Mark Richt seemed ready for the questions, and there was at least one thing he wanted to say. He chose to say it after the second question on Tuesday, when he was asked if there would be changes to coaching responsibilities on the offense.
“Here’s the deal everybody. You all can pay attention to this,” Richt said, looking up and around the room. “We’re Georgia. We’re a team. We work together. We’re gonna fight. We’re gonna fight together. We’ll do the things we think we need to do to get better as we go. But the Georgia people can count on us fighting our tails off and doing it in a way that everybody would be proud of in our young men, to get better. So that’s where we’re at right now.”
The heat on Richt and his program is at a peak this week, after another embarrassing loss to Florida dropped the Bulldogs to 5-3 overall, out of contention for the East. So Richt’s standard Tuesday press conference was dominated by questions about the program and his future.
Richt was asked if he’s had any conversations with UGA’s administration about what’s going on with the program or his situation.
“No,” Richt said, shaking his head and leaving it at that.
And at any point has he thought of taking over play-calling from Brian Schottenheimer?
“No,” Richt said again, adding after a few moments: “We’ll be fine.”
There have been national and local writers calling for Georgia and Richt to part ways. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jeff Schultz was the one who asked those two questions.
Richt was asked if he’d addressed the talk about his future with his players. He indicated the answer was no, but acknowledged that his players would hear it.
“We call it noise. We say ignore the noise. When they’re bragging about you or when they’re saying not so nice things about you. Just focus on what’s being said in this room. By our coaches and by your teammates,” Richt said. “I can’t control what people write. And I can’t control what people read. But I can control certain things, and that’s what I’m focusing on and what our staff is focusing on.”
Richt, as he does every Tuesday press conference of game week, spent the first part going over Kentucky’s depth chart. That was about the last Kentucky was mentioned.
The first question: Richt was asked to rationalize this season.
“Well it’s not over yet, for number one,” Richt said. “We didn’t make it to the Eastern Division championship, I can say that. It’s been up and down. But we’re battling.”
Richt did manage a smile late in the press conference, when he was asked how much the program has ended up missing Mike Bobo, the former offensive coordinator now at Colorado State.
“There’s been plenty of times when we struggled while Mike was here too. I don’t think everybody remembers that,” Richt said, smiling. “When you leave, everyone loves you. But I’ve always had a lot of faith in Mike the whole way through, you all know that. It’s been well-documented. And I’ve got a lot of faith in Schotty too.”
