Georgia coach Mark Richt on SEC East race: 'Looks wide open to me'

photo Georgia quarterback Hutson Mason

ATHENS, Ga. -- Though another September weekend of Southeastern Conference football remains, all seven East Division teams already have at least one loss.

Five East teams have sustained setbacks in conference play, and the two that haven't -- Missouri and Tennessee -- are road underdogs this week. Missouri plays Saturday at No. 13 South Carolina, while Tennessee plays at No. 12 Georgia.

"I don't know if you can sit there and say that somebody is a dominant team that is going to blaze a trail and kick everybody's rear end," Georgia coach Mark Richt said Tuesday. "I think everyone is going to have their challenges, and I think home-field advantage might mean more this season than maybe some other seasons."

Richt's Bulldogs opened league play Sept. 13 and lost 38-35 at South Carolina. The Gamecocks are the only East team with two league wins, having topped Georgia and Vanderbilt after losing their opener to Texas A&M.

Georgia's last 0-1 league start before this season was in 2011, when it lost at home to South Carolina and then won seven straight to claim its first East crown since 2005. The Bulldogs' last 0-2 SEC start was 2010, when they wound up 3-5 in league play and 6-7 overall after losing the Liberty Bowl to UCF.

"It still looks wide open to me," Richt said. "If we don't win, it won't be very wide open for us, and I think everybody feels that way. I doubt anything will be settled until maybe one or two games to go. It might be game seven or eight for everybody before we figure out who's going to go to Atlanta, but we want to be in that mix."

Said quarterback Hutson Mason: "We're 0-1 in the SEC. By no means can we start 0-2."

Last year's escape

Georgia outlasted Tennessee 34-31 in overtime last year at Neyland Stadium, winning the game on Marshall Morgan's 42-yard field goal after the Volunteers fumbled their overtime possession out of the end zone.

The Bulldogs lost tailback Keith Marshall and receiver Justin Scott-Wesley with season-ending ACL injuries in Knoxville, while receiver Michael Bennett suffered a meniscus injury that sidelined him for nearly a month.

"I never got back to the locker room, but I know Justin was back there," Bennett said. "I think Collin Barber was back there, because he got a concussion that game. Keith was back there. It wasn't a good game for us, for sure."

Recruiting Mason

Tennessee coach Butch Jones said in Monday's news conference that he was familiar with Mason when he coached at Cincinnati. Mason said Tuesday that their background went back just a little further.

"They offered me [a scholarship] when I was coming out of high school, when they were at Central Michigan," Mason said. "It was him and Coach [Mike] Bajakian, who's now the offensive coordinator at Tennessee, who recruited me my senior year. Then they took the Cincinnati job and offered me to play at Cincinnati.

"I never really talked to Coach Jones that much, but I had a good relationship with Coach Bajakian."

Odds and ends

Bulldogs senior inside linebacker Amarlo Herrera on playing back-to-back noon games: "For the big-time games, you always want to play late at night. For these type of SEC games, it doesn't make a difference playing at noon or whatnot." ... Senior lineman Watts Dantzler from Dalton practiced Tuesday in a green, noncontact jersey. ... Richt is hopeful of having receivers Malcolm Mitchell and Scott-Wesley back for next week's game against Vanderbilt. ... Senior receiver Chris Conley on Tuesday was named to the 11-member Allstate AFCA Good Works Team. ... Richt on Marshall, who is out with a sprained knee and ankle: "It's been frustrating for Keith, obviously, but he's a strong kid. He's a man of faith, and he knows nothing is promised and that everything doesn't always goes his way."

Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-75-6524.

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