Don't look at Richt: He voted for Tebow

By Tim Tucker

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Notes from Georgia coach Mark Richt's appearance at "SEC Media Days" this morning:

-- As reporters continued to try to unravel the mystery of which SEC coach did not vote for Florida's Tim Tebow as the first-team quarterback on the All-SEC preseason team, Richt said he, indeed, voted for Tebow. "That guy might be the greatest player-slash-leader -- maybe the greatest one ever in college football," Richt said.

-- Richt was asked again his feelings about where the Georgia-Florida game should be played after the Jacksonville contract expires with the 2010 game. "This is what I want to do: I want to focus on winning that game," Richt said. "That's all I want to focus on when it comes to that game." Asked a follow-up question about whether that means he doesn't care where the game is played, Richt said: "I really just want to focus on trying to win that game. . . . That will be my pat answer from here on in." At Bulldog Club meetings in late spring, Richt expressed his long-held view that Jacksonville is not truly a neutral site.

-- Defensive-tackle signee Kwame Geathers hasn't been cleared for eligibility by the NCAA Clearinghouse yet, but "we still expect him to be here" when practice opens in August, Richt said. "There's a couple of more hoops that he had to jump through, and hopefully he's jumping through them right now."

-- Richt said he doesn't know if the Bulldogs will wear black jerseys at any point this season. He said blackouts work only if fans buy into them, and "after what happened against Alabama last year, I'm not sure everybody would wear black."

-- Asked what he likes about the 2009 team, Richt's first words were: "I like defensively that we are going to be hungry - maybe hungrier than we have been in a long time."

-- Richt recalled uneasy questions from fans at Bulldog Club meetings in the spring about what seemed to be a slow start in recruiting for the 2010 signing class. "It's going to be fine," Richt said he told the gatherings. And it appears to be turning out that way, with a recent flurry of high-profile commitments putting Georgia at 18 commitments.

-- On the recent situation in which the coach at Carver High in Columbus "banned" Georgia from recruiting at the school: "I can't comment on it at all [because of NCAA rules]. There will come a day I can."