Georgia Football: Tuesday Practice Report

Mark Rich, photo by Danny Bishop

The threat of afternoon thunderstorms caused the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs to alter their daily routine on Tuesday. Instead of conducting meetings prior to their workout, the Bulldogs hit the Woodruff Practice Fields at approximately 3:15 and then met following the session.

Tuesday’s practice was in jerseys and shorts, lasted just over an hour and focused heavily on scout team preparation for Wednesday’s “practice game” at Sanford Stadium. The Bulldogs will scrimmage at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the same time as kickoff of their season opener at No. 8 Clemson 10 days later.

“It was a really short and sweet practice with 12 periods and no kicking,” head coach Mark Richt said. “It was all scout work mainly to prepare for tomorrow’s practice game against Clemson. We will try to kick it off right at 8:00. We’ll have our pre-game warmups. We’ll have our captains. We’ll be able to announce those tomorrow for the first game. The coaches are voting on it based on how camp went, really from January to today, on who should be our captains. We’ll vote on those every week after that.

“Tomorrow is a very important day,” Richt continued. “It’s the first time it’s Georgia vs. somebody other than Georgia. Up to now, everything has been Georgia vs. Georgia. Now, the No. 1 units get to play on the same team and cheer for each other instead of giving each other a hard time. Our coordinators can have fun together instead of competing against each other. It’s also important because it’s the first time we’ll transition from kicking play to scrimmage play or from scrimmage play to kicking play. That takes a bit of work. We talked to our scout team coaches and they know we need to simulate Clemson as well as possible. We’ll play one half, the second half. Right now, I’m thinking Clemson will have a 28-point lead going into the third quarter and we’ll see if Georgia can come back and win.”

Tuesday also was the first time the Bulldogs’ offense and defense worked against scout team counterparts.

“Today was a little bittersweet,” Richt said. “We turned our attention to Clemson and some of the guys who ended up with some scout team responsibilities are in the tank a little bit. What they need to understand is that it’s a very important role. The other thing they need know is that it’s how you finish in your career. A couple of years ago, Jarvis Jones was on the scout team and ended up being a first-round draft pick. Thomas Davis was on the scout team and ended up being a first-round draft pick. Being on the scout team is not a bad thing. It’s an opportunity for those guys to continue to work on their fundamentals and help the team get better.”