But can they do something that few teams have done this year and hang with LSU? Better yet, do they have the necessary ingredients to pull of an upset? Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray doesn’t exactly say those words, but he does sound confident that Georgia can matchup physically with LSU.

Aaron Murray joined ESPN Radio with Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo to discuss the Bulldogs facing LSU with an SEC title at stake in the same building — the Georgia Dome — where UGA lost to Boise State in the season opener, what has turned things around since then, when it clicked for him that he was a top quarterback in the SEC, what he sees of LSU on film, how much more comfortable he is at this stage of this season after battling through growing pains, and Saturday’s matchup with LSU.

How much have things changed since you left the Georgia Dome following a loss to Boise State to now returning for the SEC championship game?:

“It’s a whole different mood. I think we have some very loyal fans at Georgia, some of the best fans in the country, but there was some unhappiness going around. You could tell not just only in our team and our coaches, but fans walking around campus. There really is just a different mood walking around campus. … It’s a great feeling right now being in Athens.”

What was the most important thing in turning things around there?:

“I think turnovers. That South Carolina game we gave the ball up a lot and didn’t protect it. The rest of the season, we’ve had this little deal with Coach Richt that if we win the turnover ratio we don’t have to shave. And we’ve won the turnover ratio every single game we’ve won this year, 10 weeks in a row. … Our defense has done a great job all season of giving us the ball back in good field position.”

When did it really click to you that you were one of the top quarterbacks in the SEC?:

“I think as a whole offense we’ve gotten better the entire season. We started off with a very young team, a lot of guys put in new positions on the offensive line and then a lot of young skill positions. … It’s made my job easier, the more those guys have progressed and gotten better throughout the season.”

When you watch LSU on film, what do you see?:

“A lot of speed. There’s speed all over the SEC when you face those defenses, but LSU takes it to another notch. They’ve got a bunch of guys who can move around, make plays, a very athletic defensive line. … And then probably the best group of corners and safeties we’ve faced all year, and some of the best in the countries. They just make plays; they’re playmakers. … It’s a huge challenge for us.”

How do you know when it’s time to take a shot downfield and when it’s time to play it safe?:

“I think it’s all to do with game-planning and how much preparation you put in. When you put in the time and effort when it comes to film study and the practice field … they make sure I’m completely prepared so that in the game it’s not so much of trying things out or testing things, it’s, ‘That’s what we saw; that’s what we prepared for.’”

How much more comfortable are you now compared to a year ago?:

“I think a lot more confidence right now. Not only confidence in myself, I think the coaches have a lot more confidence in me. I think Coach Bobo trusts me a lot more with the playbook and opening things up. … I think we’ve done a great job all year of that. We’ve got multiple receivers with 30 or more catches. … It really makes it hard for defenses to figure out where the ball’s going.”

Do you have to approach this game just like the last 10, as a game that you can win?:

“Oh definitely. We started off the season as a very young team and we’ve taken strides every game of getting better and better, offensively, defensively … and then special teams we’ve gotten better every week, too. We have a lot of confidence. We’re feeling great about the direction our team’s heading in. We feel we match up extremely well against LSU.”

Listen to Aaron Murray on ESPN Radio here (Interview begins at 30:20)

The coaches showed the program some respect by putting the Bulldogs in the top 25 in their preseason poll, but to get back on the national scene, the Bulldogs could help themselves by having a great start to the season. Georgia opens with a nationally prominent game against top-10 team Boise State, then backs it right up with SEC title contender South Carolina. Make it through that gauntlet and the program might already be restored in the eyes of those forgetting it.

Mark Richt joined WCNN in Atlanta with The Rude Awakening to discuss playing Boise in the season opener, how that game got scheduled, what Georgia has to do to be better this year, the polarizing ways of Tim Tebow and what it would be like to start the year 2-0.

Why did you schedule Boise State in the opener?:

“I think we needed to play somebody that would get our attention, would get the fanbase’s attention and even the college football world’s attention. We certainly fell short of what we were hoping for a year ago. We declined in our record, I think we declined in how people perceived our program and a game like that can jump-start you. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

On the process of how the Boise State game was set up:

“[The athletic director] came to me with that and he was like, ‘Well, that quarterback’s a senior and he’s leaving.’ I really didn’t look at it. I knew that he had been there a long enough time that he was probably on the way out. After we signed on the dotted line, then I went and looked at the depth chart and realized he was still there. Then I was hoping he would turn pro early and he didn’t do that.”

Where do you have to be better to get off to the start that you want?:

“I just think overall we’ve got to play harder and faster. I think we’ve got to be able to make plays in the fourth quarter. Those are the two main things for me. As I look back, did we play fast enough every single down? I don’t think we did. Did we finish like we should in the fourth quarter? Did we make the plays in the fourth quarter that needed to be made? … We didn’t do that. … Individually, everybody’s just got to get better and better and better as they go.”

Having coached against him in college, what makes Tim Tebow so polarizing?:

“The thing about Tebow is I think he has the wonderful ability to focus on the things that are important in life. Number one, his faith and his love for the lord is paramount. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s very healthy. … I think maybe sometimes that makes people upset. But the bottom line is he’s not a cookie-cutter quarterback in the NFL. He’s different. But he’s got some skill sets that other guys don’t have and he’s got some unbelievable characteristics that some guys don’t have. … I’m a Tebow fan. I’ve had some debates before the draft, should he play quarterback or should he play something else? My best bet is he’s going to be a great quarterback in the NFL before all is said and done.”

You guys are flying under the radar, but if you can win the first two games, they’ll be talking about you as a title contender:

“We’ll see what happens. I hope we have that problem. We’ll just see. That’d be all right with me.”

Listen to Mark Richt on WCNN in Atlanta here

Allen joined 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh to talk about Tressel’s resignation, the wave of negative press the Buckeyes program has been receiving, how he’ll forever be grateful to Tressel for all he taught him about life, and how his biggest mistake was trying to protect his players to a fault.

Allen got right to it when asked about his general thoughts on the scandal:

“It’s just tough, it’s really tough. Especially for those who don’t know Coach Tressel as a man and as a person, and they look at him and scrutinize this situation and judge him so harshly. I can understand that because when much is given, much is required. And he’s been a man of integrity, a man that sets himself at a very high standard. Some of the standards that are expected of him are higher than a lot of people in society because he’s in a position of leadership and just because of who he is. So whenever he does something wrong or is out of line, it’s blown up out of proportion just a little bit. I understand he withheld information, he wasn’t as vulnerable as he needed to be and forthcoming, and he lied about it, so he has to reap what he sows and own up to his responsibility.  On the flip side, we as a sports world and media outlets or people, we have to understand that he’s a man, and we have to be a little more compassionate and a little more patient when he was protecting his players. I’ve known Tressel 10 years now since he came in in 2001, and he’s done nothing but teach me how to become a man, teach me just how to be more positive and influential in the communities that I’ve been in. And that’s what he’s preached, I think that’s what he wants to do, and I think that’s the legacy he wants to leave, and it was just a bad situation for him. We have to look at the whole picture, his whole resume and not just look at this one incident and say ‘down with Ohio State, down with Coach Tressel’ and have so much persecution towards him. That’s my only thing because he just taught me so much and educated me on how to live right, how to become a man, how to live as a character of integrity, and he embodies that every day of his life. And I can’t sit here outside of football and say he’s an evil person, he’s malicious, he has all these intents, the hell with him.’ When I know that’s not in his character, I know that’s not the type of heart he has. That’s just my take on it because I know him personally and I’ve been around him, and I’ve been around the program and know how he operates. He’s a person, he’s a man, he’s going to make mistakes. Because we’ve all done that; we all haven’t lived in a perfect light, we all haven’t done perfect things, and we all have done things to hurt other people. And I think in this situation, if you’ve done that you have to consider it.”

On if he’d ever been to or heard anything about the tattoo parlor where players were trading memorabilia:

“I’ve never been. I don’t have any tattoos so I don’t know anything about this tattoo parlor, but obviously it exists because players were trading in their memorabilia. But again, these players can do whatever they want, that’s their choice. But I think Tressel, he laid out the groundworks and the parameters and said ‘you guys are 20, 19, 18 years old, if you do X, Y or Z, then these are the repercussions for it. So I think it was the players’ choice at that point to do that. Where I think he messed up is he tried to protect them to a fault. Because they were his players, he probably knew he needed them, I don’t know what his exact thinking was. But he tried to protect them to a fault and that’s the mistake that he made.  But I don’t know this tattoo parlor, the significance that it has, whether it goes all the way back to Maurice Clarett or not. I’ve never went there so I don’t know.”

Listen here to Allen with Seibel, Starkey & Miller on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh

A.J. Green has been rated as the best wide receiver in the upcoming NFL draft and possibly the best offensive player coming out of college in terms of value. Green’s name has been linked to several teams with needs at wide receiver, but doesn’t like he’ll get past the number five spot in the draft. One thing is for certain: number eight for the Georgia Bulldogs was an absolute stud in his SEC playing days, racking up 166 receptions along with 2,619 yards receiving and 23 touchdowns. Green gave us a little bit of insight on the secret of his acrobatic catching ability and it had to do with a childhood hobby of juggling. He claims that it really does not matter where he plays as he looks to make an early impact with hard work every day.

A.J. Green joined WCNN in Atlanta with The Rude Awakening to discuss being anxious about draft day coming up, juggling at an early age helping aid his acrobatic catching ability, what team he rooted for growing up, the kind of goals is he setting for himself during his first year in the NFL and what player did he admire growing up.

Are you getting a little bit more anxious with the big draft day coming?

“No. No. I’m not getting nervous. I’m just excited. It’s a long process, but it feels as closer as the draft gets the days get longer, so I’m so ready for this.”

I was told that you juggled at an early age and that has helped you make these acrobatic catches? Is that true?

“Yeah I started juggling when I was in the first grade and in sixth grade I was on the juggling team. We use to perform at the high school basketball games at halftime.”

When you were a kid growing up did you root for a particular team?

“No. No. Actually I didn’t even follow the NFL. As I got older I became a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan. Yeah, so not a big fan of any particular team, but I started to like Tampa Bay a little bit.”

What kind of goals are you setting for yourself the first year in the NFL?

“I’m just gonna try to go and play right away and have an impact on that team. I mean I’m just going to keep working every day trying to get to that goal.”

Who did you admire as a kid? You don’t mind that comparison to Randy Moss?

“Like I said yeah. Randy Moss. Jerry Rice. Reggie White. Just a lot of the great ones. No I don’t mind. Randy is a great player and a future Hall of Famer. You know I’m just trying to get where he was.”

Listen to A.J. Green on WCNN in Atlanta here

Fran Tarkenton joined WCNN in Atlanta to talk about Mark Richt being upbeat during his state of the Georgia football program speech, whether that sounds like he was spending too much time on academics, and if it is safe to say that he will not be enjoying dinner with Mark Richt anytime soon.

On Mark Richt being upbeat during his state of the Georgia football program speech:

“I think what has happened in the last week at Georgia has been the most disturbing time that I have seen at Georgia football in a long time.  You know people don’t want to look at reality.  We don’t want to look at the signs.  There are always signs out there that show us we have got impending disaster, be it the financial crisis, the Georgia crisis or the Florida crisis or what.  We knew something before the Florida crisis didn’t we?  The guy, he had a meltdown.  His mojo was down and he recognized it, they recognized it and he got out.  They bring a good coach in Will Muschamp in, they bring in the top offensive coordinator in the world, Charlie Weis, and they are in the SEC, and here we are at Georgia.  For the last three years our program has been god-awful.  Our schedule, we play two sisters of the poor every year.  We play Kentucky and Vanderbilt that aren’t true SEC teams and then we play Georgia Tech that is not going to have the talent we have.  That is five times each year that we are going to play much better than our opponents, it doesn’t mean we are going to win them all.  Then we lost to Colorado this year and they fire their coach, then we lose to Central Florida.  We have got the top receiver in football; we have got a great freshman quarterback.  We have two field goals against a team we outweigh 35 lbs. on the line.  We finally fired the strength and conditioning coach.  Today the strength and conditioning coach is as important as the offensive and defensive coordinator.  Every scout, all of the combine people that train/workout all of these college athletes have told me for the last five or six years, the Georgia football players are not in anywhere near the condition that the rest of the players from all of the other school, they didn’t say they ranked second or third, they say they ranked dead last.  Why couldn’t this coach recognize that before now?  Before disaster happens?  And then I read this quote.  Holy cow!  Yesterday, where Mark Richt says, ‘I have been freed from administrative duties to spend more time on football.’  Then I quote him, he said, ‘the moves give him more time to study the game of football and be an expert and be on the cutting-edge.’  What has he been doing for nine years?  I have never heard any college, high school; professional coach has ever said that I was not able to spend enough time on football.  I had other issues.”

Whether that sounds like he was spending too much time on academics:

“No, it sounds like a cop-out!  It sounds like I am not taking responsibility.  I have other things.  We hire people to be football coaches.  We pay him and others millions of dollars to be football coaches not to be administrators.  He didn’t do a very good job there but then we had twelve people arrested this year, including a top-ranked quarterback, who was a top kid that is now going to play LSU, and that has been going on forever.  Mark and everybody is a wonderful guy and he is a wonderful guy.  He is a good Christian guy.  He wants to be a missionary.  He goes on missions.  That is a wonderful thing but do you know the religion of Nick Saban?  Or Gus Malzahn?  Or Chip Kelly playing for the national championship?  I don’t think we care what is their religion.  We hire them to be football coaches.  If we are hiring religious instructors, let’s go to the Campbell School of Theology over here in Decatur and get some of their people to come and coach our football team.”

If it is safe to say that he will not be enjoying dinner with Mark Richt anytime soon:

“I like Mark Richt.  I have great respect for him as a man, but when I see these kinds of comments I am appalled.  ‘I have now more time to study the game.  I have more time to be a coach.  I have more time to be an expert and be able to be on the cutting-edge.  My goodness!  I am just astounded.  Greg McGarity, I have seen Greg McGarity this morning in the paper and I understand he is a wonderful guy, don’t know him.  He is saying, ‘I have had meetings with Mark and we are working together, and I want Mark to show more emotion.’  How do you get someone to be something they are not?  Mark, you are going to change his emotional state?  All of sudden, you are going to change Nick Saban’s emotional state?  You are going to change Paul Johnson’s emotional state?  What religion is Mike Smith?  Do we need to change his emotional state?  Or Bill Belichick?  We don’t even think.  Why do we even talk about these things?  We expect our coaches to be absolutely creative, innovative, great leaders, great disciplinarians, ahead of the curve.  That is what we pay them millions of dollars for, right?”

Fran Tarkenton on WCNN in Atlanta with the Rude Awakening

Hawkins says he is not an agent, but the NCAA has no problem labeling him as one.  The NCAA claims that Hawkins has also contacted sports agents about their interest in UNC players and arranged trips for players to meet with agents.  According to sources, some UNC players told NCAA investigators that Hawkins, in fact, arranged for them to meet with at least two agents, Peter Schaffer of All Pro Sports & Entertainment and Kevin Conner of Universal Sports Management in Atlanta.  The parallel there is that Hawkins is great friends with former UNC star, Willie Parker, and other multiple NFL players that are represented by either Schaffer or Connor, but Hawkins continues to vehemently deny any involvement with the agents.  The bigger issue with the NCAA is that Hawkins was arrested last year in Georgia on felony charges of trafficking cocaine and misdemeanor charges of marijuana.  For all the NCAA knows, he could be taking these athletes to parties and giving them drugs, but that isn’t what Green was suspended for.  All he did was sell his jersey one time, something the school does tens of thousands of times, so what’s wrong with that?  Only in America…

Chris Hawkins joined WQXI in Atlanta to talk about whether he can explain who he is because the NCAA is claiming that he isn’t who he says he is, whether he has ever gotten in contact with a player and put them in contact with an agent, and whether he is going to be a part of UGA’s NCAA appeals process.

Whether he has had some angry people reach out to him via Facebook:

“Yeah I get a lot of Facebook messages, a lot of Facebook threats.  There has been a lot of heat coming my way over something, the jersey and what happened to AJ Green.  Just have been taking it all in.”

Whether he can explain who he is because the NCAA is claiming that he isn’t who he says he is:

“The NCAA thinks that I am an agent, which I am not.  I am not an agent.  I have never worked for an agent, never been paid by one.  I am simply just a kid.  Just like everybody else, I like AJ’s game.  I like how he plays the game.  I like football, so I played the game myself and I just wanted his jersey.  I talked to him about it and bought the jersey from him and didn’t think that much of it until he started to get investigated over the Miami trip.  I don’t think he has even been to Miami but I guess once they investigated him on the Miami trip.  See I have got a 305 number, as you could see now I have got a 305 number so I think they kind of thought that I had something to do with the whole Miami trip going on down there and they kind of went at him hard for that and I guess he let them know how he knew me and what he did.  I think he was totally honest with them.  I talked to him, totally honest, and I told him that I bought the jersey from him and all of that.  To be honest, I think he probably should have talked to some people before he went about doing that.  I think they kind of, I guess maybe told him that he could pay the money back.  I don’t think he was really expecting to get hit for 4 games.”

Whether he has ever gotten in contact with a player and put them in contact with an agent:

“No, I have never done that.  The whole AJ Green thing was totally different.  I collect, I have got a lot of jerseys in the basement.  I put them on the walls.  If I like players and I like someone I will get their stuff and I’ll get in and put my stuff and just hang it on the wall.  The AJ Green thing was more bragging.  I think he is going to be a great player.  I think he is going to be a great player at the next level.”

Whether he has talked to the NCAA about who he is:

“Yeah I spoke with the NCAA numerous times.  The whole thing with the AJ Green thing they tried to put it out that I wouldn’t contact them on it.  I went out to the University of North Carolina and spoke with the NCAA on behalf of the whole UNC guys.  I played at UNC, I had a relationship with those guys and they try to make it seem those guys are coming to me for advice and hanging out with me that I was standing with agents.  All it was is the guys they really look up me over there at Carolina, they look up to me a lot.  They knew that  I was around the game and that I knew a lot about it.  I work with my friend, Willie Parker, who is a professional athlete, and did a little with agentsand sutff like that.  I am more like a manager to him.  I knew a lot about the game and I knew a lot about the agent game because I have been through that.  The whole AJ Green thing I think it was totally different.  The NCAA contacted me on it and put a report out there saying that I wouldn’t talk to them.  I spoke with the NCAA guy, I think his name is Chance Miller.  When he called me from the University of Georgia he was with the University of Georgia’s lawyer, at the time when he called me I was busy.  I was doing something.  I told them that I would call them back and we set up a time to call back and when he gave me an extension, he gave me an extension to call back on, I called back the extension 5 times and it was the wrong extension.  It didn’t work.  Once he talked to me he called me the next day and I was like, ‘You, you gave me the wrong extension number.’  And he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.  My fault, my fault.’  It went from there and he set up another time, I think it was like a Monday at 3 o’clock or something like that.  He gave me another time for a conference call and that time I was busy.  I don’t work for the NCAA.  I don’t work for those guys.  I’ll speak to them when I can if I am available but I just don’t drop everything I do.  I try my best to help those guys out.”

Whether he is going to be a part of UGA’s NCAA appeals process:

“No, I don’t know if I am a part of it.  Nobody has contacted me.  I would do anything that I could do to try to help out…”

How often he has spoken to AJ Green and when the last time he spoke with him was:

“We really never contacted each other like that.  I might have talked to him maybe about 4 times, you know?  and I never talked to him about…”

Whether he was talking to AJ Green about his game and that he is a fan:

“That was it.  Basically I know a couple of people that he knows.  I know a couple of girls he knows and the only thing that I have ever talked to him about was, after I got the jersey, I didn’t talk to him about anything about football.”

Chris Hawkins joined Mayhem in the AM on 790 The Zone in Atlanta

Coach Richt, who has coached at UGA for nine seasons thus far, has the best winning percentage of any coach in the history of Georgia football.  The Bulldogs have enjoyed double-digit wins in six seasons and finishing in the top-five twice under Richt.  He is a victim of his own success because somehow he has found himself in the center of many “hot seat” questions.  He knows that being in a leadership position comes with a lot of second-guessing and an enormous amount of pressure to succeed, so after having his worst record since arriving in Athens and a defense that had more holes than Swiss cheese, Richt fired Willie Martinez and replaced him with Dallas Cowboys DL coach Todd Grantham.  Grantham has coached under Frank Beamer, Nick Saban and Romeo Crennel, and has shifted to a 3-4 defense which will enable them to be more aggressive and be able to attack offenses they will face this season.  The Bulldogs have the potential to have a good season, but beating Florida at the Cocktail Party would make it great!

Mark Richt joined WFNZ in Charlotte to talk about how things are goings so far in training camp, who the starting quarterback is right now at this moment, and whether he feels like the SEC East is theirs to take now that Tim Tebow and others are not playing at Florida anymore.

How things are goings so far in training camp:

“It is going very well.  We are in the heart of camp right now and actually getting ready to have our first scrimmage so we are excited.”

Who the starting quarterback is right now at this moment:

“Aaron Murray is definitely our starter, very sharp kid.  He came at the mid-year a couple of springs ago so he has had a spring, a full season, another spring, and of course the summer preparation, which he kind of headed up.  He has done a very good job, we are very confident in his abilities but it is going to be his first time out there playing and he is going to be learning as he goes in some instances and I think he is going to do very well.”

How the transition to a 3-4 defense is going and whether or not their defense will be a liability like it was last season:

“I think we have a bunch of really good payers and I think Coach Grantham has done a very nice job of putting together his staff, our staff basically, and we have implemented our system well.  I think guys are excited about their ability to come ‘sic ‘em’ more often and I think our corners are excited about playing a little more man-to-man coverage than they had in the past.  They know that it is going to be on them.  They are going to have an opportunity to showcase what they can do individually and as a group.  So far it’s good, but we hadn’t played a game yet and hadn’t played the sophisticated offenses that we are about to play on a weekly basis where you have got to gameplan week by week and we’ll see how we will do.”

Whether there is too much pressure on coaches in the SEC and other big-time conferences:

“Again, that is part of the business.  You have got to understand that going in.  I mean if you can’t handle criticism then you shouldn’t coach football, you shouldn’t be in a leadership position.  Anybody in a leadership position is going to make decisions that people are going to take shots at, that is just part of life.  Even a parent who is trying to parent properly, they may make a decision that their kid doesn’t like all the time but he or she is doing it in the best interest in their child and they have got to be able to stand up and be firm in what they believe.  If they can do that then they will be fine.”

Whether he feels like the SEC East is theirs to take now that Tim Tebow and others are not playing at Florida anymore:

“I feel like every year the East is wide open.  We go into every season thinking that we are going to win it so it is no different this year.”

What he thinks of playing South Carolina the 2^nd game of the season and it turning into a rivalry:

“Oh yeah we are very concerned about that game.  They are a very good football team.  It is the first SEC matchup for us and the first Eastern division matchup and it is very important to us.  It is hard to lose game one and still win the league but it can be done, so it is not fatal if you do not win it.  But it is a huge game for a lot of reasons.  You want to be 1-0 in the league, you want to be 1-0 in the East, then you want to be creating and building momentum throughout your season.  It is going to be a war.  It is going to be at high noon, it is going to be smoking hot, and it is going to be wild.”

Mark Richt on WFNZ in Charlotte with the Mac Attack

Gators head coach Urban Meyer joined WCNN in Atlanta to talk about his star senior quarterback, how he thinks he’ll be just fine in the NFL, why he thinks Georgia is as talented as any team in the country, and how he thinks his whole team is pressing just a little bit more than he’d like to see.

On Tim Tebow and how people think his game won’t translate to the NFL:

“Well, I’ve said this before – the job description must be a lot different in the NFL. The football I’m used to – I’ve never coached in the NFL, but obviously I’ve played college football, I’ve coached high school football, coached college, and from day one, it’s like that guy who’s two steps too slow to play safety like Ahmad Black, but all he does is lead the country in interceptions the last two years he played. So I’m very good friends with Jack Del Rio and very good friends with the Bill Belichicks of the world and all those guys talk about is competitive edge, winning. They don’t talk about that other stuff. So Tim has been a winner everywhere he’s been and he’ll be a winner in the NFL.”

On their upcoming showdown with Georgia and how a win by the Bulldogs over the Gators could make their otherwise disappointing season:

“Yeah we know all those players at Georgia. They’re the finest players in the country. We recruit them – every one of those players on that team we were involved in the recruiting battle for them. As most of ours they were. So they’ve got tremendous players and for some reason, I haven’t been studying their schedule, I’m more studying scheme and personnel, but as far as flat talent, that’s as tough a team as there is in the United States of America and we’re going to have to give everything we’ve got to hang in there and hope to win that game.”

On how he was a big fan of Hershel Walker, who Tebow just tied for the SEC all-time lead in rushing touchdowns (49):

“Herschel was great when I was in high school. And obviously being a football fan and college football fan, to be able to meet him and sit down and talk with him, he’s a class act, at one of the Heisman ceremonies – which ceremony, Tim won it two years ago. I got to spend a few minutes with him. I know I’m the head coach at Florida and I didn’t want to act like a fan and ask him for autographs, but I’m a big fan of Herschel Walker.”

On if he thinks Tim Tebow is pressing a little bit:

“I think the whole team is. When you talk about the ’96 National Championship team, the first name that comes out is Danny Wuerffel. And Danny was a great player but that defense was one of the best in the country, and he had Ike Hilliard and all those other great players. And certainly the first thing when you mention Florida football is Tim Tebow. When we’re doing great, I think Tim’s a great player, but also there’s some other guys doing well. When Tim struggles, other guys struggle. For example, the head coach probably shouldn’t have called that ball, that deep pass coming out of our own end zone when the game was kind of secure. But we did and we missed a block and Tim got hit. That wasn’t Tim, that was part of the team. And that’s the best thing about us, we’re just going forward. And playing quarterback at Florida, whether you like it or not, you’re going to get a lot of pluses and you’re going to get a lot of criticism.”

Listen here to Meyer on WCNN in Atlanta on the Rude Awakening

On if there is a department or two on the team, or a player or two, that has impressed Richt this past spring and early on during two-a-days:

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s so many things happening, so many working parts. I really am excited about how our kickers are progressing. Blair Walsh, you know, had a lot of trouble with the kickoffs and I think a lot of it had to do with being a true freshman and maybe not allowing him to have enough rest time throughout the season. I think his leg got a little bit weary as the season went on and he didn’t really kickoff well at all. And he’s banging it away really, really well. And then this kid we brought in from California, Brandon Bogatay, as a kickoff guy and as a possible field goal and extra point guy, he’s proved that he can kick that thing in and out of the end zone too. So, those two guys are really doing an outstanding job and then you know, Butler, Butler was a guy as a punter that was probably kicking it maybe 5 out of 10 times, you know, where you could win. Now he’s much closer to 9 out of 10 with his consistency, which is huge for us. So those things are really exciting to me because we know field position is so crucial.”

On if opening with a top-10 squad like Oklahoma State (in Stillwater) gets the juices flowing a bit more than starting the year off with an impossibly overmatched opponent:

“Well it has to. We’re going to Stillwater to play in their brand new stadium. We’re going to play on national t.v. We’re going to play on their field turf in the middle of the day, so we know it’s going to be hot. So when we’re out here working in camp and it’s smoking hot, guys might be thinking about feeling sorry for themselves. All you got to do is read out the heat temperature index in Stillwater on the very same day, and they’ll realize those guys are working in the same kind of heat and even hotter. So, we better get on our field turf field fields, which you know, are 10 to 15 degrees hotter than grass. We haven’t been spending hardly any time on the grass. We’re spending it all on field turf, even in the afternoon practices. So they know. They know it’s going to be a heck of a deal and if we’re not conditioned, we have no chance.”

On his thoughts about the coaches’ ballots being made public each week rather than just at the end of the season:

“Well, I’m fine with it on the final poll – the final poll being the one prior to the BCS Games. The last regular season poll, I’ve got no problem with my ballot being public. On a weekly basis if it was made public, I wouldn’t vote because you just don’t want to have to try to explain why you did this, why you did that. You know, you give some opponent some kind of fodder to get them motivated. I mean, I can defend every time I vote, but as we all know, very early in the season, it’s almost impossible to have some kind of rational decision. And as the season wears on, it’s much easier to be able to justify every thing that you do. But just like my preseason vote – my preseason vote, I ask the Athletic Director to get whatever consensus everybody else thought, and that’s my starting point. And then, you know, we work from there.”

On if he advocates a playoff system in college football:

“I would go as high as an 8-team playoff, yes. I wouldn’t not go past 8. I think our regular season is too exciting, it’s too important, and if you get in to a 16-team playoff, then I think you’re looking at diminishing the value, the importance of the regular season games. Games you could lose, you could say, shoot, no big deal. We’ll see them in the playoffs anyway. I think that’s why a lot of these major sports that have a huge number of teams in their playoffs, their regular season games don’t mean quite as much as ours do. And I’d hate to lose that. And I’d hate to destroy the Bowl system as it exists.”

Listen here to Richt on 1010 XL in Jacksonville

Going into the season, Georgia QB Matthew Stafford was thought to be the consensus top pick in the NFL draft.  He has all the tools and has had some spectacular performances, but has never put together a consistently great season.  Now mock drafts have Stafford all over the board.

Mel Kiper and Todd McShay  have Stafford going first overall.  Pat Kirwan of NFL.com has Stafford going fourth to the Seahawks.  Don Banks of SI has him going 10th to the 49ers.  On CBS Sports, Pete Prisco has him going 8th to the Jaguars, while Clark Judge has him going first overall.  Pro Football Talk  has him going 17th to the Jets.  So needless to say with such a wide disparity in where Stafford is going to get selected, his pro day was very important.

Matthew Stafford joined Buck and Kincade on WCNN in Atlanta on Thursday after his pro day.

On if he reads all the draft stuff written about him:

“No I don’t.  I understand that people are going to have to talk about something.  If it’s me, then it’s me.  I really don’t mind to tell you the truth. I’ve taken criticism in my career and I understand, but for me I just do what I can do and let the chips fall where they may.  Whatever happens, happens.  I’m going to be on a team somewhere trying to help them win.”

On if the Lions don’t pick him, does he have any idea which team will pick him:

“Draft day is the biggest crap shoot there is, you never know.  Hopefully, if everything goes well, maybe we can get an indication before the draft to figure out where I’m gonna be.  If not, I’m going to be playing football somewhere and that’s what it’s all about for me.  I love the game and I’ll play for anyone.”

On if he wants to sign early like Ryan and Flacco so he can have success his rookie year:

“Absolutely, I’m trying to get into camp as soon as I possibly can.  I want to start playing football, start learning the system.  To tell you the truth, since my sophomore year of high school I’ve never sat out a season. I’ve played every game and that’s the way I want to keep it if I can.  The biggest thing for a quarterback coming in is the learning curve and the earlier you start, the earlier you’ll be ready to play. So hopefully we’ll get something worked out with whoever it is and we can start going early.”

Listen to Matthew Stafford on WCNN in Atlanta