Running game solutions evade UGA

By Ken Sugiura

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATHENS – Georgia coach Mark Richt can be fairly certain that his players won't celebrate excessively should they score a touchdown against Tennessee on Saturday.

He is presumably less confident that the player who will have to make that decision will be a running back carrying the ball into the end zone.

Lost somewhat in the tumult over the excessive celebration penalty called on wide receiver A.J. Green near the close of the Bulldogs'  20-13 loss to LSU Saturday was the continued struggle of UGA's  feeble running game.

The Bulldogs ran 24 times for 45 yards against the Tigers, their lowest output since a 34-yard effort against Georgia Tech in 2004. With a per-game average of 98.8 rushing yards, the Bulldogs are on track to for their lowest rushing average since 1963, the last year of coach Johnny Griffith's three-year run. Without Georgia's two longest runs of the year – Richard Samuel's 80-yarder against Arkansas and Branden Smith's 61-yarder against South Carolina – Georgia's per-rush average is 2.4 yards.

In his Sunday teleconference, Richt said that "we absolutely need to block better," that "we need some backs that will get more than just what's been provided" and that "we need to have enough of a good mix of run-pass [to] keep people off-balance."

Richt brought up LSU running back Charles Scott, who broke at least two tackles on his game-winning 33-yard touchdown run.

"He can bounce off a tackle and go to the house," Richt said. "We need a little bit more of that, too."

LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis said following the game that he was willing to risk man-to-man coverage on Green in order to bottle up the Georgia run game.

"To win in this league, particularly with a team like Georgia, you can't let them run the football," he said.

Richt said that true freshman running back Washaun Ealey will "more than likely" play more than Saturday. In his debut, Ealey gained a team-high 33 yards on eight carries. Part of Richt's reluctance to say more stems from the fact that Ealey is "not 100 percent certain of what we have to do on every thing we have in our system."

"He'll hit the hole," Georgia linebacker Nick Williams said of Ealey. "When it opens, he's in there and he's coming out of it."

On the penalty

The rule that wide receiver Green was deemed to have broken after scoring the go-ahead touchdown against LSU is contained in Rule 9-2 in the NCAA rulebook, which prohibits "any delayed, excessive, prolonged or choreographed act by which a player (or players) attempts to focus attention upon himself (or themselves)."

Richt said the team will send in that play, along with others, to the SEC office for review and clarification, as is its standard routine. After reviewing the play again, Richt said "I don’t think anything  did" happen that would merit a penalty but conceded he had only seen what was included in the CBS broadcast and not the entirety of the celebration.