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

‘I dont think so, I’ve had great times here at Goergia and that’s what I’m going to remember..’

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