SEC Media Days: Mark Richt’s best quotes
Mark Richt met with journalists at the SEC Media Days in Hoover, Al.
ESPN reported that he said: “No decision to dismiss a guy from the team is an easy decision. It’s always tough because I care very much about all these guys and having to make those kinds of decisions are tough. But in the end, I think we did what’s in the best interest of the program and I really do wish Isaiah the very best in his future. Hopefully things work out for him.”
Otherwise, here are some of his other quotes, provided by the SEC.
- Defending a poor non-conference schedule: “A few years back when the extra game was added, we had the philosophy of adding another BCS opponent outside of the southeastern region. It sounded like a good idea at the time. But after living it out a little bit, went to Arizona State, Oklahoma State, those are long road trips. It takes a lot out of you just to prepare for a team like that, then it also takes it out of you on the traveling part of it. All of a sudden you’re flying home in the middle of the night, your guys are trying to find a place on the floor on the plane to sleep. You get behind the eight ball that way. I love having seven home games. I’d like to have 12 home games if we could, certainly for our fan base and for our players. This season is one that I think the amount of home games is outstanding. The fact that we always play Florida in Jacksonville is going to give you a cycle of every other year not getting that one home game, but it’s certainly worth it to play in Jacksonville.”
- On Zach Mettenberger, who he threw out of Georgia: “He’d be competing to be the starter, if not being the starter.”
- On the four-team play-off system: “I think the four-team playoff is going to be outstanding. I’m not sure who’s going to decide who the top four teams are, but hopefully we’ll get a chance to have one and maybe two teams play out of our league if the season’s just right. One of the reasons why I like it is it doesn’t destroy the bowl system the way it is. Some people may not like it the way it is, but I think the bowl system is outstanding. I think our regular-season games are huge. I’m talking about the entire BCS. I’m not talking about just the Southeastern Conference…. I just hate to see a day where we might play Florida, and whether you win or lose, you still go to the playoffs, no one thinks it’s that big of a deal. It is a big deal every game we play. I don’t want college football to lose that.”
- Defending Georgia’s drug policy/Suspensions: “I think every university has the right to decide what’s in the best interest of their student-athletes. We at Georgia have got our policies there for a reason. We don’t want guys to get into that type of thing. When a guy makes a mistake, you want to stick him. You want to hopefully have a discipline that would teach a lesson and be painful enough to where they wouldn’t want to do it in the future. When the teammates are watching, hopefully it would help them not want to make the same type of mistake. I don’t think there will ever come a time in college football where everybody has a uniform policy in those issues. But I do think we’re doing the right thing for Georgia….People make mistakes. When they do, you discipline it. Some people have policies, as you mentioned earlier, that bring certain things to light, and some people don’t. So the bottom line is, you know, I love every guy on our team. Part of love is to be able to help teach them right from wrong. When they make mistakes, you need to discipline them in such a way that hopefully they’ll become better men down the road. That’s what we do at Georgia. To say that issues aren’t happening around the country isn’t really realistic.”
- On the Baccari Rambo/Alex Ogletree “I’m not going to update anything other than we know that Sanders Commings has a two-game suspension.” People are human.