“He’s hot, I guess is the best way to say it.”

Listen to this Mark Richt interview with Ivan Maisel to hear an explanation of what happened on the game-tying touchdown pass against Tennessee.  Good stuff.

(A nuanced) Fourth and Todd

To be fair to Todd Grantham, there’s a more fleshed-out version of his fourth-down comment that made the rounds the other day:

“Because of our team, you’re going to have some fourth-down opportunities, so you’re going to have to stop them on four downs.  They went for it three times on fourth-down.  If we stop any of those, it’s less points.  In fact, if we stop the two they went for it on our side, the game is probably over because we’re going to get a field goal and it’s (now) a two possession game. That’s the big thing: You’ve got to finish people off.  To do that, it takes some dueling.  That’s where we are.  We’ve got to learn to finish people off.”

That makes some sense, honestly.  The defense doesn’t need to be shutdown good every play.  But it needs to win enough key plays to lock a game down after the offense has done its job.  The point being that you’re trying to sell inexperienced players on a level of effectiveness that will win you a game.  Style points don’t matter.

That’s probably small consolation to some.  But I’ll take a season full of one big stop, three-point win sort of games, regardless of the opponent, pretty or otherwise.

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Beyond Logan Gray

Kirk Ferentz, burned by a Michigan State fake punt, is ready to take measures that sound both extreme and familiar (if you’re a Georgia fan, at least):

“If you pressed me today, I’d say we may never return a punt again, just because when you do that, you have to turn and go with those guys to shadow them,” he said. “When you do that, you open the door (to a fake). Michigan State did a pretty good job of taking advantage of it, to their credit.

“What helped us a couple of weeks ago we paid for on Saturday and cost us a field goal and a possession. So, yeah, I may be leaning towards where you never see us try to return one again. We may just try to catch it and keep it off the ground.”

Maybe Richt’s started a trend.

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UPDATE:  On a related note, catch Spencer Hall’s attribution to Logan Gray in this post.  LOL.

“It just seems like we’re kind of keeping things on edge.”

Why does everybody looking at Georgia’s season keep talking about their hearts?

“I may have some heart issues after this season,” senior offensive guard Chris Burnette said.

Georgia’s thrilling victories the past two weeks — 44-41 over LSU and 34-31 against Tennessee — haven’t gone unnoticed nationally.

“Cardiac Dawgs! Dawgs!” ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption Host Michael Wilbon said on Monday.

Oh, yeah.  That.

I do think Lynch puts his finger on something of value from the experience, though.

“I don’t know if we’re going to be that team that just blows somebody out of the water,” Lynch said. “I just think for us, when push comes to shove, we know how to win close ballgames. We almost pulled it out against Clemson … and we’ve pulled it out these past four and we’ll continue to do so as long as we play within ourselves, we prepare every day in practice and we know what’s coming before it hits us.”

They certainly don’t have everything else figured out, but they’ve been through enough to know what to expect and how to execute in a tight finish.

“You’ve got to expect every SEC game to be close, and you’ve got to be ready for every situation,” Morgan said. “That was my first overtime situation at Tennessee, and I’m glad that we got that done.”

There’s something to be said for been there, done that.

You just got lesson number one: don’t think; it can only hurt the ball club.

Quayvon Hicks channels his inner Crash Davis:  “Thinking, that’s a part of football that really doesn’t matter.”

Settling it in the conference room is the new settling it on the field.

Give Bill Hancock and the rest of the BCS brain trust credit for one thing:  they’ve managed to shift the debate away from who gets picked for the playoff field to who does the picking.

Wednesday morning buffet

The buffet did not undergo surgery this morning.

• But several Dawgs have or will.
• One thing Georgia is doing very well is not turning the ball over against BCS opponents.
• Mark Stoops claims to have gotten an acknowledgement from Steve Shaw that the officiating crew screwed up a call in the UK-SCar game.
• Murray and Conley are spending extra time with the newbie receivers this week.
• Roy Adams is one creepy dude.
• That 57-yard run Aaron Murray had in the Tennessee game?  Only nine quarterbacks nationally have a longer run this season and none in the Southeastern Conference.
• Stephen Garcia offers some advice to everyone on Jadeveon Clowney’s back.
• “We’ve just got some young guys, and they’ve gotta stop playing like they’re in high school and grow up,” senior defensive lineman Garrison Smith said. “It ain’t got nothing to do with coaching.”