Stafford talks Kentucky, other stuff

Real quick, spoke with Matthew Stafford, Bryan Evans, Kelin Johnson, Sean Bailey, Tripp Chandler and Thomas Brown today. Sounds like they're really enjoying being a team these days. Winning helps in that regard, I'm sure.

Kelin said he'd heard from Tra Battle, who wanted to talk some trash since Kelin didn't get his third interception against Auburn when Evans snatched a tipped ball out of the air first, just before Kelin got there. I wrote my notebook lead for tomorrow about that. Tra, you'll recall, tied a school record with three picks against Auburn last year.

Thomas said the previously injured shoulder felt good after the Auburn game. Tripp had his left knee in a brace, but he practiced today. I don't remember the play, but it apparently looked like he hurt it pretty badly after one of his fourth-quarter catches against Auburn. I'll try to remember to talk to him about it tomorrow if he's at the press conference.

Here are me and a couple other writers talking to Matthew about a variety of things. I asked him the first few things about running the toss sweep in the second half against Auburn, as both coaches acknowledged it made a big difference on Saturday.

Q&A:
Tuberville and Richt both talked about how well the toss sweep worked for y'all in the second half. How many times did you run it?
Four or five times. They were good. When they were getting in that 55 or their three-down (?) set, we thought we could run it. We did a pretty good job of it.

Yeah, it apparently worked pretty well when you ran it...
That’s a good play for us sometimes. They were big and strong up front and we were having a tough time manning up, just trying to push ‘em and we’ve got some athletic guys up front. Getting ‘em out and letting them run a little bit and then throw at some guys was good for us.

Tuberville said that wasn't something they'd seen you guys run much on film. Had y'all not been using it a lot?
We’ve run it from the gun, same blocking scheme. Underneath, we ran it a little bit versus Florida, I think we ran it a couple times. It’s been working for us.

On how much the recent offensive surge is the players making more plays and how much is Mike Bobo having more confidence in them and calling plays more aggressively:
I think it’s a little bit of both. I think there’s times where he gets us in the perfect play and makes us look good and I think there’s times where we’re not in a great play and we end up making a play and making him look good. It works both ways. I know it’s easier for him when we’re out there making plays. He doesn’t have to call the perfect play every time and right situation. I think it’s just both, everybody feeding off him, knowing that he’s gonna call a good game and get guys matchups that are good for us and try to get some guys the ball. I think it just works both ways, I guess.

On the opinion that the offense is streaky:
I don’t know. I hope we’re a little more consistent than we are streaky, but I think when we get going, we can put up points in a hurry. (We’re) trying to avoid the lulls in the game, but the way football is, you’re not gonna score every time you get the ball. But I think when we get on a streak and we get going, we can put up some points in a hurry.

On sticking with what had been working when there are lulls:
I think that has a lot to do with the confidence thing, knowing that it’s gonna come back and knowing somebody’s gonna make a play and we’re all believing in each other. That’s really all it took last game was that long pass to Sean Bailey kinda got us going again and everybody just being confident that the offense is gonna click again, and it did.

On how much of the postgame scene he saw last year at Kentucky:
I just kinda walked off the field, I don’t know… got trampled by a bunch of fans.

That was the game where your helmet got ripped off, wasn't it?
It got ripped off and I looked pretty ugly. It wasn’t a good scene.

Did you know your face was messed up like it was?
Not really. I think it was kind of a fluke deal, just my helmet coming off. I didn’t even know I looked like I looked until after the game. I didn’t look at myself at halftime.

Didn't coach Richt take you over to the offensive linemen during the game to show them your face?
Yeah. I really didn’t know. I thought I only had a fat lip. I was like, ‘why is he showing me (to them)?’

On his reaction to the loss last year:
I felt bad. That was a tough loss for us. We were able to bounce back from it last year, which is nice. But they’re a good football team and I think they’ve got a lot of confidence, definitely, coming from that game into the season for them.

On whether they need to use the memory of that loss as motivation this year:
It’s nice to always have something to think about – something to prepare for and something to work for. But I think we’re maturing as a team and realizing that it doesn’t matter who we’re playing or what we’re playing for, we’ve gotta come out and put a good effort and get ready for Kentucky.

On whether it will feel like something is missing if they win out and don't make it to Atlanta for the title game:
I don’t know. We’ve still got two games to play, this one being the last SEC and then Tech. All we can think about right now is taking care of business for us and whatever happens happens. We’d love to be in that game and if we’re not, I’m sure it’ll be a little disappointing. But our main focus right now is just trying to win the next two.