Missouri defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson gave Georgia some extra bulletin board material this week and his head coach knows it. In fact, in this day and age when coaches and players twist and turn anything they can into slights and insults and signs of disrespect, you can bet many an SEC coach will tell his team before it faces Mizzou: “They think you play some old man style of football and that nobody can touch them.”
For that reason, Gary Pinkel didn’t allow Richardson to meet with the press yesterday during Missouri’s media session. According to a team spokesperson, the player “earned himself a vacation.” Better to not let him make matters worse with a follow-up.
His coach’s thoughts on the kerfuffle: “Well, you know we certainly want to say the right things, do the right things. I think he just got carried away a little bit, but I handled that internally.”
Pinkel admitted that “anybody looks for things” to motivate themselves. Then he added — and maybe you believe him, maybe you don’t — “(Richardson) felt sorry for saying it, he just got excited. He’s got great respect for Georgia, as I do. We’ll learn the lessons and move on.”
Pinkel handled this dustup as well as could be expected and it’s certainly not the first or last time a player will pop off and say something goofy in the press. But to suggest Richardson has “great respect for Georgia,” uh, well, that seems a bit hard to believe considering his comments on Saturday night.
