Yes, amid all the hoops, spring football practice also starts today
About an hour after the Georgia men’s basketball team finishes its SEC tournament opener against Auburn at the Georgia Dome this afternoon, the Bulldogs’ football team will hit the field in Athens for the start of spring practice. I’ll be at the Dome, and Andy Johnston will be covering football practice. There’s much SEC tournament coverage on AJC.com today, but I know some of you might be looking for football fodder on the first day of spring ball. So here, culled from a full preview of Georgia spring practice that ran in Sunday’s paper, are three key issues facing the Bulldogs:
1. Rebuilding the receiver corps: While A.J. Green trains for the NFL draft, Georgia faces the daunting task of replacing arguably the best receiver in school history. The Bulldogs also must replace last season’s second most productive receiver, Kris Durham, who completed his eligibility. Rising junior Tavarres King, the leading returning receiver with 27 catches last season, will line up at flanker “to have an opportunity to do some of the things A.J. was doing,” coach Mark Richt said. Coaches will look for others to emerge this spring from a group that includes Marlon Brown, Rantavious Wooten, Michael Bennett, Israel Troupe and early enrollee Chris Conley. “I think there are plenty of guys who can make plays for us,” Richt said, “and young guys coming in [this summer] who are going to be hungry.”
2. Shoring up the offensive line: Expected to be a pillar of last season’s team, the unit underachieved. With the graduation of starters Clint Boling and Josh Davis, the departure of coach Stacy Searels to Texas and the hiring of Will Friend from UAB as Searels’ replacement, the offensive line bears watching closely this spring. Ben Jones is back for his fourth season as the starting center, and Trinton Sturdivant and converted guard Cordy Glenn are the almost-certain starters at left and right tackle, respectively. “The guard spots are really up for grabs right now,” Richt said. Rising sophomore Kenarious Gates, who started three games last season, is a leading candidate for one of the spots.
3. Filling the holes at linebacker: Georgia must replace three of last season’s four starters at the position — Justin Houston, a possible first-round NFL draft pick who started all 13 games at outside linebacker; Akeem Dent, the team’s leading tackler who started 13 games at inside linebacker; and Darryl Gamble, who started seven games on the outside. The linebacker group also lost a coach with the departure of inside linebackers coach Warren Belin to the Carolina Panthers; he was replaced by Kirk Olivadotti, hired from the Washington Redskins. At inside linebacker, the Bulldogs will count on Christian Robinson, who started 10 games last season, and converted safety Alec Ogletree. At outside linebacker, the leading candidates to start are Cornelius Washington and USC transfer Jarvis Jones. Prized signee Ray Drew will join the OLB competition in August.
- For the AJC’s full preview of UGA spring football practice, please click here.
- And for 10 players to watch this spring, please click here.
– Tim Tucker, AJC
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163 comments Add your comment
Delta Stewardess
March 11th, 2011
11:26 pm
Just don’t let a soccer game break out at football practice or we might not have a team to face Boise State.
jerry
March 11th, 2011
11:30 pm
Oh. Allburnd fan nobody cares BooHoo.
jerry
March 11th, 2011
11:42 pm
Dutch too.
jerry
March 11th, 2011
11:48 pm
Dang it everybody done gone to bed , That’s what i get for being a slow typer.
Nick Fairley
March 11th, 2011
11:49 pm
JDAWG
March 11th, 2011
9:14 pm
http://isportsweb.com/2011/03/11/georgia-football-5-biggest-questions/
#5. Is Mark Richt Safe?
What a difference two years make. After the 2008 season Georgia head coach Mark Richt was virtually on the top of the college football world. Richt held an impressive 82-22 record as head coach, which included two SEC titles, three BCS bowl games, six 10-wins-or-more seasons and a Top 25 spot in the final AP Poll every season. However, fast-forward two seasons, which saw the Bulldogs go 14-11 overall and 7-9 in the SEC, and Richt is on the hot seat. His decision to call this year’s recruiting class the best he’s ever had is extremely bold, seeing as it could give the critics that say ”Richt can recruit, but can’t develop players” even more ammunition if 2011 is a lot like 2010. It’s common knowledge that as more and more ammunition builds up, the gun is eventually going to go off. Richt needs impressive results as soon as possible in order to secure his position as Georgia head coach.
—
3 times he went to the SEC championship and won 2. He is 7-3 bowls. 2x sec champ (2002 and 2005). He has coached since 2001, that’s for 10 years.
In that time period…
Auburn won 2 SEC Championships and the 2011 BCS National Title with a 2nd year coach,
Alabama won with a 3rd year coach, Nick Saban,
LSU won the BCS National Championship in 03 and 06, one with 4th year HC Saban and the other with 3rd year HC Les Miles.
And then there is that guy out of Florida. He won 2 BCS National Titles since Richt was at UGA, his first was in year 2 and his second in year 4.
That’s 6 national titles, 5 in a row, won by coaches with no more than 4 years under their belt when they won. The average was 3 years.
In 10 years, nothing has come of Georgia. In a 10 year span, the SEC Champion has gone 9 and 10 in BCS bowl games including of course 6 national titles and 5 in a row. The most recent, in case you missed it, was the team Georgia cheered against and that was the Auburn Tigers.
The SEC won 90% of those BCS games with the only loss, the major blemish, was in 2005 when none other than the Jawja Bulldogs lost to West Virginia. They were down 28-0, they almost game back but unlike Auburn they can’t come back from being that far down.
So where it matters most, since CMR has been at Georgia they have won 2 SEC Championships, lost 1 and their last game was against UCF in Memphis in a bowl most didn’t know was televised.
Auburn in that time won 2 SEC Championships, lost none, undefeated twice and won the BCS National title in 2011 and could’ve done so in 2004.
go pups! keep reaching for that rainbow! The rest of us are going to play for national championships and win Heisman awards.
Sincerely,
Nick Fairley
Student
March 12th, 2011
12:17 am
just want to inform all the bloggers that quite a few starters from the team were downtown until 2am after the first day of practice. explains quite a bit…
Nick Fairley
March 12th, 2011
12:30 am
you know, for all of the poking in the eye I do around here, I hate to hear that. I like to poke people in the eye that think they’re good when they’re not and I find a lot of that on these ajc threads.
But CMR is a good guy, for the life of me I just don’t get the thought process behind that. Saban doesn’t let those guys have a good time whatsoever, you can celebrate after you win. I think Bill Bellichekckdsdfsd can’t spell his name, anyways, he’s the same. Until you’ve won, it’s curfews and 6am meetings. Auburn did that relaxation of the curfew in the days prior to the NC but tightened as the week went a long. But after 5 weeks off and knowing the implications of the game that’s slightly more understandable in terms of keeping guys loose although risky. But spring and summer camps should never aim to keep guys loose.
AUBURN THUG UNIVERSITY
March 12th, 2011
12:48 am
4 Auburn football players arested for 1st degree arm robbery today .THUG UNIVERSITY
woebegong
March 12th, 2011
12:50 am
Nick,
the original statement your fellow fan of Auburn made was that a violation of NCAA rules that Green made and paid for, somehow equated to the 4 felons that got kicked off your team.
As usual, you come up with the same old lines you have been spouting on these blogs.
I think the fulmer cup probably equates to misdemeanors as no one who got arrested last year at UGA commited a felony.
Surely, you can see the distinction between a misdeanor and a felony that involves weapons as in armed robbery. I also believe another person on your team was also involved in a domestic assault and kicked off your team as well.
You need to come up with some new lines now, since you simply keep repeating the same old ones, which by the way, usually have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the blog, over and over again.
The year is now 2011, not last year. History is a great teacher and maybe even a great forecaster of the future in some cases. Meaning, watch out for the past, because it could come back to bite you in the butt. Time will surely tell in Auburns case I would guess.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAWGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Delta Stewardess
March 12th, 2011
1:36 am
@jerry
slow typer OR Stinky Diaper?
woebegong
March 12th, 2011
9:09 am
I think that we need an addition for an award to go along side the Fulmer Cup. Let’s call it the Felon Cup. I think I know the early leader for this new award.
GOOOOOO DAWGSSSSSSSSSSS
NCAA investigators = nazis
March 14th, 2011
8:38 am
Can anyone tell me why Ohio State only gets a two game suspension and a 250,000 dollar fine for Pryor and his gang bangers getting tattoos in exchange for autographs and A.J green got a four game suspension? Can we get that cheating coward with the sweater vest a 5 game suspension? The only reason he beat an SEC team is b/c he cheated and used inelligible players. He knew he couldn’t win w/o thePryor so he cheated knowing the NCAA would be to scared to punish them. Man up NCAA.
Jim
March 14th, 2011
2:11 pm
Tim you are right on about the offensive line, they need help. They couldn’t move their feet last yaer and got beat more often than not. Hopefully the new coach will not only simply the blocking but help them with fundamentals (weak) and the new kids will be as advertised. However, there is one issue that Coach Richt needs to address. He is about to lose a outstanding lineman out of Buford High to either Ala or Auburn. He is being heavily recruiting by both and Coach Richt hasn’t darken this kids door. It will be a loss but this is the history of Coach he loses more than he gets because he doesn’t put out the effort he leaves to subordinates. Maybe he should due fewer commericals and more onsire recruiting. Lou Saban has been to see this boy and met with him twice that I know of personally and the coach at Auburn has met with his family once but Richt NONE. So what’s up. One of the most important positions on the field is the offensive line. You can have all-americans in the backfield (we did) and on the wings (we did) but not produce because of the “O” lines inability to block (it couldn’t) you end up with loses (we did). It will be a shame if Coach gets fired this year but if so he will only be the blame because it is not because he didn’t have the talent (he has and does) it will be because of not filing key positions and oh yeah BAD COACHING. Get someone who is not a QB and let them call plays and RUN RUN RUN the football FIRST and pass second. Go watch Vince Lombardi football and figure out running will will a National Championship.