The Red and Black

Issue date: 10/10/08 Section: Sports

FIELDS

MOORE

With Brannan Southerland back and likely to start Saturday, head coach Mark Richt discussed the possible ripple effect it may have during his Thursday press conference.

He said that coaches liked what redshirt sophomore Justin Fields did in his switch to the fullback role, and that he'll still help "on some special teams and he is still getting some reps at fullback."

Though Benjamin Boyd has been moved back to his original linebacker position ("it had to do with a lot of injury issues at linebacker too"), Richt said he expects Fields, who was also originally a linebacker, to stay in the offensive backfield.

"We think Fields will remain there because we know Brannan's gone after this year's over," he said. "Most of the time we want three fullbacks on our roster but with Fields doing as well as he has we probably would not sign an extra fullback in this class."

Dannell Ellerbe's sprained MCL was one of those linebacker injuries that prompted Boyd's return, and Richt reasserted Thursday that Ellerbe is not likely to play.

"I just don't think there's any chance of even checking him to see if he can, because he's not playing. We're not taking him on our crosstown trip (to a hotel). He won't play."

With Ellerbe out, Richt said Darryl Gamble would start at Mike linebacker and that Rennie Curran would start at Will, but that he wasn't sure whether it would be Akeem Dent or Darius Dewberry starting at Sam.

Injuries also have hit the wide receiver position pretty hard. With Kris Durham (ankle) out for a while, Richt said that Kenneth Harris (ankle) was "good [to play] this week for sure," and that Michael Moore has been getting the majority of Durham's reps in practice.

"The guy that's really getting the majority of those reps right now is Michael Moore. Now Michael's had some pretty fine performances this season already. I thought he played well in the Alabama game, he made some very tough catches."

Freshman receiver Tavarres King also will be back from his ankle injury and ready to play against the Volunteers.

"Day before yesterday he looked very good running routes," Richt said. "Now this was not in competitive situations, he was just running routes versus air, but he didn't look like he had any limp at all."

As a group, Richt said he approves of his receivers' performance thus far this season.

"Overall, I think the receiving corps has done a very good job," he said. "Very few have missed, the effort of their blocking downfield I think has been excellent. Very few balls have been dropped of the kind that are right in their hands with nobody around them."

Georgia addresses excess penalties

Penalties have been an oft-approached subject since Georgia's drubbing at the hands of Alabama, and Thursday, Richt went into deeper detail about changes he's made to attempt to reduce those flags.

"I've ramped it up in practice and also instead of there just being one guy who pays a price, the team will pay a price. The whole team. The whole team. Which tends to, you know, provide a little peer pressure. It's not like before we just had acted like it never happened, we have done anything different than any other year. Just this year for some reason it's been too many."

- Tyler Estep

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