Georgia Bulldogs

Georgia fans were disappointed last February when two of the state’s top running backs wound up signing with Alabama, a team that seemed loaded at tailback. To add insult to injury, the Crimson Tide beat the Bulldogs in a heartbreaking fashion in the SEC championship game, making losses on the recruiting trail that much harder to swallow.

But not this year.

The Peach State’s top running back last year in rushing yards was actually a junior. Nick Chubb of Cedartown (Ga.) High School had over 2,700 yards and scored 38 touchdowns for his squad in 10 games. Now as he prepares for his senior season, the four-star tailback has decided to commit to the in-state Georgia Bulldogs.

“Georgia is a place I feel comfortable, where I feel like I want to raise my family and live the rest of my life,” Chubb said. “So going to the university will help me out with that.”

Chubb’s commitment won’t singlehandedly offset the loss of Alvin Kamara and Tyren Jones to the Tide last year, but it helps. Credit the Bulldogs' coaching staff for being relentless.

“They talk to me almost every night there on twitter or they tell me to call them,” the four-star prospect said. “They recruited me probably the best. If they use the same thing with me that they use with everybody then I’m sure they’ll get [other recruits], because they are real smooth.”

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo apparently knew where Chubb was going before he announced his decision Tuesday night. But Chubb didn’t tell Bobo directly.

“I called Bobo, maybe last week,” Chubb said. “I didn’t say I was coming, I just talked to him and I said I liked Georgia a lot. I put it that way and he’s a clever guy. I never even told. He said he was smiling. He got me on twitter said he’s still smiling.”

Bobo and running backs coach Bryan McClendon have a lot to smile about. Chubb will join fellow tailback commit and ESPN 150 member Sony Michel (Plantation, Fla./American Heritage) in the backfield in 2014. Both will back up another talented duo in Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall. Chubb is not worried about the competition.

“That’s a challenge I’m willing to take and the competition is to keep the game better,” Chubb said. “I’m going to outwork them, I know I am. You can’t hide from the competition. Sooner or later it’s going to catch up with you. You’ve got to face it.”

There were other depth charts that were more appealing but Chubb’s plans to live in Georgia after his is over made Athens his choice. He did look around though. The 5-foot-11, 216-pound rising senior picked the Bulldogs over Auburn and South Carolina.

“South Carolina always said I’m the next [Marcus] Lattimore,” Chubb said. “I enjoyed that. That was nice hype, but I didn’t get on there at all. I don’t know, I just didn’t feel it. I liked Auburn probably a little more than South Carolina just because I felt the love when they talked to me, things like that, but I just got to stay home.”

Comparisons to great backs are nothing new for Chubb. He often hears about Gurley and Marshall and the Georgia coaches tell him that he “is a downhill runner.”

“That kind of is just me,” Chubb said. “Playing against eight in a box you’ve got to get down or they’re going to jump on your back or trip you up or something. So my mind is trained to get downhill. Bobo always called me Todd Gurley. That’s good, but I always wanted to be Nick Chubb too.”

Unlike Gurley and Marshall who were friends long before they came to Georgia, Chubb said he has never spoken to Michel. He is a quiet guy who prefers to let his play speak for him. But with his commitment, Chubb knows he is going to have to get out of his comfort zone.

“It is just starting to hit me,” Chubb said. “I don’t really talk to people, but if I want to get the best athletes at Georgia to stay home, I’m going to have to. I plan to, I think I need to. I think it’ll help out, because I know when people recruit me I feel good about it, so hopefully I can do the same thing for other people.”

ATHENS, Ga. -- Luckily for Mark Richt, he has an opposing coach at an SEC rival to use as the barometer for his Georgia team’s strength of schedule. If the amount of bellyaching by South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier is any gauge, then the Bulldogs must have a tougher schedule on tap this fall than they faced in the previous two seasons.

“We’ve got a tremendous schedule this year, we know,” Richt said. “I don’t hear Coach Spurrier complaining about it this year.”

In truth, Spurrier’s griping was not unfounded. USA Today pollster Jeff Sagarin’s computer rankings last season showed that while Georgia faced the nation’s 27^th-most-difficult schedule, 12 of the 14 teams in the SEC played a more difficult slate than the Bulldogs. And the Bulldogs (12-2, 7-1 SEC) took advantage of that benefit, winning their second consecutive SEC East title thanks to a tiebreaker edge over Florida (11-2, 7-1) and a one-game edge over Spurrier’s Gamecocks (11-2, 6-2), who blasted Georgia 35-7 and promptly lost back-to-back games to LSU and Florida.

If Georgia returns to Atlanta for the SEC championship game again this fall, South Carolina’s coach can’t blame it on the Bulldogs’ schedule. Particularly when Georgia faces Clemson, South Carolina and LSU -- teams ranked 11^th, eighth and 14th, respectively, in last season’s final Associated Press poll -- before the calendar turns to October.

It’s that early-season stretch that will likely determine Georgia’s ceiling this season. And thus the Bulldogs’ coaches aren’t looking far beyond the first two games.

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo joked at a fan gathering last month that he didn’t even know who Georgia played after the South Carolina game in Week 2. And Richt confirmed that his coaching staff won’t focus far beyond those two games this offseason, either, although that is their typical pattern.

“Right about this time of year, right after our coaches get off the road in recruiting before the summertime, they’re going to game plan Clemson and South Carolina. And so they’re going to have that ready before we even get to the installation of the season [in August],” Richt said at the end of May. “Then we’ve got to decide when do we start actually practicing for the first game.

“Usually by the time we get into camp, we’re really not doing a whole lot for game two. We start with game one, but we’ve already got the plan for game two so that when that first game is over, we’re not just going crazy trying to figure out, ‘What are we going to do now?’ The plan will be there -- at least what we thought a few months ago. You can tweak it if you need to.”

Tweaks are always part of the equation when it comes to preseason preparations. Entering his 13^th season as Georgia’s coach, Richt has had more than enough time to develop a routine for the crucial August practices that will determine whether the Bulldogs are ready for the Clemson game on Aug. 31. And yet Richt admits that he tinkered with his procedures after commiserating with Atlanta Falcons coach Mike Smith at a 2011 clinic.

The change that drew the most attention immediately after Richt’s meetings with Smith was Georgia adopting ideas from Jon Gordon’s book, “The Energy Bus,” where the Bulldogs worked to ward off “energy vampires” who sucked the life from the program with negative behavior. A less obvious change based on Smith’s advice was how the Bulldogs began practicing situations according to the percentage of time they might be in those situations in an actual game.

“Each coordinator knew that we were practicing these plays the amount of times they actually happen in a real game,” Richt said. “And then we tweaked it by anything we felt like maybe we’re, ‘Hey we were bad in third-and-7 and plus, so even though it’s only 6.9 percent, let’s do it 10 percent because we need to get better at that.’ So I think that we really weren’t too far off, but it gave you some peace to say, ‘Hey, I’m practicing these situations about as often as they occur in a game.’ ”

Richt believes the changes helped the coaches maximize their practice time and emphasize the preparations that most needed their attention. If that’s the case, the added efficiency will come in particularly handy this August, as the Bulldogs don’t have the luxury of a lower-division opponent sitting in the first slot on the schedule.

Games against Clemson and South Carolina to open the season are daunting obstacles for a Georgia program that is 2-4 when facing BCS-conference opposition in the first two games of the season dating back to 2009.

That reality isn’t lost on Richt’s players, who insist that there is a different level of intensity within the locker room this summer compared to last year, when the Bulldogs were preparing to open the season against Buffalo.

“You work a lot harder. You’ve got a mission,” junior receiver Malcolm Mitchell said. “Coming into last season when we played Buffalo first, we still had a mission. We wanted to win the game because you don’t want to lose any games. But it’s a little different when you’re playing a much tougher opponent for the first game. You don’t have a warmup game. We’ve got to come in ready.”

A closer look at what Georgia faces in 2013 in trying to get back to the SEC championship game for a third straight year:

Nonconference opponents (with 2012 records)

Aug. 31: at Clemson (11-2)
Sept. 21: North Texas (4-8)
Nov. 9: Appalachian State (8-4)
Nov. 30: at Georgia Tech (7-7)

SEC home games

Sept. 7: South Carolina
Sept. 28: LSU
Oct. 12: Missouri
Nov. 23: Kentucky

SEC road games

Oct. 5: at Tennessee
Oct. 19: at Vanderbilt
Nov. 2: vs. Florida, in Jacksonville
Nov. 16: at Auburn

Gut-check time: Nobody needs to tell the Georgia coaches, players or fans that South Carolina has won three in a row over the Bulldogs. The Gamecocks have never won four in a row in this series. Granted, Georgia has made it to the SEC championship game each of the past two seasons despite losing to South Carolina, but the odds of getting back to Atlanta for a third straight year after losing the SEC opener to the Gamecocks aren’t great. Plus, losing to the Gamecocks is starting to get real old in Bulldog Land.

Trap game: The trip to Vanderbilt on Oct. 19 has “trap game” written all over it. For one, the Commodores should again be an upper-echelon team next season under third-year coach James Franklin, but it will also be Georgia’s fourth straight SEC game in as many weeks. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, will be coming off a bye and playing at home.

Snoozer: After high stakes the first two weeks of the season against Clemson and South Carolina, LSU takes a week off and then tees it up against mighty North Texas on Sept. 21.

Telltale stretch: The Bulldogs had better be on top of their game right out of the gate because the month of September is filled with tough challenges. Nobody in the SEC faces a more difficult season opener than Georgia, which travels to Clemson on Aug. 31. Then it’s back home to face South Carolina the next week, and the month ends with a home game against LSU on Sept. 28.

Final analysis: This schedule isn’t nearly as forgiving as the one the Bulldogs faced a year ago. Going to Clemson the first game of the season trumps any nonconference game the Bulldogs faced last season. Plus, this is an odd year, meaning Georgia travels to Georgia Tech to end the season. The league schedule also has more teeth to it. LSU comes to Athens to close the month of September. The Bulldogs avoided Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M in the West a year ago in the regular season. The middle part of the SEC schedule also features four of five league games that will be played away from home. Ultimately, the month of September will probably make or break Georgia’s season. Then again, the Bulldogs have proven to be resilient each of the past two seasons after losing games early.

One of the standout performers at the Mark Richt Camp on Saturday earned a coveted in-state offer from the University of Georgia, and he wasted little time in accepting the hard-earned scholarship.

Offensive lineman Jake Edwards (Franklin, Ga./Heard Co.) came into Saturday’s camp with double-digit offers, but after dominating several BCS-caliber defensive linemen in front of assistant coach Will Friend, he got the news he had been hoping for all along.

“Georgia offered me, and I committed to them as well,” Edwards said. “I really love it there and I like all of the coaches. They have a great atmosphere, history and I have been a Georgia fan all of my life, so I wanted to keep it going.”

Edwards, who measured in at 6-foot-4, 282 pounds at the camp, was hoping he could do enough on Saturday to get the offer. When he saw the offensive coordinator walk over to watch him, Edwards knew he was close to achieving his goal.

“I could not hear what Coach Bobo was saying, but I was thinking if I keep on doing well, my dreams could come true and I could get that offer,” Edwards said. “Then at the end they asked me to walk up to the coaches’ office, and I was thinking it might happen. Then it did. I felt like I was in a dream and I was speechless. I am very blessed to be in this position.”

Edwards was told by Mark Richt he had a scholarship to play offensive tackle or guard, depending on what they needed at the time. Richt wanted to go ahead and seal the deal before other schools got Edwards on campus, and he succeeded in his push to add the versatile lineman.

“We were in Coach Richt’s office and he offered me to play both positions," Edwards said, "and when we went to talk with Coach Friend, he spoke with my mom to give her the news. When we came back to his office he said that now I do not have to go to anymore camps so I might as well go ahead and commit. I said I just might and he said well go ahead then and do it, so I went ahead and committed.”

While Edwards had planned on camping at Alabama next, he says that is no longer needed. He did not hold back from expressing his excitement for having the opportunity to play "between the hedges."

“It feels great to be committed to Georgia,” Edwards said. “I never thought it this dream would come true and I never thought I would be able to do this, but it happened and I cannot wait to be up there.”

Edwards gives Georgia seven commitments for the 2014 class, four of whom are prospects in the Peach State. He is the first offensive lineman to pick the Bulldogs, but they lead for others such as Dyshon Sims (Valdosta, Ga./Lowndes) and ESPN 150 prospect Isaiah Wynn (Saint Petersburg, Fla./Lakewood).

ATHENS, Ga. -- Georgia freshman defensive lineman John Atkins was arrested Friday on a pair of misdemeanor driving charges.

UGA campus police stopped Atkins for a seat belt infraction Friday afternoon and determined that he did not have a valid driver's license. UGA's sports information office released a media advisory on Friday evening saying Atkins was on his way to a 4:30 p.m. appointment at the state driver's license/state patrol office in his hometown of Thomson when he was pulled over. The purpose of the appointment was to clear up his license issue.

Nonetheless, he was booked into the Clarke County jail at 3:32 p.m. Friday and released 35 minutes later on $1,000 bond.

"I am aware of the situation involving John Atkins, and the discipline will be handled internally," Bulldogs coach Mark Richt said in the media advisory. "It will not involve any playing time."

Atkins enrolled at Georgia in January after spending last fall at Hargrave Military Academy. He is listed as the Bulldogs' third-team nose guard in the team's summer depth chart.

Georgia's most important game in 2013 is South Carolina's visit the second week of the season.

ATHENS, Ga. -- When Damian Swann first arrived on Georgia’s campus, he hoped to play on offense, defense and kick returner just as he had in high school.

Today, however, the junior cornerback understands the NFL possibilities ahead of him -- so much so that Swann says he has grown past wanting to do anything except excel on defense.

“That’s not something I’m real big on because I tell a lot of guys I’m a DB first and that’s what I want to be and I’ve got dreams of being a defensive back at the next level,” Swann said earlier this week at the annual Peach State Pigskin Preview in Macon. “So that’s my main focus, but at the end of the day, if Georgia needs Damian to return punts to win games, then Damian’s going to go return punts to win games.”

Swann returned five punts last season, averaging 7.4 yards per return, before giving way to Malcolm Mitchell and Rhett McGowan, who combined to return the final 20 punts of the season.

Mitchell -- also the Bulldogs’ top kickoff return man a year ago -- figures he will remain among the contenders for the job, even as he focuses more on playing receiver this fall.

“I’ll probably do some of that,” said Mitchell, who averaged 5.2 yards per return in 11 opportunities. “I don’t really know how much of it.”

Georgia averaged just 7.5 yards per return last season -- a figure that ranked 10^th in the SEC -- so it’s an area where the Bulldogs could obviously improve. Decision-making was sometimes an issue within the group, which is how McGowan first got a crack at the job, so when to fair catch a punt and when to attempt a return will likely remain an area of emphasis when the Bulldogs resume special teams work during preseason practice.

Bulldogs coach Mark Richt said during the spring that he believes some of the Bulldogs’ newest signees could join the competition, as several of them were kick returners in high school. As of spring practice, however, the only players catching punts were Mitchell, McGowan and Swann.

Georgia hasn’t shied away from using freshman kick returners under Richt, as Branden Smith, Richard Samuel and Asher Allen rank among the players who handled those duties in their first seasons as Bulldogs. Additionally, Todd Gurley worked as a kickoff returner last season -- in fact, he broke a 100-yard touchdown in his first attempt last season against Buffalo -- before Richt’s staff realized how big of a role he was going to play in their offensive game plan and scaled back his special teams work.

So we can’t rule out one of the newcomers just yet. Nor can we rule out Swann, although he is no longer clamoring for the opportunity.

“As you get older and as you mature, you realize that, hey man, you’ve got to pick one or the other,” Swann said. “I feel like I can achieve more playing 80, 90 snaps of defensive back than returning three or four kicks a game. So I’ve kind of grown out of wanting to return punts. But if they ask me to do it, then I’ll be fine with it.”

Mitchell’s attitude about the job is not quite as ambivalent, although it’s clear that his No. 1 priority is improving as a wideout. He is listed as the starting flanker on Georgia’s post-spring depth chart and, while the return jobs are not included on the depth chart, he might be the Bulldogs’ top option in those jobs, too, until a teammate emerges as a superior alternative.

“We might have a different look on it because I’m not touching it as many times as he’s going to touch it,” Swann said. “So if he wants to do it, I’m pretty sure they’ll allow him to. But if he just wants to go out there and get what he wants to get on the offensive side, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be fine with him.”