DEL.ICIO.USSEC FOOTBALL
Richt raves about A.J. Green highlights
Freshman outdoes himself with winning catch against Auburn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, November 17, 2008
So which of A.J. Green’s fourth-quarter, game-winning touchdown catches the past two weeks impressed you more?
His leaping catch of an 11-yard pass in the right corner of the end zone with less than two minutes to play Nov. 8 at Kentucky, turning a 38-35 Georgia deficit into a 42-38 victory?
Or his leaping catch of a 17-yard pass in the middle of the end zone with just over eight minutes to play Saturday at Auburn, lifting Georgia from a 13-10 deficit to a 17-13 victory?
Georgia coach Mark Richt votes for the latter.
“The one [at Kentucky] was an outstanding play,” Richt said, “but it wasn’t that spectacular in that he kind of already had his feet set and he elevated on a very nice ball and caught it. By the time he came down, there were a lot of defenders; it made it look like there were five guys on him. But when the ball was thrown, he was in pretty good shape; he was relatively open.
“But this last one [at Auburn] was a very difficult catch — going full-speed, showing a flag route and then breaking across the face of a defender, seeing the ball and having to leap and catch it. He had to elevate and stretch out fully to get his hands on it.”
The SEC was sufficiently impressed by Green’s latest game-winner to name the 6-foot-4 flanker the league’s Freshman Player of the Week on Monday.
Green had five catches for 81 yards against Auburn.
For the season, he continues to lead the league in receiving yards (887) and average per game (80.6). LSU’s Brandon LaFell is second with 772 yards, 77.2 per game.
With two games to go — the Nov. 29 regular-season finale against Georgia Tech and a bowl — Green is 113 yards short of becoming just the second Bulldogs player with a 1,000-yard receiving season. Terrence Edwards had 1,004 yards in 2002, his senior season.
If Green maintains the pace of his first 11 games, he would finish his freshman season with a school-record 1,048 receiving yards.
The penalty problem
After regressing in the penalty department last week, Georgia has drawn an average of 8.9 penalties for 74.7 yards per game this season.
That ranks 118th among the 119 Division I-A teams in penalties per game and 114th in penalty yards per game.
The only team with more penalties per game: TCU (9.45).
And the only teams with more penalty yards per game: USC (75.3), Florida State (75.7), Washington State (76.4), Hawaii (77.6) and TCU (82.45).
Against Auburn, Georgia was penalized nine times for 95 yards and flagged six times for personal fouls (one declined and one offset).
“We’ll keep disciplining the action,” Richt said, “and keep playing hard.”
‘Tough grind’
Asked what one word would best describe this Georgia season to date, Richt said: “I’ll say — I don’t even know what I could say other than it’s been a tough grind.”
While Georgia’s past two wins haven’t drawn many favorable reviews, Richt sees them differently: “After having a tough loss [to Florida], we played two extremely emotional games and we hung in there and we finished. I think once you lose the opportunity to play for the SEC championship, it could make a lot of guys say, ‘Is it really worth it?’ that kind of thing. But our guys kept fighting.”
Etc.
Backup tailback Caleb King has had no carries in the past two games. Richard Samuel had three carries for four yards vs. Auburn. … Linebacker Rennie Curran continues to lead the SEC in tackles with 98. … With no game this week, the Bulldogs ran and lifted weights but did not practice Monday. The same is planned for Tuesday. They’ll practice Wednesday and Thursday, lift and run again Friday, then take the weekend off.
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