University of Georgia Athletics
Bulldogs On The Brink Of Battle With Gamecocks
September 10, 2009 | Football
ATHENS, Ga. - The 21st-ranked Georgia Bulldogs made final preparations for their upcoming Southeastern Conference opener against South Carolina by working out for 90 minutes at the Woodruff Practice Fields on Thursday.
As Thursday's practice session came to a close, the 48-hour countdown to kickoff started for a meeting Between the Hedges between Georgia (0-1, 0-0 SEC) and South Carolina (1-0, 0-0 SEC). Kickoff is slated for 7:06 p.m. ET at Sanford Stadium, and the contest will be televised by ESPN2 with Mike Patrick calling the play-by-play, Craig James providing color analysis and Heather Cox reporting from the sideline.
Prior to Thursday's workout, Georgia head coach Mark Richt met with the media a final time before Saturday's clash and confirmed senior Joe Cox as the Bulldogs' starting quarterback.
"Joe's the quarterback," Richt said. "It's not unusual to have your second team QB take a couple snaps with your one unit."
Richt also addressed Wednesday's practice since he was unable to discuss it following yesterday's workout.
"We had planned a practice that got cut short maybe 20 minutes," Richt said. "We had a little lightning strike off in the distance, and the cloud cover came a little early. It certainly cooled down the day. It started out hot, and it cooled down relatively early in practice and I thought the guys responded to that pretty good. We missed a few reps of some things that we wanted to cover that we got to try to squeeze into today."
Richt went on to state that junior defensive end Kiante Tripp is available to play this weekend against South Carolina, but that senior linebacker Darius Dewberry would not play due to a pulled muscle and that redshirt sophomore tailback Caleb King (hamstring) was doubtful.
South Carolina has been Georgia's first SEC opponent each season since the Gamecock's joined the league in 1992 and the Bulldogs are 12-5 in those contests including a 6-2 mark under Richt's direction. Six of the eight games between these two teams under Richt have been decided by seven points or less with Georgia winning five of them including a 14-7 victory last year in Columbia.
All Georgia games are broadcast live on the Bulldog Radio Network on ISP Sports with Scott Howard calling the play-by-play and Eric Zeier providing color analysis. The radio audio can also be heard worldwide on both georgiadogs.com, the official website of UGA Athletics, on XM Satellite Radio channel 197 and on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 213. This weekend's game will also be carried nationally by ESPN Radio with Bill Rosinski providing the play-by-play commentary, Dennis Franchione doing color analysis and Joe Schad reporting from the field.
