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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: LSU v GEORGIADecember 3, 2011Mark RichtATLANTA, GEORGIA LSU – 42 KEVIN TRAINOR: We're joined by Georgia head coach Mark Richt. Coach, if you'll make an opening comment, and then we'll take questions from the audience. COACH RICHT: I guess the audience is still on the field, huh? Okay. Well, congratulations to Coach Miles and LSU. They did a wonderful job. Outstanding football team. We saw what‑‑ or at least we lived out a lot of the things that other people have been living out playing those guys, their ability to get stronger as the game goes on. It was very evident that they were able to do that. Of course, turnovers and momentum swings certainly didn't help us in the second half. I was proud of the way we started. We missed a couple of opportunities for more points. Probably could have had 21 points in the first half if we just catch the football, but we're not able to do that. And then the second half, gosh, so many things that happened. Basically, just lost the momentum; they gained it, and we really couldn't slow it down once it got going. So my hat's off to them. I am‑‑ I'm proud of our team. I'm proud of the season that we've had, the regular season, of course, and the ability to even get to this game was a great accomplishment considering how we started. We wanted to have a lot better show than we ended up showing for the 60 minutes that we played football. I don't think anybody quit, although it might have looked like it a couple times. We'll look at the film to see on that one drive that went 90 what happened in there, but for the most part, we played pretty darn good defense. At times we made some plays offensively, and then, of course, the special teams touchdown certainly hurt us in the first half as far as them being able to grab some momentum. In a half that we dominated statistically, we just didn't put enough points on the board and keep them off. Anyway, my hat's off to them. They are a championship football team. I'm sure they'll do well in the last game. KEVIN TRAINOR: At this time we'll prepare to take questions. Q. Coach, obviously, a pretty good offensive game plan, some execution issues. COACH RICHT: Yeah, I thought we got people open. I thought we actually‑‑ as I mentioned earlier, we dropped one in the end zone. We dropped one that looked like a sure score in the first half. And then there were some times in the second half where we certainly thought we had some guys open but didn't protect well enough. But that's football. I mean, that's to their credit that they can pressure the quarterback and keep you from throwing it on rhythm and things of that nature. But I thought we did some good things. We'll look at the film. I don't think we're going to look and say that we had a bad scheme. As you said, I think we had some execution issues. But that's what happens when you play a good defense too. You have execution issues. They had some issues, too, trying to execute against our defense too. Q. Coach, you mentioned the punt return in the first half. Could you just talk about Tyrann Mathieu? He just seems to be one of those kids that good things happen to him. COACH RICHT: When you play as hard as he does, good things do happen to you. He's very athletic. He's very competitive, very tough. I'll be honest with you, I enjoy watching the guy play football other than what he plays against us, because when you do see a guy like that, you can appreciate it. You really can appreciate it because of how he plays. But they all play hard. Our guys play hard too. There's something about him that he seems to find a way to do something special just about every game, and he did it again. Q. Mark, you had some success throwing the ball early on, but as the game went on, you couldn't run well, establish the running game. That made it tougher. I guess they could tee off a little more on Aaron Murray that way. COACH RICHT: Well, yeah, and then the point differential got to where you couldn't be as patient as maybe you wanted to. Second half, we did not run the ball very well. It wasn't until Ken Malcolm started running the ball that we had a little bit more success. He ran extremely hard. I was proud of him. I think they all were trying to run hard, but I think Kenny probably had an opportunity to get a little bit more space than the other guys in that they were, I'm sure, defending the run and keeping‑‑ trying to keep the big play away. When we did run the ball in those situations, there was a little bit more space. So I'm not saying the other guys didn't run hard, but Kenny did run hard. He did show some hard fight, which is what we had seen in him when we recruited him. He was a guy that could get yards after contact, and he showed a little bit of that tonight. Q. Mark, at first glance here, what does a game like this tell you about where you need to go from here to compete with the elite in this conference? COACH RICHT: Well, if you don't turn it over and you don't do some of the things that help them grab momentum‑‑ you know, I don't know how far off we are. If the game ended at halftime, I don't know how we'd feel about can we compete with the elite teams in the league. But it is a 60‑minute ball game, there's no doubt about it. The final 30, we did things that will ignite a very good football team. Not to say they didn't knock the ball out. The ball came out on Murray's fumble, but they had something to do with that too, no doubt. I'm not trying to belittle anything that they did. But yeah, I think I'll probably have to watch the film and really study it to see how far off we are really. We do need to be‑‑ we've got to get‑‑ well, you know, I don't know. I've got to look at the tape to really answer that question, but I don't think we're that far off. I really don't. KEVIN TRAINOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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