NOKIA SUGAR BOWL: GEORGIA v FLORIDA STATE

January 1, 2003

Terrence Edwards

Mark Richt

Musa Smith

MUSA SMITH: I thought it was a real good game, and everybody played hard, and hats off to Florida State. It was just a real good game, that's all I have to say.

COACH RICHT: Just, again, real thankful for everybody who made this thing happen. We've got a great coaching staff, great players. We just came together. When a defense like ours is playing as good as they are and the kicking game is so solid, it can get kind of boring, but winning is fun. I'm just proud of what everybody did, and you get a great defense, and you get a great kicking game and a running back like Musa Smith, we're going to win a lot of ballgames if you don't mess it up.

COACH RICHT: First of all, Coach Bowden is still the teacher, that's for sure. I like spending time with him. I like being next to him. He's just one of the best men I've ever known, and we had to play against him. So no matter who you play, you want to win the game. You know, of course, I wasn't real comfortable until the very end, because, you know, one long pass, on-side kick and a Hail Mary, and we lose the thing. So, it was a great ballgame to the very end, but it was just good to see Coach Bowden again.

COACH RICHT: Oh, that interception was huge for a touchdown. We got an interception earlier and got nothing out of it. We got three and out and missed the field goal. I didn't like the celebration too much, although I don't blame him for wanting to celebrate, but that could have cost us a point here. You never know what can happen in a ballgame like that. When Bennett drilled it through, it worked out for us.

COACH RICHT: You know, DJ, he made a great play but he fumbled. You know, I just want to make sure he knew I believed in him, which I do, and I believe that with him in the game, we have a much better chance of them playing some single coverage because he is a running threat. So I knew I wanted to go deep and I felt like if David went in, maybe they would have played some of the zone schemes they had been playing. I felt like if DJ came back in, they would be more likely to play man coverage, and that was about the only time I was right throughout the game. But it worked out well.

TERRENCE EDWARDS: It was a great game. We've got to give credit to Florida State for stopping us in the red zone. I wished we could have scored more touchdowns, but they did a great job of stopping us. Got to give credit to this man, Mr. Richt, for preparing us and his coaching staff, and showing us to learn how to win. That's what the whole season was, learning how to win.

COACH RICHT: That one hurt. That was extremely cold and shocking. I don't like getting it when the game is not over yet. I don't mind if the game is the not over yet but the game wasn't over yet. I just don't feel good until it's 0:00.

COACH RICHT: This was just one season, this was just one glorious season for us. If you start from game one until now, there's an awful lot of close games that could have gone either way. But like Terrence said, I think players learn how to win. You learn how to win when you're underdogs and you learn how to win when you should win and then you start to get to where you feel like you could win every single time. I hope that we are beginning to have that kind of belief, but the bad news is, there's a lot of other great teams in our conference that feel the same way and have tremendous athletes and coaches, so we are going to have to start all over. What happened this year, we are going to celebrate and enjoy, but when it comes to next season, it's a brand new team. We will have lost just a tremendous amount of leadership, and we're going to find out who is going to lead us next year.

COACH RICHT: They are great guys. You spend a lot of time -- I spent two and three years with some of those guys. I care about all of the guys I've coached over the years. It's good to see them. I was thankful that they even cared to say hello. I could understand if they didn't want to do that, but they did and I was thankful for that. They are a great bunch of guys, too, I can tell that you.

MUSA SMITH: It's truly a blessing. I had a great game and I've got to give my lineman credit and J.T. Wall. I'm just very happy right now. Plus we got the victory. That's what counts.

TERRENCE EDWARDS: It was the same play that Michael Johnson -- take off, it was going to me and I'm glad Coach Richt has confidence in me to single me out and throw me the ball. I made the play, it's something we've been working on all year. When you're one-on-one, you have to win, and the receiving core brought themselves one-on-one and jumped the ball and I just made the play.

COACH RICHT: Well, I wouldn't say every game, but a lot of the games. I think what happens, like I said earlier, when you do play great defense and kicking game and you're able to run the ball, and we should have run the ball more in the first half in hindsight, but, you know, you can do a lot of things, be fancy, and do things that might be able to get you a lot more scores, but it also can change the momentum of the ballgame. I didn't want to do anything that would change the momentum in their favor, and so we played this pretty close to the vest and I guess I'm a lot more conservative than I thought I was, but when you've got guys playing that well, I just didn't see any reason to try to get too fancy with them.

COACH RICHT: Musa has really improved a lot. I think Musa is a guy who loves to do everything full speed. Even back when we started our mat-drill program, the guy was full speed, you could tell the guy was a worker and he wasn't afraid of that. And his running style was that way. He wanted to hit it hard and fast every time, and a lot of things that we do is more of a sprint/draw action and I think he ran up on his blockers a couple times early in his career or since I've been here. But as time went on and he had a better feel for how this thing was being blocked and he used his vision a little better, started to pick the holes better, started to break tackles better, I think he's just improved a tremendous amount. He was always a physical blocker. He always did a great job of wrapping up the football. But I think his vision as time went on was better and better, just to understand the blocking seams and he really powered through people and just made people miss as the year went on. I'm just really proud of how he developed.

COACH RICHT: Basically, it was just great game and God bless you. And that was about it. He just said, "Great game. Congratulations." I may see him at the coaches convention if he's there, but again, it's very good to be around Coach Bowden.

MUSA SMITH: Yeah, I read my blocks, and plugged the receivers on the downfield, it was a great all-around game and everyone blocking, had a great game.