By: FLETCHER PAGE

Every Wednesday, I post a full chat with each Georgia coordinator. Up first, defensive guru Todd Grantham.

What’s the plan now?

TG: Don’t let them score (laughter)...No I think that the big thing that I say is, really, you can talk, but it’s start and finish. You know, I think it’s important that you understand concepts and you understand what’s happening to you based on the formations that are out there. And, you know, take care of your job and you know, it’s OK to be excited for a game, but you still have to focus on your assignment, your job. And you can’t let the emotions of the game affect you. I think that’s critical and as younger players gain experience and as young players play more some of that goes away a little bit. So I think as we move forward, I expect that to stop.

Have guys been too geeked up?

I think it’s a combination of that. I think it’s a combination of, you know, everybody is going to have a game plan or they have plays they’re going to run on you, OK? Sometimes if maybe it’s a new play or something different and it’s not exactly the way you practiced it, you still have to apply your concepts to get through the down. And if you do that you’re fine, but if you don’t you’ll give up an explosive play and that’s what’s happened.

After the first possession, you stopped Miss. State pretty good...

Yeah, I honestly think, I mean, what I’ve talked to our team about is start and finish, truthfully. I think we need to start better and I think that the guys are wanting to do well. I think they practiced hard (Tuesday). I thought (Tuesday) was a great practice. But you got to focus in on your task and what you’re supposed to do and your responsibility. And then we got to finish. I mean, the bottom line is if you go back against South Carolina the score is 14 to 6. And it’s late in the fourth quarter and we can’t stop them and get the ball back. And against Arkansas, the score is 24 to 24 and we had some stops. We do stop them. But then we have to go back out again for a two-minute drive and we don’t stop them then. And then, you go to this past game, it’s 10 to 6 late in the fourth quarter and we don’t stop them. There is no such thing as a perfect game. There is going to be mistakes during the game, but the biggest emphasis for me and our team is start fast and finish, because really, there is going to be things that happen during a game that you’re going to correct every Monday. That’s going to happen. But you have to play the situation at hand. You got to play the thing that just happened. And truthfully, we got to finish. That’s what we got to work on. We got to finish, because in all sorts of games whatever has happened up until then really doesn’t matter. You’ve got to finish that game. And if you go back and look, that’s the thing in the last three games is we haven’t finished.

You had them backed up inside the 10 in the fourth quarter...

And they went for it once on fourth down, but it was so short that you know. And I think some of that, we’ve got to do a better job on first down. In the first three quarters on first down after the first series, we were winning those, as far as getting them behind the sticks, second and seven or more. But when you get to the fourth quarter, those second-and-sevens, second-and-eights, became second-and-six, second-and-fives. So now they’re on track. They can go second-and-six, third-and-two, first down. They can kind of milk it. So, I think we’ve got to do a better job in the fourth quarter finishing.

What about Colorado?

They’re multiple. They have a little bit of Arkansas with the things they’re doing. They’ve got a little bit of South Carolina, too. I guess we get to work on everything. So, they’ve got a little bit of everybody. They even got a little bit of Mississippi State. So, we get a whole melting pot right there. I’m sure we get to work on everything they’ve seen in the last three weeks. That’s what we’ve been doing. As we move forward, we’re going to work on those things and get better. I think they’re a talented team.