SEC East notebook: Moreno good to go

Knowshon Moreno says one sore elbow won't keep him grounded.

Moreno, Georgia's sophomore tailback, has made highlight films with his knack for making dramatic leaps and dives through the air.

Moreno hurdled over a Central Michigan defender for a few extra yards on Sept. 6.

On Sept. 20 at Arizona State, Moreno took to the air again for what many believed was an even more dramatic few seconds of flight at the end of a 9-yard touchdown run.

Then, in Georgia's last game against Alabama, Moreno suffered a severely bruised elbow. There were initial concerns the injury would threaten Moreno's status for Saturday's game against Tennessee, but Moreno says he'll be fine.
And Moreno says he's not going to be wary or more air time on the field.

``I'll do anything that comes naturally,'' Moreno said, adding his leaps are not planned.

``It's not thinking. It's just what comes with the flow. I think every athlete does that.''

Moreno leads Georgia with 489 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns, leaving him tied for third in the nation in scoring. He also has 10 catches for 110 yards.


-- FLORIDA: Tim Tebow's cell phone has been pretty quiet, especially compared to what it was doing this time last year.

Tebow's phone started blowing up a week before Florida played LSU last October. He received hundreds of threatening voice and text messages.

Tebow said they increased as the game got closer. He eventually turned the phone off, but had to listen to each voice message and read each text message before deleting them.

He got a new number two days after the 28-24 loss in Baton Rouge and has been more cautious with handing out his digits since.

``I don't think they're going to get this number,'' the Heisman Trophy winner said as the 11th-ranked Gators prepared to host No. 4 LSU on Saturday night. ``I hope not. Not right now.''

Tebow assumed the messages were from LSU fans, especially given the nature of them. There also were reports out of Baton Rouge that students were walking around campus the day of the game wearing T-shirts with Tebow's cell phone printed on them.

The distraction didn't affect Tebow on the field. He ran 16 times for 67 yards and a touchdown and completed 12 of 26 passes for 158 yards and two scores.

But it clearly was on his mind. After his first TD pass, Tebow pretended as if he had a cell phone in his left hand and dialed numbers with his right. He then put it up to his ear and stared into the stands at Tiger Stadium.


-- KENTUCKY: Sure, beating LSU last year and Georgia in 2006 was nice, but there's still one mystery Kentucky has yet to solve in its attempts to climb the SEC food chain: Steve Spurrier.

Kentucky is 0-for-16 against Spurrier-coached teams over the years. Spurrier went 13-0 against the Wildcats at Florida and has yet to lose in three meetings with Kentucky while at South Carolina.

While the Wildcats insist there is no ``jinx'' when it comes to playing the ol' ball coach, they have found interesting ways to lose blow it the last few years. Last season Kentucky went into Columbia ranked No. 8 in the country but stumbled to a 38-23 loss in which the Gamecocks returned two fumbles for touchdowns.

``It's frustrating,'' said defensive end Jeremy Jarmon. ``We've had chances the past couple years to beat South Carolina, and something has happened ... fumbles, missed tackles, things like that.''

Spurrier used to poke fun at the Wildcats while coaching at Florida, though he's taken a more respectful approach since taking over at South Carolina. Yet the Wildcats say they have to treat South Carolina much like they've treated games against the SEC's elite the last few seasons, like they have nothing to lose.

``Those were previous years, this is a different year,'' said running back Derrick Locke. ``I'm not saying we're going to beat them, but you can't go off the past. They still have to show up to play just as we have to show up and play.''


-- SOUTH CAROLINA: Steve Spurrier is still trying to winnow out those at South Carolina not giving their all.

The Gamecocks fourth-year head ball coach says he's still has about 10 percent of his scholarship players giving what he says is ``50-60 percent'' effort.

``You have to ... you either weed them out or let them know that's not going to work here,'' Spurrier says. ``We're still working on it, still working on how to weed them out somehow, let them transfer, go somewhere else or get with the program.''

Spurrier wishes all his 85 scholarship athletes shared the do-it-all attitude of his two dozen or so walk-ons the Gamecocks use. ``Walk-on kids, they don't miss anything. They're the 100 percent guys,'' Spurrier says.

``Some of the lazy scholarship guys, you're right, the commitment level's just not what you need,'' he continued. ``You hope to change it and a lot of them will change over time, but if they don't after a while, you've just got to file them or put them on the scout team and when renewal time comes up, sometimes you just have to say, 'We don't have room for you now. You can't get with our program.'''

Spurrier hasn't had to send as many of those messages as he did when he first arrived. In fact, Spurrier's hopeful that some of his most recent players may be rounding into form at the right time.

The Gamecocks snapped a six-game Southeastern Conference losing streak with a 31-24 win at Ole Miss last week. South Carolina (4-2, 1-2 SEC) travels to Kentucky on Saturday.


-- TENNESSEE: Nick Stephens wasn't exactly nervous about his first start as Tennessee's quarterback.

``But I did have a lot of butterflies,'' he said. ``Going out there it was kind of surreal, to be honest with you. Going out there and taking the field when the score was 0-0 and leading the team, it was fun.''

The redshirt sophomore thinks having one game to his credit will be enough to keep his nerves from getting the best of him when the Vols (2-3, 0-2 Southeastern Conference) travel to No. 10 Georgia (4-1, 1-1) on Saturday.

Offensive coordinator Dave Clawson said he was satisfied with Stephens' play against Northern Illinois because the Flower Mound, Texas, native didn't make any really big mistakes.

``The fumble that he had, I think that happens to any quarterback,'' he said. ``I saw it (Monday) night, it happened to (New Orleans Saints quarterback) Drew Brees. You get that blind rusher and you don't see it and those things happen.''

Clawson said he thinks Stephens can shoulder a greater load of the offense now that he's proven he can run the huddle, call plays and manage the clock. But, he's not going to double Stephens' workload just for the sake of it.

``You run the offense, and you do the things you need to do to win the game and score points,'' Clawson said. ``And he has to be able to do that, but I don't think because he has one game under his belt that you say, 'OK, bang, here we go,' and you give him everything.''


-- VANDERBILT: When the 13th-ranked Commodores needed to pin Auburn deep, coach Bobby Johnson turned to punter Brett Upson. And Upson delivered.

Upson boomed a 55-yard punt that was downed at the Auburn 3. A play later, Myron Lewis intercepted a pass to help Vandy seal the 14-13 win that pushed the Commodores up six spots to their highest ranking since 1956. Johnson gave his punter rave reviews.

``He's done a fantastic job of helping us maintain or regain field status, and he's worked extremely hard on directional kicking, our rugby kicking, our pooch-kicking, and they've all paid off for us,'' Johnson said.

Johnson said Upson, now a 5-foot-11 junior, wasn't very comfortable with rugby kicking last year. Upson used that technique on one punt against Auburn.
``He got it rolling. You get a lot of net with little bit of a chance of a return,'' Johnson said.

Upson earned SEC special teams player of the week honors for averaging 38.1 yards net on punts against Auburn. He also is a big reason why the Commodores rank third in the SEC and 34th nationally averaging a net 37.1 yards per punt.
The Commodores (5-0, 3-0) visit Mississippi State (1-4, 0-2) on Saturday night.

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