
3:51 pm
People clamoring for Richt to take over play-calling have really short memories. He wasn’t a good play-caller when he did it before, so how would that solve anything? Our offenses in the “glory days” of 2001-05 weren’t that great…they scored just enough and our defense destroyed people.
Our offense is the same thing Richt was running at FSU in the 90’s. That worked OK with 5-star athletes playing against Maryland and Duke, but it ain’t gonna work this decade, not in this SEC. It’s stale and needs to be overhauled completely, so having Richt take over the play-calling won’t help. They need to bring in a top-10 OC in the offseason, but more than that they just need to be more physical.
Touchdown Tommy
October 5th, 2010
4:36 pm
Missed assignments on the offensive line on that play? Yes. Coaches fault? Think what you will.
Seems to me that with time running out you keep it in the middle of the field, run the clock to near “0″, kick the field goal to go ahead while leaving no time for the opponents to come back down the field. Yea, its predictable and everybody does it. Not a fault of the play caller there; he was going for the high percentage play. Percentage of success goes way down when you go for a TD, even though that is a great storyline for a movie. Actually I would have loved it, but I agree with the called play, just not with the outcome.
Run, ealey, Run
October 5th, 2010
4:41 pm
What Iffffffffffffff.
UGAG is gitting the ncaa death penalty, he he ha ha
October 5th, 2010
5:53 pm
The last team in the sec is now imitating the first team, he he ha ha. What ya gonna do next, git a baby elephant to replace that ugly flea bag you call a mascot? HE HE HA HA, LOSERS
Lance
October 5th, 2010
5:56 pm
Mark Richt gave us 10 great seasons and he deserves our patience and loyalty. If you had a few bad days at the job after 10 great years should you be fired? I’m embarrassed of how fickle the bulldog nation is.
TimingGuy
October 5th, 2010
8:22 pm
Why would FSU want Richt? They are doing better than Richt with the coach they have.
joe taxpayer
October 5th, 2010
8:41 pm
Mark Richt gave us 10 great seasons–Lance; We have had four great seasons maybe 5.
gabugman
October 6th, 2010
7:28 am
Umm, Mark Richt has seen his potential maybe 3 seasons, fer sure 2. The balance have been underachieving disappointments.
ac
October 6th, 2010
7:13 pm
if all of you lazy boy coaches knew anything about football, you would be on the field, not behind your keyboard typing lame ideas about how to fix the problem.
Doyle Rainey lives
October 6th, 2010
8:12 pm
Lance I don’t owe Richt a damn thing. The man is making over $2 million a year and is inept at his job. If anything he owes UGA a bunch of money back. So now he’s going to listen to what callers on hid radio show say to do? That’s laughable. And that’s about the only way he can be like Saban. B/c Saban is a winner and richt isn’t. richt got lucky by taking donnan’s talent and winning an SEc east without Spurrier at Fla., Fulmer glory yrs. were over at Tenn. And he had Van gorder to save his ass time after time. Just as Les Miles will discover, luck doesn’t last forever.
1980 was so long ago
October 7th, 2010
8:26 am
“The reason I’ve been the last one to go is I want the players to be able to have their moment hitting that field,” Richt said. “But you make a good point, and here’s what I’m going to do, Jill. I’m going to lead the pack coming out of that tunnel, OK? Now, I hope I don’t pull a hamstring and I hope they don’t run me over.
“But I think it’s a good suggestion. So just look for Coach Richt to lead the pack.”
Now this is the kind of coaching guile that should take the dawgs to the top, or at least a win over a hapless UT team.
A stroke of genius, why didn’t he think of this before the Carolina game.
John
October 7th, 2010
12:09 pm
TO ALL YOU RICHT HATERS: EVERY COACH, EVEN THE BEAR, HAD LOSING SEASONS. IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. GET OVER YOUR SELFISHNESS AND INTOLERANCE AND REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE AFTER DOOLEY AND BEFORE RICHT! IT WAS VERY DEPRESSING………RICHT HAS A BETTER RECORD THAN DOOLEY. DOOLEY HAD DOWN YEARS. IT TOOK HIM HOW MANY YEARS TO WIN A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP? SO STOP HATING AND BE THANKFUL FOR THE AWESOME COACH WE HAVE. FOR A FIRST TIME COACH HE IS DOING INCREDIBLE AND BETTER THAN DOOLEY. IDIOTS….
John
October 7th, 2010
12:27 pm
THERE IS ONLY 1 BEST COACH IN THE COUNTRY AND ALABAMA “BOUGHT HIM” SO GET OVER YOURSELF. EVERY SCHOOL IN THE COUNTRY CANT HAVE SABAN AND YOU BETTER KEEP RICHT BECAUSE HE IS YOUNG, SABAN IS WHAT 60? RICHT IS ONLY GOING TO GET BETTER. THIS IS FIRST HEAD COACHING JOB. UH DOYLE, RICHT WON MORE THAN 1 SEC CHAMPIONSHIP SO YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID. YOU PROBABLY WANT DONNAN BACK DONT YOU? REMEMBER THOSE DAYS? YOU CANT HANDLE ADVERSITY? EVERYBODY SAYS FIRE THE COACH, FIRE THE COACH. DID ALABAMA FIRE THE BEAR WHEN HE HAD BAD YEARS? THEY WOULD HAVE IF YOU IDIOTS WERE IN CHARGE! HOW LONG DID IT TAKE THE BEAR TO WIN WHEN HE FIRST STARTED COACHING BEFORE ALABAMA? THEN HE STILL HAD LOSING SEASONS….STAY WITH RICHT THROUGH THE UPS AND DOWNS……..HOW LONG DID IT TAKE BOWDEN TO GET HIS FIRST CHAMPIONSHIP? HUH? HUH? YEAH THATS RIGHT. THEY STUCK WITH THEM THROUGH THE YEARS AND IT WORKED AND IT WILL WORK WITH RICHT! OH YEAH RICHT WAS UNDER BOWDEN…..YOU PEOPLE CANT HANDLE THE DOWNS AND SEE THE BIG PICTURE, SEE THAT RICHT BRINGS STABILITY, LIKE TEXAS AND PENN STATE AND HE WILL GET BETTER AND BETTER BUT YOU CAN FIRE HIM AND BRING IN COACH AFTER COACH. UNLESS YOU PAY SABAN 10 MILLION A YEAR TO LEAVE BAMA. SABAN IS HOW OLD? MACK BROWN IS HOW OLD? YOU BETTER HAVE RICHT THE NEXT DECADE BECAUSE HE IS ABOUT TO HIT HIS STRIDE AND THE BEGINNING OF HIS PRIME AS A COACH.
Joemac
October 7th, 2010
12:52 pm
CMR will never lead the pups to where you want them to be, the NC. It makes no difference if he leads the team out or not, if the team is not coached up to begin with, then what is running out in front of the players going to accomplish? CMR needs to do the job that he is being paid dearly to do, and let the allure of other things go.
Hesucks
October 7th, 2010
2:43 pm
Mark Richt obviously doesnt give a damn about UGA football if he still believes MIKE “THE CLOWN” BOBO cn call plays. What a moron.
Syrupmaker
October 7th, 2010
4:05 pm
We aren’t fickle its those Bulldawg nation posers that don’t have the intelligent ability to know things work in a cycle this is the beginning of good things to come with our young skill players if we can only convince our recruit of this and they don’t jump ship the only thing is I wish we could have found a DC that could have fell in to Willie Martinez’s job and just had to talk and coach them up instead of having to recruit players for his defense