Georgia Bulldogs

Editor's note: Over the next couple of weeks, we'll clean out our notebook from Georgia's spring practice to tell the stories we didn't get to before the Bulldogs' G-Day game. Previously we featured fullback Quayvon Hicks, tight end Jay Rome and defensive end Ray Drew. Today we recap a conversation with safety Connor Norman from a few days before the G-Day game.

ATHENS, Ga. -- Connor Norman doesn’t necessarily want to become a coach, but he assumed that role almost by default this spring.

As the only Georgia safety who has actually started a game on defense, he naturally felt somewhat like a teacher as he helped younger teammates such as early enrollees Tray Matthews and Quincy Mauger experience their first taste of college football.

“There’s a lot of young guys and I feel like I have a pretty decent understanding of the defense, so I feel like if that’s part of what I do, then I’m out there helping,” said Norman, a fifth-year senior. “I guess I do see myself as a teacher.”

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With just over three weeks until signing day, the recruiting updates are coming fast and furious. DawgNation joined ESPN’s Athens affiliate 960 The Ref to talk about recruiting and more. Some of the topics discussed were:

• What does Dee Liner’s decommitment from Auburn mean for Reuben Foster and Georgia?
• What is the latest on Georgia safety commit Shaq Fluker?
• Who does Georgia hope to close with and where is Alvin Kamara headed this weekend?
• How nervous should Georgia fans be on signing day?

Listen to the show here.

ATHENS, Ga. -- This won’t be the most crucial offseason of Todd Grantham’s relatively brief time at Georgia -- that honor goes to 2010, when he started installing his 3-4 scheme shortly after joining Mark Richt’s staff in January -- but it might be the one with the most roster uncertainty.

The Bulldogs will lose 11 key players off its 2012 defense, and that number could grow to 12 if junior nose guard Kwame Geathers declares for the NFL draft, so spring practice will feature major competition within every defensive position group.

“I kind of put them up on the board the other day and we’ve got some talented guys. It’s just a matter of developing them and working them and filtering it,” Grantham said. “Our depth is going to be better than it’s been the last couple of years, but it’s going to be young. So there’s a little bit at every spot.”

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Editor’s note: Each day this week, we will look back at a memorable moment or series of events from Georgia's 2012 season. In today’s final installment, we recall Malcolm Mitchell's touchdown catch against Florida that proved to be the game-winning score.

ATHENS, Ga. -- There might be a dozen plays from throughout Georgia's season that if the Bulldogs player didn't make the play he did, exactly when he did, the entire trajectory of the season might have been different.

We've covered some of them this week, including Jarvis Jones' key fourth-quarter takeaways in wins against Missouri and Florida and Connor Norman's heads-up onside kick recovery against Kentucky. But perhaps the greatest example of timely playmaking might have come in the Bulldogs' 17-9 win against then-unbeaten Florida, when Malcolm Mitchell turned a short pass into a 45-yard touchdown play.

Mitchell had been locked in a war of wills all afternoon with a fellow motormouth, Florida cornerback Loucheiz Purifoy and actually got himself briefly removed from the game by coach Mark Richt in the fourth quarter for drawing a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after a post-play incident with Purifoy.

Purifoy might have won that battle, but Mitchell won the war soon thereafter. Three plays after drawing the 15-yard penalty, Mitchell escaped from Purifoy to catch a third-and-5 pass from Aaron Murray just beyond the first-down marker at Florida's 38. A first down was not all Mitchell had on his mind immediately after shedding the Gators defender and looking at the wide-open swath of green grass in front of him as he turned upfield.

The speedster had sprinted to the Gators' 15 by the time he encountered his next defender, cutting inside a lunging Matt Elam to continue his trek toward the end zone. Next he blasted through tackle attempts by Jon Bostic and De'Ante Saunders at the 5 before high stepping into the end zone for a touchdown that pushed Georgia's lead to 17-9 with 7:11 remaining, with utter delirium breaking out on the Bulldogs' sideline and throughout Georgia's half of EverBank Field.

Jones and the defense still had to make one final stand before the Bulldogs' win was secure, but Georgia desperately needed a touchdown when Mitchell finally made the game's biggest offensive play. The Bulldogs and Gators finished with identical 7-1 SEC records at the end of the regular season, but Georgia's head-to-head win -- made possible by Mitchell's explosive skills with the ball in his hands -- was the difference between an appearance in the conference championship game and watching the game from home.

It also represented the hated Gators' only loss of the season -- and the first time since 1988-89 that Georgia has beaten Florida in back-to-back years -- and blocked Florida from BCS championship game consideration, which in hindsight might be the sweetest part about the victory for Bulldogs fans.

Editor’s note: Each day this week, we will look back at a memorable moment or series of events from Georgia’s 2012 season. Today we remember the Connor Norman's onside kick recovery that preserved the Bulldogs' narrow win against Kentucky.

ATHENS, Ga. -- There was no shortage of memorable moments for a Georgia team that scored so many long touchdowns this fall. But without one key special-teams play by Connor Norman, it’s possible that the Bulldogs’ season would be remembered in an extremely different light.

The former walk-on’s onside kick recovery late in the fourth quarter against Kentucky helped Georgia escape with an underwhelming 29-24 win -- a game after getting throttled 35-7 by South Carolina -- that allowed the Bulldogs to regroup and battle their way to a second straight SEC East title.

Without question, Georgia was still dealing with a hangover from its embarrassing loss at South Carolina when it limped into Lexington off its bye week. The Bulldogs allowed the lowly Wildcats to score on their first possession and actually trailed Kentucky for most of the second and third quarters before finally pushing ahead 29-17 with a pair of second-half touchdowns.

But Kentucky answered with a 75-yard touchdown drive of its own and trailed by just five points with 3:59 to play as kicker Joe Mansour lined up to attempt an onside kick -- one that easily could have changed the course of the season for a Georgia team whose fans were still seething from the loss to the Gamecocks.

In truth, the Wildcats nearly pulled off the kick to perfection. Mansour dribbled the kick straight ahead for exactly the 10 yards necessary for Kentucky to recover and the Wildcats’ front line did a great job of shielding Georgia’s closest players from the ball. They didn’t shield Norman, though, and the defensive back raced from his spot on Georgia’s front line to pounce on the kick a split second before Mansour and keep the ball away from Kentucky’s offense.

The Bulldogs took over at the Kentucky 45 and were able to pick up two first downs before finally turning the ball over on downs at the Wildcats’ 16 with just nine seconds remaining. Kentucky was able to run just one more play, which the Bulldogs stopped for a short gain, before the game ended with Georgia victorious.

Nobody in red and black was pleased with the victory -- in fact, senior safety Shawn Williams launched into a public tirade about the defense playing soft two days later, which many Bulldogs credit as the season’s turning point -- but the Bulldogs survived the close call with just one loss on their resume.

If Norman doesn’t make that play, however, who knows whether Williams’ words would have even mattered?