Thursday Links (8/13)

We didn't finish up with interviews until around 11 p.m. last night, and even then, it was simply because players are kept to an 11 p.m. curfew during fall camp. Needless to say, it was a later night than most of us were used to (at least when it comes to work).

The reports out of last night's second session of two-a-days were pretty encouraging, and Rodney Garner said it was good to have a chance to review some film during the afternoon and get right back to work Wednesday night.

"There was some good and some bad when you look at the film," Garner said. "But the thing that's encouraging is if the kids will continue to work hard and we can stay healthy, we can continue to get better. Just going out there (Wednesday) night was really good because we got a chance to work on some things that we saw from the scrimmage. Hopefully we can get that corrected before we scrimmage again on Saturday. That's the biggest challenge right now."

Back to the scrimmage, however, as I mentioned on the blog yesterday, it's probably a little too early to take a lot away from the final statistics.

For one, Georgia's first team offense and defense went against the second-teamers, but even that wasn't an accurate depiction of the depth chart, Garner said.

"It's really hard to gauge when you have the ones going against the twos," he said. "Obviously (the ones) aren't that good. We can't be that good. But I still think our twos may not be that bad, either. Somewhere in between is the truth. And it probably wasn't even the twos because, working with the 1 group, I had (Jeff) Owens, (Geno) Atkins, (Kade) Weston and (DeAngelo) Tyson. They rotated with the ones. My twos I had (Brandon) Wheeling, (Derrick) Lott, (Abry) Jones and (Kwame) Geathers, so really it wasn't a true two."

Beyond that, there were a number of starters on both sides of the ball who sat out of Wednesday's action. Mark Richt's catch-all explanation was sore hamstrings, but linebacker Rennie Curran 'fessed up to the truth Wednesday night.

"I'm good, I'm good," he said, noting that the rest was more about seeing the younger players and avoiding injuries. "You want to have that depth going into SEC ball. Anybody can go down. We started off with all our linebackers at the beginning of the year (last season) and you guys saw what happened. So you've got to have everybody ready at the beginning of the season."

With Curran and the rest of the starting linebackers all sitting out the scrimmage, a few of the kids got into the action, and Curran was impressed with what he saw.

"They were definitely impressive," Curran said. "(Mike) Gilliard had a huge hit, and at times he really took control of the defense. It really showed how much he's learned and how much they're progressing. It's good to see them get out there and show the coaches what they can do and earn their trust."

Of course, even the shallow depth on D doesn't mean there weren't some strong performances on offense, including the big day from Richard Samuel. Sure, his 178 yards came against the third- and fourth-stringers, but Curran said it was obvious watching Samuel that his success was well earned.

"He definitely ran with some power, ran through some tackles, made a couple jukes in there," Curran said. "You can tell he's been working hard this offseason."

I asked Curran if anyone else jumped out at him, and his answer probably didn't do much to help sort out the depth chart at tailback.

"Carlton Thomas looked real good," Curran said. "He hit the holes hard and made cuts to do what he had to do to pick up those extra yards. He's a real tough runner."

Georgia hits the practice field again this afternoon and will hold its next scrimmage on Saturday.

Now, on to some links...

-- I have a story in today's Telegraph on the development of Georgia's "other" two receivers, Tavarres King and Israel Troupe.

-- Mark Bradley digs into the notion that Georgia will be better because everyone thinks they'll be worse.

-- Marc Weiszer leads his Georgia notes with some good information on left tackle Trinton Sturdivant.

-- Bernie's Dawg Blawg takes a look at the difference between the coaching changes at Florida and the stability at Georgia. My favorite part though is when Bernie follows a sentence touting the class of Georgia fans with a sentence including the word "gayturdsville." Well played, sir.

-- The Zac Robinson watch continues into Day 4 at Oklahoma State.

-- Joe Person has details from South Carolina's first scrimmage, including some strong numbers for the Gamecocks' QBs. Or maybe the defense just stinks.

-- Remember last year when Carson Palmer was talking up Matthew Stafford to NFL folks? Well, apparently his love for all things UGA does't stop there.

-- Bleacher Report goes way out on a limb and says the defense will be the key to Georgia's season.

-- If you didn't already love Charles Grant, you will after reading this story. (h/t John)

-- Knowshon Moreno must be getting acclimated pretty quickly. He's slated to start Denver's first preseason game.

-- The Georgia Regents upped the mandatory furlough days for state employees from three to six. Still no decision yet on whether Georgia's coaches will be subject to the mandate.

-- I mentioned earlier this week that John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl played a gig with their new band in Chicago over the weekend. The first audio of the music is cropping up online now.

-- Bill Lawrence chats about what he expects the new season of "Scrubs" to look like without the show's stars from years past. (I think they should have cast Joe Cox to replace of Zach Braff. I mean, if it works for Georgia, it should work for Scrubs.)

-- And finallly, it looks like I missed out on a great deal on a new TV and some poor schlub in Best Buy's online editing department is going to be looking for a new job.