Richt expresses thanks, relief for hard-fought win over Gators

WHAT THEY SAID

Postgame quotes . . .

GEORGIA HEAD COACH MARK RICHT

“To God be the glory. I’m thankful for what just happened. I know it was just a ballgame, but it seemed like a lot more than that. Just to see our players and fans celebrate in this place especially was awesome. I’m very glad to be a part of this today.

“Thankfully, we got a couple of turnovers deep in our territory, and both of our touchdown came on fourth down calls. They were very clutch plays. It takes those types of plays to win this ballgame.”

On the SEC Eastern Division race…

“In hindsight, I can say this now that it’s over, but this was more than just another game to win and to keep pace in the Eastern Division. You could see it with our guys, but we didn’t want to try to make it any bigger than it needed to be. We wanted them to focus on their jobs, and I thought they did that. It wasn’t looking good early on, and credit Florida for what they did in their two-week period. But down by seven at halftime, we still had a good feeling. We were in good shape.”

On what was said in the Georgia locker room at halftime…

“I didn’t see the deer in the headlights look. What I saw was a bunch of guys focused and believing. I thought our staff did a nice job of making adjustments to what they were doing. We had a good plan in the second half, and our guys executed well. And we finished the game without the drama at the end.”

On Georgia’s defense…

“Our defense was fantastic. To start the game, they didn’t have a back in the backfield, so they weren’t really trying to run the ball. Quite frankly, we didn’t have many answers early on. We were able to force a couple of turnovers and took care of business.”

GEORGIA PLAYER QUOTES

Sophomore quarterback Aaron Murray . . .

“All of those guys did a great job of going up and making a play when it counted. They went up high in the air and basically wrestled it way from the defenders to make some awesome catches. Those guys were huge for us tonight.” On beating Florida: “It’s just a great feeling. Everyone has been saying how lopsided the series with Florida has been over the years but this team was 0-0 going into this game. And now we’re 1-0. We have been working on a lot of the plays that worked for two straight weeks now and I think us hitting some of those huge touchdown catches changed the momentum of this game.”

Sophomore outside linebacker Jarvis Jones . . .

• On the victory over the Gators: “Our seniors and coaches deserved this win. This was a big game for (Coach Mark Richt), it was huge game for the SEC race. We just came out and did what we needed to do the whole game.”
• On his four-sack performance: “The coaches just put us in a great position to have success tonight. Coach (Todd) Grantham gave us their weaknesses and we tried to take advantage of them. If something I do helps us win games and helps this team, I’ll try my best to do it.”

Freshman receiver Michael Bennett . . .

• On his touchdown catch on fourth down: “It was just a fade route and Aaron threw it in the spot where only I could catch it. I had to go up and snag it and then kind of wrestle it away from their guy. I was glad I was able to come through for the team. I thought Tavarres King’s catch was also unbelievable too, he really stepped up for us big.”
• On Georgia’s passing game in the second half: “Our coaches kind of changed up our game plan for the second half. They thought we could gash them on deep pass plays and that’s what we did.”

FLORIDA HEAD COACH WILL MUSCHAMP

Opening statement:

“We had our opportunities in the game. We had two turnovers inside our 25-yard line; gave up 14 points on two critical fourth down plays and a lack of being able to run the football – too many penalties in critical situations. Obviously John went and we got some performance on his part, very proud of him and his effort, he’s a guy who really lays it on the line. We couldn’t get him under center to do some of the things we wanted to do, we knew that going into the game. We felt like we had some things in the throwing game and that’s why we stayed with what we wanted to do in that situation. We have to find some ways to run the football. We cannot be so one-dimensional and that’s something we have to work on. We got a turnover inside the 10, end up with two sacks and we’re out of field goal range. Those are very frustrating to deal with, but we had our opportunities in the last two ball games. We have to close it out and win those games.”

On Brantley’s ankle status affecting the run game:

“Well there’s no question it affects the run and we run the ball so much east and west – we need to be able to run the ball downhill and when you’re in the gun it’s hard to run the ball consistently downhill. So again, he’s limited with his ankle but we felt like he gave us opportunity to be successful in the game so that’s what we went with. I’d do it again, John played well and we just need to figure out how we can run the ball a little bit more effectively.”

On the rest of the season:

“I just go to work. You know you have to go back and go to work, evaluate where we are and figure out some different answers. We had some different things planned in the game, but we stayed with that because we felt that gave us the best opportunity to be successful against this group. They’re big thick inside, we just wanted to spread them out and try to run the ball and we didn’t have success doing it. ”

On Jarvis Jones and rushing the ball:

“Jarvis is a good player, he’s a good rusher – their best rusher. He did a good job, but again, in those situations you have to be able to have some sort of run game to slow down the rush and it’s tough on the tackles to continue to kick out and block the edge rushers. We need to go back and evaluate the run game and figure out ways to run the football.”

FLORIDA PLAYERS

Sophomore Kicker Brandon Phillips . . .

• On getting his chance to start: “Coach told me earlier in the week that I’d be doing kick off. He told me about 10 minutes before the game that I’d be doing field goals because Caleb Sturgis was down, so I just had to step up, pick up the slack, and do what I needed to do. I was excited. I’ve been waiting all season to get my chance and I finally got it.”
• On missing his first FG: “Muschamp came up to me and told me to relax, and pretty much the whole team boosted me up on that one and helped me get through the rest of the game. It calmed me down after that field goal and I was able to do what I needed to do for the rest of the game.”

Redshirt Sophomore Center Jonotthan Harrison . . .

• On generating a consistent running game: “We had a good two weeks at practice, and during the week we actually generated a running game pretty well, but we weren’t executing plays as well as we should have been.”
• On tonight’s penalties: “I can only speak for myself but one time I was having difficulty hearing the quarterback, and another time I did roll the snap back.”
• On offensive change with Brantley in shotgun: “A lot of our plays that we run under center we tweaked a little bit to run them under the gun.”
• On Florida’s frustration level: “I can’t speak for the whole team obviously, but individually, it’s very frustrating. On certain things, we’re just killing ourselves basically. I’m just killing myself. We could perform a lot better than we actually are. Like I said, it’s a matter of executing and just finishing everything.”
• On priorities for team: “Executing plays, like I’ve said many times, and just having everyone completely focused on the offense. If everyone works as a team, then we’ll be successful.”

Senior Tackle Jaye Howard . . .

On dealing with losses: “It’s tough to deal with, but all we can do is continue to go out and show up every week and just give it our best.  Since I’ve been at Florida, I’ve only been through one difficult season, and that was last year. It’s just going to develop a competing edge in me so I can take it to the next level. Everyone’s taking it hard. It’s four games in a row that we’ve lost now. The only thing we can do is keep the team motivated and keep pushing. The season’s still not over. We can go out and win and get a good bowl game, so that’s what we’re playing for now.”