Georgia coach Mark Richt has taken a wait-and-see approach all season regarding his team’s penalties woes.But following another 11-penalty game in last weekend’s 26-14 win against Tennessee, Richt has had enough.The Bulldogs have run wind sprints this week in practice as punishment for the penalties.”Before, I was a little reluctant to make such a strong point,” Richt said. “My strategy and thoughts were wrong. Penalties have cost us, and I did a poor job on the front end of [the season].”The Bulldogs’ next crack at playing a penalty-free game will be against Vanderbilt, who had its Cinderella unbeaten streak ended last weekend by Mississippi State.Vanderbilt enters this weekend’s game as the SEC’s least penalized team, having committed just 26 penalties for 217 yards this season.NEW COACH YIELDS SAME RESULTSWith a new offensive coordinator calling the shots for Tommy Tuberville last weekend, it ended up being a former Auburn offensive coordinator who made all the right calls.Arkansas rallied from a 20-10 deficit behind a 176-yard performance from halfback Michael Smith to earn Razorbacks’ coach and former Auburn offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino his first Southeastern Conference win, 25-22.The Auburn offense struggled in its first game under new coordinator Steve Ensminger and gained just 193 yards of total offense.Auburn quarterbacks Kodi Burns and Chris Todd were a combined 10-for-28 with 137 yards passing and three interceptions.Tuberville said he will experiment with possibly getting the team’s third and fourth quarterbacks, Barrett Trotter and Neil Caudle, action when Auburn returns to the field next week against West Virginia after a bye week this week.”We’re going to look at all options,” Tuberville said. “This offense is structured to catch and throw it, and we’re not catching or throwing it.”SABAN TRIES TO AVOID ‘LOW TIDE’Alabama coach Nick Saban has seen the Associated Press and coaches’ polls, which have his Crimson Tide ranked in the top two in the country.But Saban wants the Crimson Tide to be more focused on its opponent this weekend, Ole Miss, which has already proven it’s capable of going on the road and upsetting a highly ranked opponent.”The thing that is most important for us is to focus on the things that matter,” Saban said. “We have a lot of really good teams to play. Ole Miss is one of those teams.”The Rebels defeated then-No. 4 Florida earlier this season in The Swamp. But the Rebels also had near misses at Wake Forest and at home against South Carolina and Vanderbilt.Ole Miss has alternated wins and losses the entire season, and this weekend’s game would be a Rebels win if that patterns stays true.Rebels coach Houston Nutt said he thinks his team will again have an upset in mind this weekend.”Our guys have really played hard and really could be sitting at 5-1 or 6-0,” he said. “But that’s just ‘What if.’ You really have to do the little things to be sitting at 6-0. That’s the point we are trying to get to.”—-Contact Casey Gisclair at [email protected]
Around the SEC: ‘Dawgs punished for penalty woes
By Casey Gisclair
Sports Writer
Sports Writer
October 15, 2008