With the first road game comes the first hostile crowd of the season, and head coach Mark Richt said that he would spend today’s practice at Sanford Stadium with piped in crowd noise to simulate the fans at South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium.

“I’ve been there enough times to know it’ll be swaying,” Richt said. “No matter how many times you’ve done it, it takes practice and work. We probably should work crowd noise more than we do.”

Richt added that today will be the first time that the Bulldogs will practice with simulated noise. With a young offensive line that is still gelling, it will be much needed experience. “First time for Cordy (Glenn), Vince Vance has had a little taste, (Chris) Davis has had a taste, (Clint) Boling has had a taste, Kiante (Tripp), I don’t know how much of a taste he’s had. Ben Jones, Tanner Strickland, Justin Anderson, zero experience,” he said.

“Half of them haven’t really had much of a taste at all. So yeah, I’m a little concerned with that.”

Richt ‘concerned’ about winnowing roster to 70

With the first road game of the season comes the first road trip roster, and the first cuts after the season begins. No. 2 Georgia has already played 11 freshmen this year, and trimming the roster down to 70 for Saturday’s game has Richt concerned.

“Our toughest challenge this week is to go to 70,” he said. “The first time you go from however many you want to 70 is hard. And I’ll be honest, I did a bad job of not just saying on Monday, ‘These are the 70.’”

After practice Wednesday, Richt said the final travel roster would be determined at some point later that night. Because so many players have already seen action in their first two games, the job will be harder than it has in recent years.

“It’s because we’ve played more true freshmen probably than we have in a while,” Richt said. “We have played a lot of people, 68 in game one and 67 in game two. When you’ve been playing that many and now you’ve got to cut it down to 70…it’s a tough cut.”

Richt to decide fate of Henson and Baldwin

When asked about the situation with long snapper Jeff Henson and defensive back Donavon Baldwin, both who are suspended indefinitely, Richt said that he was “honing in on” making a decision on their futures.

Henson was found not in violation of the University’s alcohol policy by the University Judiciary last week, but Richt said that “it’s not going to affect my decision either way.”

Along those lines, Richt also said he was glad to have linebacker Darius Dewberry and fullback Fred Munzenmaier back from their respective suspensions this week.

“I’m glad they’re back. Both of those guys paid a price for what they did, and I think they handled it as well as you can handle it once you get yourself in that situation,” he said.

“It’s not easy (to come back from a suspension) … sometimes it sets a guy back for half a season. Hopefully it won’t be that way. These guys are a little more mature and I think they can handle it.”

Weston to play in a ‘spot role,’ says Richt

Defensive tackle Kade Weston, who has been out with a sprained knee ligament, will play Saturday, the only question is how much.

“Kade is going to play. He’s worked with the scout team the past two days,” Richt said. “I think our biggest concern with Kade is how many plays he will be effective. … I think he’ll play more of a spot role than a true rotation would be my guess.”

- Tyler Estep