Georgia's Carter still confident

BOB HOLT
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

FAYETTEVILLE -- The postcards touting Georgia junior quarterback Quincy Carter for the Heisman Trophy stopped coming in the mail a few weeks ago.
Carter's campaign for college football's top individual award came to an early and unexpected end when he threw five interceptions in the Bulldogs' 21-10 loss at South Carolina on Sept. 9.
But Carter said he won't be lacking for confidence when No. 25 Georgia plays Arkansas today at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
"I believe in myself too much to get down," said Carter, who has started 27 consecutive games for the Bulldogs, including bowl victories over Virginia and Purdue. "Games like (South Carolina) are going to happen.
"It may happen again. I don't know when. But I know I can play football at a pretty good level."
Carter, 6-3 and 218 pounds, leads active SEC players in pass completions (430), passing yards (5,690) and total offense (6,231 yards).
That's the quarterback who has Arkansas coaches worried.
"I think South Carolina surprised him with some things, and it was just one of those days that started bad and kept going bad," said Arkansas co-defensive coordinator John Thompson, who coaches the secondary. "Quincy Carter is still extremely scary and extremely dangerous.
"He reminds me of (Dallas Cowboys quarterback) Randall Cunningham the way he moves and spins, and he's got a real strong arm."
Carter has 32 career touchdowns passes and said he prefers to stay in the pocket. But he runs the option effectively and is a good enough scrambler to have 10 career rushing touchdowns.
"He'll come to you, and then he may jump over you or he may crawl under you," Thompson said. "But the thing is, he can get by you."
Arkansas co-defensive coordinator Bobby Allen, who coaches the linebackers, said it's important the Razorbacks stay in their rush lanes and not give Carter room to run.
"He's an unbelievable athlete and very cool under pressure," Allen said. "When people do come after him, he's got the escapability and the smarts where he very rarely takes a sack.
"He's not a guy who gets real antsy when things break down around him. ... But if there's nothing there and he's got to go, he's not afraid to run it."
Allen said Carter reminds him of former Tennessee quarterback Tee Martin, which is interesting considering that Carter -- who is facing Arkansas for the first time -- said he has been watching films of Martin's games against the Razorbacks the previous two years.
"I've seen things Tee was able to do against them, and I've seen the things he wasn't able to do against them," Carter said. "They have a lot of team speed on defense. They can match their speed with mine, so I've got to make sure that when I take off with the ball, I'd better be running somewhere because I know they're going to be chasing me pretty hard."
Georgia Coach Jim Donnan said Carter has played well overall this season.
"In two of the three games, he's played almost flawlessly," Donnan said. "He just had a game against South Carolina where on some of the plays he got some bad breaks and on some he made poor decisions.
"But I feel like overall he still has the ability to have a great year."
Carter and the Bulldogs bounced back with a 37-0 victory over New Mexico State last Saturday.
"New Mexico State was a good game for us," Carter said. "But we want to play well against an SEC opponent like Arkansas."
Carter, who turns 23 on Oct. 13, played two seasons as an outfielder in the Chicago Cubs' organization before coming to Georgia, and he said his baseball experience helped him handle the South Carolina game.
"Baseball taught me how to be a man, how to bounce back from adversity, and how to just deal with things," Carter said. "That was good for me to learn, because coming out of high school (in Decatur, Ga.) everything went well for me."
Carter expects things to go well for him the rest of the season, at least most of the time. He said he doesn't believe he has anything left to prove.
"When we have a game, I try to go out there and play football to the best of my ability and not worry about what I did the previous week," he said. "Hopefully, I'll get good results on Saturday."

This article was published on Saturday, September 30, 2000

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