Richt teleconference notes

First some injury updates:

- Freshman OLB T.J. Stripling will have season-ending knee surgery on Tuesday. Stripling tore his patellar tendon at Colorado, but head coach Mark Richt expects Stripling to recover.

“The history on those things have been very, very good,” Richt said.

Stripling would not qualify for a medical redshirt because he played in five games this year.

- Branden Smith is doubtful for Saturday’s game against Tennessee after a re-occurrence of a concussion. Smith missed the second half at Colorado.

“I don’t think he’ll play this week,” Richt said.

Meanwhile, Richt tried to keep upbeat about the Bulldogs’ latest loss. He said the team was holding together, and showing no signs of crumbling mentally.

“The bottom line is we must keep the faith,” Richt said. “We must keep the faith. I think that’s the biggest thing right now. I think we will. To this point we haven’t had an issue with anybody not working, not cooperating, not believing. We had a group of guys that I thought were excited about playing, were ready to play, played hard.”

Richt was also asked if he was worried that the fan reaction to the poor record would infiltrate his players. Again, he was not worried.

“I think it’s a minority of fans who really come out horribly negative with our guys and this coaching staff,” Richt said. “But I think the majority of our fans are true blue and they’re gonna support us no matter what. I can say, walking off that field in Colorado, I thought the fans that showed up were phenomenal before, during and after the game.”

Tennessee (2-3) visits Sanford Stadium on Saturday, in a game that normally has a huge bearing on the SEC race. But this year, both teams are simply searching for their first league win.

“Two teams who are normally, there’s a lot of history of us being ranked when we play, and now we’re sitting there without a win in the SEC,” Richt said. “A little bit different circumstance for each team, but a very important game for both of us.”