Archive for March, 2011

ATHENS — Not quite two weeks after spraining his right ankle in a pickup soccer game on campus, Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray is off crutches, out of the walking boot, starting to do a little running and looking forward to the start of spring football practice.

“No more soccer,” Murray said Thursday. “No basketball, soccer, baseball, softball — none of that stuff. Just football from here on out.”

He said the ankle injury occurred “just going up for a header. Just came down wrong on it. Just rolled it a little bit.” The scariest part, he said, was the thought of telling coaches Mark Richt and Mike Bobo.

On the ground immediately after the injury, “I was, like, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to tell Coach Bobo,’” Murray said. “I was, like, ‘This is not going to be good.’”

But he said the ankle “didn’t hurt too bad, just swelled up a little bit, so I [thought] it was probably just a little sprain.” X-rays and an MRI  confirmed that diagnosis.

Murray was amazed by the interest in …

Continue reading ‘No more soccer’ for Aaron Murray »

ATHENS — There’s an interesting — and significant — position change on Georgia’s football team.

Former five-star recruit Alec Ogletree, who played safety as a freshman last season, will move to inside linebacker when spring practice starts next week, defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said Thursday.

“Basically, every year what you do is you evaluate the players you have, and you look at your needs,” Grantham said. “He’s a tall guy; he’s got good size; he can run and hit, and he’s physical. I feel like moving him closer to the ball is going to allow him to make more plays and be more productive for us.

“I’m really excited because I think by moving him there it will allow us to put Jarvis [Jones, who was redshirted last season after transferring from USC] at outside ‘backer.”

The 6-foot-3, 224-pound Ogletree started four games last season.

As a senior at Newnan High School in 2009, he was rated the nation’s No. 2 safety prospect by MaxPreps.com and the No. 3 outside linebacker …

Continue reading Dogs’ Alec Ogletree changes positions »

(Georgia 73, LSU 53: Click here for game story.)

ATHENS — Amid the good news for Georgia’s basketball team Wednesday night –- a 20th win, a move into a second-place tie in the SEC East and fitting farewells to Stegeman Coliseum for two senior players — there was a bit of bad news:

Trey Thompkins is questionable for the regular-season finale at Alabama on Saturday.

Thompkins has been bothered this week by an injured toe and, according to coach Mark Fox, had part of a toenail removed on Tuesday. The tender toe obviously was bothering Thompkins in Wednesday’s game, limiting him to 22 minutes –- just six in the second half.

Afterward, Fox suggested Thompkins might not play in Tuscaloosa, where the Crimson Tide is unbeaten this season (15-0).

“I’m not sure, to be honest with you, if he’ll make it to the weekend,” Fox said. “We’ve got to get him healthy. The poor kid has been hurt the entire year.”

Thompkins, Georgia’s leading scorer (15.8 points per game) and rebounder (7.5 per …

Continue reading Thompkins questionable for Dogs’ regular-season finale »

Three storylines for tonight’s Georgia-LSU basketball game in Athens:

1. Standings and seedings.

A Georgia win would send the Bulldogs into the final weekend of the regular season in a three-way tie with Kentucky and Vanderbilt for second place in the SEC East. Kentucky’s win over Vandy last night made both of those teams 9-6 in the league, and Georgia takes an 8-6 record into tonight’s game.

However, for SEC tournament seeding purposes, Georgia would lose tiebreakers to Vanderbilt and Kentucky. (First tiebreaker is record vs. tied team(s); second is divisional record.) So to get the No. 2 East seed and first-round bye, Georgia would need to finish ahead of — not tied with — those teams in the standings. For that to happen, Georgia would need to beat LSU and Alabama (Saturday in Tuscaloosa), while Kentucky would need to lose at Tennessee (Sunday) and Vanderbilt would need to lose at home to Florida (Saturday).

And, hey, here’s another possibility in the jumbled East: Georgia, …

Continue reading UGA-LSU: 1 game, 3 storylines »

Emptying the notebook . . .

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Sounds like the SEC spring meetings in Destin will be quite interesting. Three SEC football coaches defend the practice of oversigning in this Wall Street Journal article –- the same practice that Florida President Bernie Machen called “reprehensible” in this SI.com article.

UGA President Michael Adams briefly addressed the topic at Georgia’s athletic board meeting last week:  “We will not oversign,” he said. “Issues of grayshirting and oversigning in football — and some of the other [compliance] issues that have been in the press — are issues that I know will be on the presidents’ agenda for Destin.”

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Speaking of the SEC spring meetings, another issue sure to be on the table is the seeding format for the conference’s men’s basketball tournament.

The past two seasons of disparity between the divisions –- the East much stronger than the West –- have drawn criticism to a system that gives the top two finishers in each division a …

Continue reading On oversigning, reseeding and rumor mongering … »