Griffin thinks Berry will head to NFL after bowl

CBSSports.com wire reports
December 29, 2009


ATLANTA — Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin believes Eric Berry will play in the NFL next year.

Virginia Tech is just trying to figure out what position Berry will play on Thursday night.

Berry, a junior safety, could play his last game for Tennessee in the Chick-fil-A Bowl against Virginia Tech. He is projected as a high first-round pick if he enters the NFL Draft. Most mock drafts list Berry among the top five picks.

Berry said the draft decision is "kind of made." He said he wants to play the bowl game in his Atlanta hometown before he discusses his plans.

"I want to focus on Virginia Tech," he said.

Virginia Tech's biggest concern is following Berry on the field. He has 14 career interceptions but the safety often plays in the middle of the defense like a linebacker.

"We've asked Tennessee to put a little red light on top of Eric and so we'll know where he is all the time," Virginia Tech offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring joked Tuesday. "They haven't really gotten back with us to let us know if they're going to do that."

Berry (5 feet 11, 203 pounds) is an effective run-stopper. He is second on the team with 83 tackles, including six for losses.

"From what I've seen they use him more like a linebacker, putting him in the box," Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor said. "He's a big hitter. He's strong in defending the running game.

"We know he can run the field and he does cover the field well. But as far as the tapes I've seen, he's down playing linebacker and he gets to the ball quick."

Free safety? Strong safety? Linebacker? Nickel cornerback? Return specialist? Berry has filled each role, and Kiffin said the junior's versatility will pay off big in the draft.

"What Eric has done such a remarkable job of is the ability to do so many different things and to put that on film," Kiffin said. "Your film is your resume. ... You're going to have to do the things that the NFL wants to see when they come to watch your film.

"Eric's played man-to-man coverage, we've blitzed him, he's played back in the middle and he's played down. So to be able to do all those things and then also to play on our special teams as many snaps as he has, he's created a lot of draft value for himself."

Berry smiled as he heard Kiffin add "I would think he'd go extremely high -- whenever he leaves."

When making a bowl appearance in Atlanta earlier this month, Kiffin said "I would anticipate him probably not being with us next year."

Kiffin said he won't try to convince Berry to return for his senior season.

"This may be the only conversations that I don't recruit in, is with these guys because it's too important for them to make the right decision," Kiffin said. "This isn't about me and it's not about Tennessee. This is about Eric and Eric's family."

Kiffin said he advised the junior to seize the NFL opportunity.

"I told him from my perspective he's done everything he can do," Kiffin said. "If he wants to go, this is the time to go. I would never want to hold someone back from that, because it would be real hard to live with yourself if you tried to convince someone to stay and then something happened to him injury-wise and they weren't able to get what they had worked so hard for."

Berry said he has been thorough in studying his options.

"I really just wanted to make sure there was no stone unturned," he said. "I sat down with coach Kiffin and talked about it and talked with my family and talked with some of my close teammates and friends about the whole situation. I wanted to make sure I weighed every possible scenario or situation that could happen."

Berry won the Jim Thorpe Award honoring the nation's top defensive back earlier this month. He was a first-team All-America selection by the Associated Press.

Kiffin said it's a compliment to Berry that he won the Jim Thorpe Award even though only two of his 14 career interceptions came this season. He had seven interceptions in 2008 to lead all FBS players.

The 14 interceptions rank fifth in school history and third among active NCAA players.

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Georgia drops Texas A&M 44 - 20 in Indy Bowl

By Chris Talbott
December 29, 2009


SHREVEPORT, La. — Mark Richt spent most of the season worrying about the Georgia defense. With only one full-time defensive assistant still on staff entering the Independence Bowl, Richt had reason to be even more concerned.

Then the beleaguered Bulldogs defense picked off two passes by Jerrod Johnson to end Texas A&M threats in the third quarter Monday, and allowed only two touchdowns against one of the nation’s hottest offenses in a 44-20 victory.

“I think we probably need to start out by saying what a fantastic job our defensive coaches did,” said Richt, who made the long anticipated move of firing defensive coordinator Willie Martinez and two other defensive assistants after the regular season.

They declined Richt’s invitation to stick around through the bowl.

“We just wanted to show the world that even though we lost most of our coaching staff we could still come out and play,” said defensive end Geno Atkins, who blocked a field goal.

Assistant head coach and defensive line coach Rod Gardner, a former all-SEC player from Auburn who’s been at Georgia (8-5) since 2005, stepped into the void with some help from graduate assistants Mitch Doolittle and Todd Hartley.

Richt set the parameters—keep it simple and familiar—and the coaches took it from there.

“It’s satisfying to see young coaches get an opportunity and do what they were able to do,” said Richt, who is still searching for replacements. “One of my big concerns was how the players were going to react to the young coaches and the situation, and there was never a moment when I felt like the defensive players didn’t rally around all of that.”

Georgia’s defense was stingy early, holding Texas A&M (6-7) in its own territory for much of the first half. It took a couple of big special teams plays after Johnson took the Aggies down for their first score with 2:33 left before halftime.

Brandon Boykin took the ensuing kickoff 81 yards for a touchdown, setting a school record and tying the SEC mark held by Tennessee’s Willie Gault.

“The kick return that I had I really couldn’t take credit for that,” Boykin said. “The kick was short and my blocking, I felt like it parted just like the Red Sea.”

The return hardly qualified as a miracle, but it was just what the Bulldogs needed.

Fifty-six seconds later Georgia blocked a punt, setting up another touchdown, and a game that was supposed to be an offensive showdown turned into yet another contest decided by the unit most folks usually forget about.

“The bottom line is you’ve got offense, defense and special teams and you hope to win 2 out of the 3 phases,” Richt said. “We could’ve been down 14-0 if it weren’t for the special teams and who knows what would’ve happened after that.”

Georgia blocked two kicks and Joe Cox threw his first touchdown pass after the snap sailed over the Texas A&M punter’s head in the third quarter. In all, special teams play led to 24 points for the Georgia, which also got a 49-yard field goal from Blair Walsh.

“It was a huge swing,” Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman said. “When you talk about the kickoff return, the ball sailing over our punter’s head, the blocked punt, the blocked field goal, there’s 24 points there possibly. Special team miscues was a huge part of the game that you can’t get back.”

Cox hit offensive MVP Aron White on touchdown passes of 24 and 2 yards in the second half and the Bulldogs scored a bowl record 30 points in the final two quarters for their fourth straight postseason victory.

It was the fourth straight postseason loss for the Aggies, who have not won a bowl game since 2001.

Christine Michael scored from 14 yards out on Texas A&M’s first drive of the second half and seemed to have the Aggies rolling again. Their next three drives were disastrous, though.

The first ended on the botched snap over the punter’s head, which gave Georgia the ball at the Texas A&M 24. Three plays later, Cox hit White with a touch pass down the middle of the field with a rusher in his face to make it 24-14. Johnson threw interceptions on consecutive drives after that.

Georgia was unable to score the first time, but Reshad Jones’ 59-yard interception return on the second gave the Bulldogs the ball at the Aggies 28.

Five plays later, Cox faked the handoff from the 2, rolled right on a naked bootleg and found the wide-open White in the right corner of the end zone for a 31-14 lead.

Caleb King, who scored twice, and Shaun Chapas tacked on rushing scores in the fourth quarter to pad Georgia’s lead and gave the Bulldogs a share of the bowl record with six touchdowns scored.

The Bulldogs improved to 7-2 in bowls under Richt. More importantly they salvaged some joy from a season that didn’t go as expected.

“With the year we had it could’ve ended up a lot worse if we’d lost this game,” Cox said.

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