Newsy Tuesday

Lots of folks moving around these days. Kiante Tripp's now an offensive lineman. Aron White's working some with the tight ends in certain formations. The movement in the linebacker positioning sounds permanent -- with Ellerbe in the middle, Dewberry at weakside and Miller at strongside. There are some others as well. (All right, I was gonna hold onto this till later, but since it's already on the Dawgpost, Jarius Wynn is working at D-tackle, per Rod Battle and Rodney Garner, who said they're "cross-training" him there. Battle made it sound like the move was a bit more permanent.)

Also, walk-ons Chris Gaunder and Andrew Williams were given scholarships today.

I spoke with Jon Fabris, Rodney Garner, Rod Battle and Brandon Miller today and listened in while a couple guys talked with Reshad Jones (he expects to be back at practice tomorrow, by the way). I may post some of that stuff later.

So here are most of Richt's comments from postpractice today.
On Kiante Tripp's move to offensive line:
He really looks good out there. He absolutely has a ton to learn, but his body type and his athleticism is tailor made for the position. I think it's really gonna help Georgia and it's gonna help him too. A lot of it had to do with just the amount of injuries we've had and the lack of depth. He saw an opportunity and was very excited about the chance to do it. I'm glad he's got the right attitude. You don't want to move a guy if he doesn't want to move, but he was ready to move. He told me that he played D-end and tackle in high school and liked them both. He sees the opportunity. So he's No. 64 now and we're excited about that. It changes the whole complexion of our offensive line, at least the depth and the athletic bodies that you're striving to recruit. It's like getting a commitment from a top two or three tackle in the United States, so that's pretty exciting for us.

On how the move came about:
I think coach Searels had been kinda playfully throwing a carrot out there, you know? I was talking to Kiante yesterday, just asking him how he's doing. I actually asked him how much he weighs nowadays. He said he weighed 270 and then he said, 'Coach Searels is kinda playing around with me maybe being a tackle,' and I said, 'Well, what would you think of that?' That's when he said, 'I played both in high school. I liked 'em both, coach. I would do that.' And I said, 'Well I'll talk to you tonight,' which was yesterday, last night. I called him into my office and we talked a little bit. I just wanted to know what was on his heart because we thought the very same thing before camp started. But my feeling was if the guy's trained all summer, he's got his weight to 270, he hit it right on the money, to play D-end. Now I'm gonna tell him he's a tackle? I'm not gonna do that. So we didn't even talk about it with him. But then with some injuries and we have a lot of depth at D-end and very little depth at tackle. He saw an opportunity. Now his spirit's right, he's excited about it, and I think that's gonna make all the difference in the world. If we'd have pushed it on him, he might've resented that, but right now, I think he feels real good about it. He didn't do everything just right, but it's just amazing to see him move and how he can even make a mistake and then be athlete enough to change direction and run a guy by the quarterback. It's certainly not textbook but it's kinda hard to teach and coach that athleticism, so I think it's gonna be a great move for us.

On how this situation compares with Dale Dixson's short-lived move to OL last preseason:
Dale's a wonderful kid. I asked him to think about it one evening. We were more trying to say we really need you here son. It seemed like Kiante was excited about it when he talked to me originally. You knew Dale was gonna be a harder sell. I talked to Dale about thinking about it, feeling comfortable about it and if in the morning he wanted to do it, then we'd do it. I said you don't have to do it if you don't want to do it. Well, the next morning he never said anything to me. The next morning I just saw him in another color jersey, so I just assumed he was fired up and ready to go. I didn't think anything about it. But then I think it was after one practice or one day, he was in the tank about it. I'm like, you don't have to move son. I think he felt like he had to move because he felt like the team needed him, but in his heart he didn't want to do it so we moved him back. We've always held that policy that we're not gonna move a kid against his will. We didn't do it with Dale and we're not doing it right now with Kiante.

On how Tripp's addition affects what might happen in the future with the OL:
I don't know what's gonna happen. It could free us up to have Chester at guard and always ready to go to tackle, which is probably what we'd like to do. But we had Clint Boling get a little right guard today too, just a little taste. Because we feel like Clint could play center, guard or tackle, he's just that good of an athlete. So it just gave us a little breathing room. Some guys got some rest that don't ever get rest in practice. When I walked Kiante in the offensive line room and introduced him, the linemen, they're in there cheering. Linemen need help, they want help. If you said, 'Hey, here's a new tailback, some all-American from wherever,' the tailbacks would probably be in there grumbling. But when a new lineman comes in the room, they get excited.

On line flexibility meaning Chester Adams could maybe move back inside to guard:
He could. I think it would make more sense for Chester to be on the right side, where he's also right tackle, and then Haverkamp's gonna crosstrain. We'll crosstrain Haverkamp with both guards and then we'll crosstrain Davis at guard and center, just to give us a little depth. I'm not saying we won't have 10 ready, but I'm not sure we'll have 10 ready. It might be seven or eight guys ready.

This late in the game and with his size, how long do you think till he can be ready?
He might be ready Game 1. I'm not saying he's gonna win the starting job, but I would think...Just from what I saw today, I think he could hold up. It's like if you take a tight end, some tight ends are big, strong, physical bruisers and they will block that way. Some guys are extremely athletic and quick tight ends that they can still be effective blockers, not devastating blockers, but effective in that they can get their hat in the right spot, their feet in the right spot, work your feet and keep a guy from getting to the play without mashing him. He's gonna be in that category for right now. But I don't know how hard he's been trying to keep his weight down. If he just decides to eat a meal after dinner every night, he could go to 280 probably, 285 maybe in just a couple weeks, if he's been fighting hard to keep it off.

Did he work at all with the ones today?
He got some ones and twos today. He probably got more reps than anybody on the front, just to try to catch him up. He held up pretty good.

You said Saturday you didn't want to move a defensive lineman to O-line. Was Josh Davis' injury what put you over the top on that?
That was part of it, but even then I wasn't sitting there going, 'Hey we've gotta do it,' because all the injuries that I see are a day, two days, three days, maybe four days away. Most of those guys are pretty close to coming back. So I didn't feel like anything really changed. We were gonna suffer for a couple days with the lack of depth, but I didn't see any season-ending injuries that would make you do that. Most good line coaches, offensive line coaches and D-line coaches, are looking for somebody to move their way. Coaches will sometimes playfully plant the seed out there and just see what a kid's thinking. And Kiante, he liked the idea of it, so that was very positive for everybody. I don't know if I can talk too much about a recruiting class -- I guess I could, I'm not mentioning names -- but like I said, it's like getting a signee at tackle right there.

On Brandon Miller's move from middle linebacker back to strongside:
Brandon as of late has played more sam and Dannell Ellerbe's played more mike. If it happened today, we'd probably play Ellerbe at mike and Miller at sam. But that doesn't diminish Miller's importance. Miller is still, although he's not playing a lot of mike right now, he's the guy that is physically dominant. He quite frankly is throwing our tight ends around. We have some outside plays, whether it's toss or stretch, what we call a stretch play, and the whole key to that play is whether a tight end can at least neutralize a sam linebacker the way our defense plays our looks. And Brandon's just thrashing everybody right now. I don't know if we've gotten around the edge yet with him playing the sam linebacker.

More on Miller's move back to sam:
He's just comfortable there. Like I said, the will is much more like the mike in that if you spread out, usually the sam spreads out and usually the mike and the will play inside. So I think it was a little more natural for Ellerbe to be there and Dewberry, Dewberry's coming along at the will. They're a great-looking bunch. Marcus Washington's come along at the mike also. That gives us a good comfort level. Rennie Curran's working hard to be No. 2 will. He's kinda moved into that position, for now anyway. And then Akeem Dent has been a very solid sam linebacker also. So that's kind of our two-deep there.

How's Aron White's transition coming?
He's light. He's getting tossed around a little bit. He's learning new terminology, technique, everything. He's just getting a taste for it. He has played tight end before, but he hasn't heard coach Johnson teach it yet.

So he's working at tight end now?
He's been that Y, that flex Y, but yesterday we started giving him a taste of tight end. More in a three-receiver set than in a base I-formation set. Like I was describing styles of blocking, you don't have to necessarily be a masher in the three-receiver, tight end set. The blocking schemes are not, you don't have to be quite as physical as you do in the I-formation. I don't think he's learned any tight end in the I-formation.

Is the punter or kickoff job settles?
We're gonna have a kicking scrimmage tomorrow morning. That will probably help us some.

Might that determine it?
It could determine it. I know Bo did a good job and I thought both punters were pretty close to being equal last one.