Richt calls Stafford his best QB ever
Georgia head coach tutored two Heisman winners in past
By CARTER STRICKLAND
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/04/07
Athens — Georgia coach Mark Richt, who has coached two Heisman Trophy winners (Chris Weinke and Charlie Ward, both at Florida State) and 11 quarterbacks who reached the NFL, says he may have has found the best quarterback of them all in Matthew Stafford.
"He is the most talented guy overall I have been able to coach," Richt said of his starting quarterback. "Will he be a success as a winner? Only time will tell. He has got all the things that you want as a quarterback. ...
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"He has everything you need to win now. He has just got to win to define himself as a great one."
The sophomore has won the last four games he started, three of those against ranked opponents. But it was his last game, last Saturday against Oklahoma State, that Richt said might have been Stafford's best.
"I thought that was the best game of his career last week — top to bottom," Richt said. "The Auburn game [14 of 20, 219 yards, 1 TD in a 37-15 win last season] was a good game but it seemed like everything kind of went right [vs. Oklahoma State]. I don't think he had to make a lot of decisions in that game ... whether to throw it away or take a sack. Most of the time when he dropped back somebody was open."
Against OSU, Stafford only threw the ball downfield a handful of times. He finished 18 of 24 for 234 yards with two touchdowns. Richt said that very easily could have been 300 yards with an 85 percent completion rate. But he wasn't complaining, especially since there were no turnovers.
"There were definitely some times where I probably could have chunked them up there and I didn't," Stafford said. "I just tried to hit checkdowns. It made it easy on me, I guess. You can be aggressive. You just have got to pick your shot. Trying to force something gets us in trouble. We did a good job of staying patient."
In his last four games Stafford has 757 passing yards, five touchdowns, an interception and is completing the ball at a 61 percent clip.
