Deleted Scenes: Week 9

Lots of good stuff from this week just didn't find it into the nearly 15,000 words of text I wrote, so here's what you missed out on...

Mark Richt on emotions heading into the game: "I can't imagine them not being emotionally ready to play. They're going to be, and we are, too. There are some games where coaches have to talk more about will the team be mentally ready to play, will they be excited enough, will there be enough energy and adrenaline. This isn't a game that falls into that category. I doubt that Coach Meyer is worried about if his players are going to be jacked up or not, and I'm not worried about ours."

Richt on how well Florida is playing: "Florida's definitely peaking. I hope they have peaked already. I hope they can't get better than they have been. We seem to be getting better, that is not all that rare, especially with the youth we have. They are playing with a young team, too. They don't have one senior on defense. I can see they have made tremendous strides from last year to this year. Their offense is more of a veteran group. I don't know if anybody has really slowed them down other than they slowed themselves down in the Ole Miss game with a couple of fumbles."

Richt on all the players who have filled in for injured starters: "I am thankful we got these guys here and that they did step up. We really don't complain much about injuries We really try not to feel sorry for ourselves even though there have been a few times in private staff meetings that we were hanging our head, last week in particular. Trying to figure out how in the world are we were getting things prepared and who is going to be able to show up and who do we practice. It can be a bit of a downer. The game is over and you do see guys like that, it just makes you feel good that you recruited well enough to have guys that can step in and do well."

Richt on Corvey Irvin filling in for Jeff Owens: "Jeffrey certainly is a great player and a great leader for us, it is hard to lead when you injured. It is very difficult, although you can, it is not quite the same. You can't be in the middle of the game and rally the troops unless you are out there. Corvey has done a good job of that. It is Corvey's personality just as it is Jeff's personality to be a little bit more outgoing and the kind of guy that feels comfortable to verbalize that leadership. There are a lot of guys that lead without having to say much, they just do it by their actions, their work ethic. Corvey is the one that has the work ethic, the productivity out there that guys respect, but he also has the repore to say, 'Let's go,' and guys respond to him."

Richt on the offensive line: "We are on the fourth left tackle. Told me in preseason we would be 7-1 and with our fourth left tackle I never would have dreamed that be true. Clint Boling is very capable, I don't think that was his first choice as far as the position he wanted to play, but he realized he is the best candidate for it at this point. Thankfully Cordy Glenn showed up big enough, strong enough and talented enough to get the job done. Ben Jones was here this summer and spring, that helped him a lot. You got Bean out there are right tackle in his first season for Georgia, so there is a lot of youth and inexperience and a lot of guys that don't even know they aren't supposed to play good I guess. Maybe that is good for us right now. Chris Davis has definitely been the leader of that group. Of all those guys he is the one that is banged up the most."

Richt on defending Florida's speed: "If you try to defend a long bomb, a guy that is capable of running past you, you just have to be very good technique wise, especially if you are going to get up there and try to jam a guy, if you don't get your hands on him it is a footrace and you lose. Not saying we don't have fast guys because we do, we have guys that can run too but if a receiver gets off clean it is not good. Of course the coaching decision is 3-deep, way-deep coverages. You can give your guys a chance not to get beat deep. You get too soft in your coverages they throw it short. That guy that is quick enough to make people miss out there in space, he makes a couple guys miss and takes it to the house. They do create a lot of problems."

Richt on whether recruiting will be done in Jacksonville: "I'm sure recruits will be there, but not as our guests. I think at one time it had been discussed can the home team count that as recruiting time. But we're certainly not entertaining recruits this week. My guess is both teams it would be tough to entertain in a city that's not your place. Your campus is not there. I don't know what you would even do with the guys. You couldn't really meet them at your hotel room before you got to the game. It would be such a limited situation, I don't know if either one of us would even be interested in making it work because it would be more problematic than anything else, plus it would take away from the focus of the game."

Richt on neither team having a bye heading into the game: "If you look at the history of that you would say that the bye week has possibly had some type of factor. But because neither team has a bye week and the fact that I can't imagine anybody not preparing for who's right in front of them, I think it makes it more equal as far as prep time and that kind of thing."

Brannan Southerland on getting too fired up for the game: "There could be. You can definitely get too fired up. We had the day off yesterday and that was nice to kind of relax and look at everything. But you do have to guard a little bit against it, but I think the coaches and the older players are doing a good job to keep everyone focused on Saturday. That's the game. We've got to practice and prepare and everything, but stay calm, stay collected until Saturday."

Southerland on how well Georgia's offense is playing: "We're really starting to see it's kind of like last year. Our offense, everyone got experience, everyone was confident and playing great. Right now, you've got a lot of different people catching the ball, you've got a lot of different people blocking, receivers blocking, different tailbacks getting the ball we're really spreading the ball around and I think that's really having a great effect on the team, and defenses just don't know who to guard because everyone's touching the ball."

Southerland on how well Matthew Stafford is playing: "You compare him two years ago as a true freshman to now, and it's night and day. He was a great quarterback when he was a true freshman, but you're going to make mistakes. But really, especially the last couple games, he's been playing great football. Mistakes he might have made a year or two ago, he's not throwing certain balls or throws them away. He's just playing real smart, making the right reads and being a great leader out there getting all the young guys collected and focused."

Southerland on the fan excitement for this game: "I think just with both teams with only one loss and both teams wanting to get to Atlanta, both are playing great and have all their fan support behind them, everyone's going to be excited on both sides. Our fans are going to be giving it to their players, and their fans are going to be saying stuff to us."

Knowshon Moreno on whether this year's offense is better than last year's: "I think we can definitely get better. All of us know that and believe that, so I don't think we're where we were at the end of last year."

Fred Munzenmaier on the three-fullback offense that resulted in his touchdown run last week: "That was definitely a first but it was exciting because Brannan, Shaun and I are all really close friends and Shaun and I have learned almost everything we know from Brannan, so it was definitely a great experience to all get to be out there together. Luckily I got to carry the ball, but I would have blocked for either one of those two."

Rennie Curran on Dannell Ellerbe's status: "If he's ready to go, they're going to give him the opportunity, but at the end of the day, I feel like coaches are going to do a good job of mixing him and Darryl and giving them the opportunity to help our defense out."

Curran on the importance of fundamentals: "It puts that much more emphasis on you to just have great alignment and take great angles to the ball. They can be fast, but if you take good angles it takes away some of their speed. Where you're aligned at, you can kind of cheat over if you know where they like to run the ball and that gives you an advantage on their speed."

Curran on his hit on LSU's Terrane Toliver last week: "I love hits like those. I didn't even know I made him helicopter until I watched the film and I'm like, 'Geeze.' But as a linebacker, you love those hits. Those are the kind of hits you play the game for."

Curran on Corvey Irvin's play this year: "He's done an awesome job stepping up and embracing that role. At first when he got here he was pretty quiet just trying to find his way trying to get into the system. Now he's a lot more comfortable. He's taken control of those young guys like DeAngelo and all them, just being more vocal, getting us fired up and the whole accountability thing, he's one of the guys who will get after you if you're not holding your weight. He's made just a complete turnaround in his attitude and his leadership. It's taken a chance within one year so fast."

Baccari Rambo on how impressed he has been by his cousin, Darryl Gamble: "I'm proud of my cousin DG. He came from a small town of Bainbridge, Ga. It was like 20 minutes away from my small town of Donalsonville. I'm just glad to see someone out of the ghetto make it and have a good game and play like this in college."

Blair Walsh on hearing comments about being a Florida native playing for Georgia: "A couple text messages, phone calls, the usual. I try not to respond to them though. I've got a lot of people pulling for Florida, and then I've got a couple people who don't go there pulling for Georgia because I go there."

Kris Durham on getting back into action after missing two games: "It was hard watching, but the other guys did a great job with Vanderbilt and Tennessee while I was out, and I was just glad to get back out there and get a couple plays under my belt."

Durham on Georgia spreading the ball around more: "It's just part of Matthew's reads. Each week we go in, we don't know who's going to get the majority of the balls. It's not really designated, it's just based off of whoever's playing and he gets it to the open guy. It's not really game planned, it just kind of happens that way."

CJ Byrd on Florida having more weapons this year: "You've just got to play them a little different. You've got to know who they're trying to get the ball to, when they're going to run Tebow, when they're not. You've just got to know their game. All those great weapons they have on offense, it's hard to put your finger on one, and it makes it that much harder. But we know they can change the game plan at any time, so we've just got to play our best."

Byrd on the play of Reshad Jones: "I think he's stepping up being the great player he always could be. He's getting confident and consistent, and coaches are loving that. He's got a great future ahead of him and if he keeps his head on, he's going to be fine. He has all the qualities. He can hit, he can run, he can catch. He's on his way."

Darryl Gamble on Florida not using Tebow as a runner as often: "Teams haven't really stopped the other guys, so why stop giving the ball to the other guys and try to hurt your quarterback even more? He still has to throw the ball, too. I think what they're doing is good, trying to take the running off of Tebow and give it to the other speedy guys. But he still gets his carries when they need it in short yardage."

Gamble on his role this year vs. the last time Georgia played Florida: "The roles have turned a whole 180. I always looked at the game doing assignments on the kicking teams, so I guess this year I can start thinking about a little more than how I'm going to block a guy on the kickoff team."

Gamble on his explanation of what he meant about Georgia's seniors having a surprise in store for the game: "It was more of a misprint because the guys were asking me about last year, and I said the seniors had something planned, and there was a guy that walked by and I guess he thought I was talking about this game. I was talking about last year's game. I don't think we'll have anything like that this year. It was just a booster to help us try to win that game. This year we're just going to go out and play ball."

Clint Boling on Georgia having so many injuries this season but still being 7-1: "I don't know what I would have thought about being the fourth left tackle, I probably would have been a little nervous about that, but I think 7-1 is about where I thought we'd be. I've never been on a team where we've had this many injuries, but when somebody goes down, we've had somebody step up for each position, especially on the O line. I think we're all still close, and when somebody goes down, it kind of helps bring everybody else together."

Kelin Johnson on Reshad Jones: "Reshad is coming on strong. It's the middle of the season, and I think he's starting to become the player Coach Martinez always dreamed and wanted him to be. He started off rough a little bit when he came in as a freshman, but he's learning how to finish, learning how to become that player that Greg Blue and Thomas Davis and Tra Battle and Sean Jones once were, making plays when we want you to make plays. He always made plays, but he's starting to make those plays when it's needed."

Willie Martinez on Reshad Jones: "At safety, it's like a quarterback. You've got to make all the calls, know the whole defense, and I think he understands it now, so he's feeling a lot more comfortable. He's just very confident in our defense, and if you know what to do, now you're just playing. I think he was doing a lot more thinking before, which is understandable, and it's tough for a young player to play at safety. But he's really picking it up, and now he's seeing things and just reacting he's getting himself in more playmaking because he has great anticipation."

Rodney Garner on the role of the DTs this week: "We've got to make it a physical contest. It's different than the game we played last week where they were more intent on being downhill, they're going to bring the fight to you. You've got to come out and create a new line of scrimmage at the point of attack."