Georgia head football coach Mark Richt will join four other college coaches on a tour of military bases in the Middle East May 20-26, meeting with troops and coaching flag football teams.

Richt has several family members who have served in the military, so he jumped at the opportunity.

“Here’s the bottom line. They invited me, they said it was for our soldiers, and I said I’m going,” Richt said after Wednesday’s spring football practice.

Wide receiver to switch from football to baseball

Wide receiver Israel Troupe will don a different helmet in a couple of weeks.

Following the “G-Day Game” on April 5, Troupe will join the Georgia baseball team.

Troupe was a football and baseball star at Tift County High School and flirted with playing baseball professionally.

NCAA compliance rules state an athlete cannot practice with two teams at once, and Troupe wanted to participate in spring practice.

Coach displays worry over offensive progress

While it’s never out of the ordinary for a defense to dominate spring practice, Richt expressed some concern Wednesday on the progress of the offensive line.

The Bulldogs lost two senior starters, but return more depth there than they had this time last year.

“We’re not getting the QB-center exchange very well offensively,” Richt said. “We’re just not able to provide a lot of space for runners or time for passers right now. We’re probably a little further behind this year than we were a year ago. We’ve got a ways to go.”

Richt: MRI shows redshirt tailback’s knee ‘just sore’

Richt also said an MRI revealed redshirt freshman tailback Caleb King’s sore knee was just that. Sore.

“Whether or not he’s in there Friday, I don’t know. But he’ll be back before spring’s over,” Richt said.

The Bulldogs practice three times next week before G-Day on Saturday.

- Lawrence Conneff