I’ll hang up now and listen to your answer.

A couple of noteworthy items from this week’s Bulldog Hotline transcript (thanks, Bernie!)…

First, Richt talked about Murray’s pick-six and said something I meant to mention after seeing the broadcast of the game, but forgot about:

… Richt – says he would never accuse Murray of staring down a receiver. Does a great job of reading coverages and going through his progressions. Says there are times when it’s a one receiver route where it might look like he’s staring the guy down, like on the one interception. Says there wasn’t a good enough fake after the snap. Also says our linemen have to have a good posture when it’s a run fake and our fullback’s got to run through there and isolate on the LB and the tailback has to sell the fake as well. That should create the seam we need to get it done.

Live, I thought Murray was guilty of exactly what Richt absolves him of there.  But watching the play on TV, I realized it wasn’t that Murray stared down Charles; Charles was the sole intended target.  The ball was poorly thrown, as even Tim Couch noted, but the other problem was that the Mississippi State defenders didn’t bite on the play fake.  Given how much of Georgia’s passing game runs out of play action, that’s a big problem if the execution isn’t good enough to sell the run.  And Richt’s right to point some of the blame in the o-line’s direction, although I wonder (again!) if all the time the line has to stay in stance for that no-huddle, look to the sideline stuff is having an effect on their mechanics.

Okay, enough grumbling.  See if this quote about the secondary gets the same reaction from you that it does from me:

Tim from Bonnair has a concern about Tyler Bray of Tennessee. How are we going to approach their offense with him at QB? Richt – says Bray is the real deal. Good fundamentals, accurate thrower. They’re 7-1 in their last 8. Averaging about 320 yards passing during that time. Special guy. Thinks they’ll try to balance things out, but they‘ll definitely sling the thing around. Says we’ll try to re-route the receivers and mess around with their timing. [Emphasis added.]  And we also need to get after the quarterback.

Wait… what was that?  Defensive backs are going to try to affect the other team’s route running and timing on pass plays?  Georgia defensive backs?  As part of a deliberate strategy?  What a novel concept!

I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.  We aren’t in Martinez Country anymore, that’s for sure.