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ALLSTATE SUGAR BOWL

January 1, 2008

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

CHARLES BLOOM: We have with us the University of Georgia Head Coach Mark Richt, defensive end and MVP Marcus Howard and running back Knowshon Moreno. We'll have an opening statement. We'll take questions for our student athletes. We'll dismiss our student athletes back to the locker room.
Coach, if you could just give us an opening statement about the game tonight and then we'll take questions for our student athletes.
COACH MARK RICHT: I'm proud of what our team did. I'll tell you we first of all have the ultimate respect for Hawai'i and their program, June Jones, the job he's done there watching the film, their football team, absolutely got our attention. Helped our guys prepare in a matter it took to play the way we played. I think we conditioned more for this game than any other game I can attest to that. They probably didn't like it too much. We wanted to make sure everybody was in great condition for this game because we knew, especially on defense, we were going to rush the passer over and over again. We were very healthy. We substituted a lot. We played hard for 60 minutes. That's what I asked of the guys and I'm proud of them and the coaches.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student athletes.

Q. Marcus, considering how much people were talking about Colt and the high-powered offense, was it more incentive for you to come out strong today?
MARCUS HOWARD: Yes, you know, like we said everybody was talking about the high-powered offense and Defense Coach Willie Martinez told us to come out there and play fast and just show everybody that it's going to be a defense against the offense team and we just showed that we had a better defense than them.

Q. Knowshon and Coach, the question mark about Hawai'i all along was the defense. I was wondering, was it as good as you thought it might be or maybe not as good, because you started off the first few drives with little problems?
COACH MARK RICHT: Well, Knowshon, you want to make a comment about that?
KNOWSHON MORENO: I think they played hard, down to the wire down to the end. I think they played hard the whole time. They're a great team. And it may not look that way but they did play really hard, yeah.
COACH MARK RICHT: Well, I'll just say this, we really didn't know what to expect. Hawai'i didn't know what to expect. We really -- there's really no point of reference for us. We don't play anybody they play. They don't play anybody we play.
All you can do is study film, watch TV copy and wonder what's going to happen. That's why I felt it was so important that we made a very strong first impression. I wanted us to play fast and start the game with a high amount of energy and hopefully send a message that might resonate throughout the rest of the game. And I think we did that.

Q. Knowshon, with all the players you have coming back next year, just your thoughts on next season what you're looking forward to, what more you can do?
KNOWSHON MORENO: I guess we look forward to another season. It's another season of football we like that. We're happy with this victory right now. The seniors went out with a victory. That's what we really wanted. And we are just happy with this victory. We're going to cherish it and go from there.

Q. Marcus, obviously your team speed on defense, they weren't able to prepare for it tonight. Going in how much do you think that of an advantage did you think it was going to be for you on defense?
MARCUS HOWARD: I think it was a great advantage. We lost them a lot we saw what Fresno State did to them, we felt as a defense that no disrespect to Fresno but we felt that the defense -- our defense was faster than theirs and it just showed tonight that we really got off the quicker end.

Q. Knowshon, you being from New Jersey, what made you choose Georgia?
KNOWSHON MORENO: I just like the atmosphere. I like the coaches. I just love the people here. I want to pick a place if I wasn't playing football I could still get an education and still have a good time with the college. It was definitely the people atmosphere and I just fell in love with it.

Q. Marcus, besides speed -- I mean obviously speed is what got you guys over on defense. But is it something you saw on tape, because you guys pretty much shut everything down that they tried on offense, everything?
MARCUS HOWARD: I think the biggest thing was that we were conditioning. The coaching staff ran us a lot. Like you said the speed was a great thing that helped us win this game. But we really studied film and Coach Martinez was really on us. Again, DBs knew what kind of procedure they were running and defensive line they knew there was going to be passing, just putting our ears back.

Q. Seemed like you guys were taking advantage of the silent snap count firing off the every play like you were off sides almost on every play, can you talk about that?
MARCUS HOWARD: Coach Fabris and Coach Rodney Garner preached to us and Coach Martinez preached to us to get off, get off, for like two or three weeks, and that's what happened. We just was trying to jump this, and we did a great job tonight.

Q. Marcus, were you any surprised with your game tonight, three sacks, forced fumble, fumble recovery for a touchdown; and were you also surprised at how easily you were able to get off the line on the sack that you got a touchdown on?
MARCUS HOWARD: I guess I'm surprised. You know, I'm really just happy. I'm surprised but I felt that, you know, this is the first time I've been healthy in about a while since the Auburn game. And I just felt I had a great game even though this is my last game I wanted to go out with a bang.

Q. The way you finished the season with seven straight wins, what do you think you seniors left for next year's team that they can accomplish great things with the example you left them, where you finished. What do you hope to leave to these guys coming back?
MARCUS HOWARD: We want to leave a legacy with the guys. We wanted to set them up to be at least top three ranking, I guess top five ranking for the nation. We won't be judging those players next year, but we'll all be judged as alumnis. We just want the guys to do great when we leave and hopefully they will have a great nucleus coming back. And it's going to be fun to watch them.
THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you.
Questions for Coach Richt.

Q. Mark, I was wondering the fact you guys had a month off, particularly because Martinez prepared for the offense, how big of an edge do you think that was for him and his preparation?
COACH MARK RICHT: I know the longer you have to study someone, the more you could get a tendency or a key. And the longer time you have, you also are able to get it to where the players can see it and understand it and a lot of times the coaching staff, you know, we study until our eyes start bleeding.
And the players, in just a week's time, it's very difficult for them to get it all. But to have that much time to continue to watch film with the kids and show them all the tendencies and show them exactly what to be looking for in different personnel groupings and different splits, different motions, things of that nature, even which side the back is on, it paid off a lot in a game like this.

Q. Coach, given the way you guys finished this season, given what you have returning, is it going to be difficult at all to wait until September to play again?
COACH MARK RICHT: You know, it was difficult to wait six weeks or whatever it was after we finished up with Georgia Tech. Seemed like forever to play this game. This game did take forever to play. Probably the longest game in the history of college football. It wasn't an overtime game. But we're all ready for a little R and R. We're ready for a bit of a break, time with family.
Our coaches are certainly -- we'll get back on the road recruiting in a little bit. We have a coaches convention that a couple of guys will probably go to. But it's just a good time to get a little bit of rest.

Q. This season in college football, we saw so many dramatic upsets where the seemingly more talented team or bigger name team loses to the lesser known team, if you will. How much, if anything, did you emphasize that as kind of warning the guys coming into this game what is the key to avoiding that kind of situation?
COACH MARK RICHT: Right. Well, a couple of years ago we played the Sugar Bowl against West Virginia. Not many people gave West Virginia a chance to beat us. They beat us soundly, 38-35, whatever it was. We came out valiantly and tried to win it. But we lost it.
And you know I just didn't think I did a very good job of keeping our team in condition. I gave them more days off for Christmas than I've ever given them off.
And we didn't really run like we should. And this year we only gave them four days off. We ran their tails off just about every practice. The moment we got on, got to New Orleans, we had our team meeting. We went right to practice that night got up the next morning, practiced again. We made sure the bed checks were very reasonable. Made sure they got their rest.
And when you work them that hard it's hard to not play with a lot of spirit. And it's hard to surrender when you work so hard towards a game like this.

Q. Coach, to piggyback on his question, I guess so much for the last two weeks I guess your players heard so much about Boise State upsetting Oklahoma, did you mention that at all as far as bulletin board material just using that because it seemed like it played with just an extra edge like they really had a chip on their shoulder?
COACH MARK RICHT: Unfortunately, the media wanted me to say that's what we talked about. But we didn't really talk much about that game. We talked more about the West Virginia game because it happened to us and it didn't happen that long ago. It was still fresh in my mind, I know. I think it's still fresh in the juniors and seniors' minds. And that's the one thing we talked about the most.
But we started out 3-2. We had barely a post when we played Tennessee. They beat us really good. We didn't show a lot of fighting spirit. And somehow we had to change the course of history of that season. And we miraculously beat Vanderbilt at Vanderbilt at open date and got recharged and started to play like champions. We didn't want to finish the season on a downer. It was just too good of a year for that to happen.
So we did everything we could as coaches to make sure these guys' minds were right.

Q. Seemed like Missouri really came out played today. Thought they should have finished a little higher, seemed to play with a purpose. And seemed like your team did the same tonight. Maybe we did get ranked but --
COACH MARK RICHT: It's a tremendous honor to finish in the top five. We wanted to play for the national championship. We thought we had an outside chance for that. When it didn't happen, there's still tremendous honor in being a top five team at the end and winning 11 ball games, it's a tremendous accomplishment. And I wanted our guys, our young men wanted to have Sugar Bowl champion on their rings not just Sugar Bowl. And that meant an awful lot to us.

Q. Coach, we know SEC teams, it's staple to run the football and pound it in. But considering the high-powered offense today, how much did you guys really want to pound it and control the clock, and keep it going?
COACH MARK RICHT: We thought it was important to control the clock and run the ball successfully. We did have some drives where we got it worked out to third and very short, which helps your third down conversion, which allows you to hold the ball longer. When it takes three downs to get a first and you drive it eight, 10, excuse me, 12-play drives running the ball not being in a hurry to snap it in between time, then you can't control the clock.
And we wanted to do that. And when I was at Florida State running that fast break no huddle offense back when we had Charlie Ward, some of those guys, it was very frustrating if the other team could control the ball and stick it in the end zone. You might run three and out. And then they get another five, six-minute drive. Before you know it the quarter is over in plays. I know what that can do an offense. It's a big part of our strategy, no doubt.

Q. You mentioned the press conference the other day of the importance of winning strong NACs and strong perception for next year in this lovely BCS era we're living in. Can you talk about that perception a little bit and how tonight is obviously going to help launch you guys for a high preseason ranking next year?
COACH MARK RICHT: We hope we're ranked high preseason. I think we're going to return a very good football team. But in the Southeastern Conference it doesn't matter how good you are, there's going to be at least seven, eight teams just as good as you are. And to think that you can predict being in contention at the end is pretty brash. And I'm not going to do that. But I do think that we're going to have a more veteran team than we've had in a while, and I think we'll have some good depth, and I think we'll have a chance to make a run at it.
But so there's also about six or seven others in our league. Knowshon is a fantastic ball player, he really was a big spark for us. Especially that Florida game, when both Thomas Brown and Kregg Lumpkin were hurt, he pretty much had to carry it every time. He was just a true warrior that day. He made plays for us. Broke tackles. Made our offensive line look a little better than we were. Gave us some confidence. Forced Florida to play a little bit more man coverage than maybe they wanted to and we were able to hit some big plays throwing the ball deep.

Q. Is there anything in particular as a staff that you guys learned this season that you can carry over to next season?
COACH MARK RICHT: Well, I think the biggest thing we learned is you have to add energy and excitement to your execution, to your plan. It is important to have good strategy. It's important to play good fundamentally. But if you don't play with a lot of passion, it's tough to reach your peak in any given day and I just learned that I knew I had to do a better job of getting excited myself and help these young men get excited on a more consistent basis.

Q. Just how happy were you with how efficiently you moved the ball? I think the first few drives you guys scored each time you touched the ball?
COACH MARK RICHT: Right. It was -- I don't know. I think Mike Bobo did a tremendous job of planning it. Our guys did make some plays, throwing and catching when we needed to. But for the most part we were able to run the ball pretty good. Of course Brandon Coutu making that long field goal helping us score every time we touched it; we punted there at the end in the first half for the first time. A lot of people didn't talk much about it but our number one punt snapper was not at the ball game, he had a discipline issue.
And Bo Fowler did a nice job for us. I was concerned about how he would do the first time he snapped for punts. He was snapping for extra point field goal for us but he did a very nice job.

Q. Coach, you say good-bye to another crop of seniors. Never easy to do. Would you talk about the legacy of this group that's departing?
COACH MARK RICHT: I'll tell you, these guys, they're very much like some of the seniors of the past in that they took their role as leaders very seriously. They led the way in their work ethic. They led their way in their behavior, and they led their way in their unity.
And when your seniors are buying into what coach says, and all the coaches say, then you got a chance to be something special. And the young guys will always look up to you to your leaders, to your seniors.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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