"We wanted to truly honor Erk Russell tonight," said Richt, noting the famed "Junkyard Dawg" who passed away this week. "I tihnk our guys honored him the right way with the defense we played tonight."

Richt had special praise for the red zone defense, which he called "awesome".

"I'm very proud of them," he said. "It did help, though, when we were up so much that Coach Spurrier had to go for the touchdown. That helped us get a chance at a shutout. I think South Carolina is a pretty good football team. You never feel comfortable guarding someone like Sidney Rice every play. That's why tonight, our defense really did a great job putting pressure on their quarterback, and did all we could to re-route Rice."

The Bulldog coach praised the play of DE Charles Johnson, who was all over the field tonight on defense, creating havoc for Blake Mitchell all night long.

"Tonight, on our radio show, we named him Player of the Game," said Richt. "I call him 'Big Bully' in practice. Well, he did a little bullying tonight. I'm really glad we've got him."

Richt also had praise for his offensive line, and for his freshman quaterback, Matthew Stafford, who took over with 4:41 to go in the first quarter, as starter Joe Tereshinski left with a right ankle injury.

"We ran the ball well pretty well," he said. "South Carolina made some nice adjustments in the second half. We didn't run great, but we ran pretty well. Matt iced the backup position when he led the second team offense to a touchdown over the first team defense in a one minute drill. That iced it in my eyes. He did a nice job considering the circumstances. He'll continue to get better as time goes on."

However, it was the defense, and the memory of Erk Russell, that was first on the mind of the Georgia coach.

"When we got here to Georgia, we wanted to start playing like the defenses of old at Georgia played," Richt said. "Certainly Erk (Russell) was a big part of starting that, and I think we honored him the right way by playing like 'Junkyard Dawgs' tonight."