ATHENS — After scrimmages, Mark Richt usually comes to his press conference with a stat sheet. Not this time. And it clearly has everything to do with Georgia’s quarterback competition.

“There’s a method to the madness here,” Richt said. “I think it’s important that we’re the ones that watch the film, we’re the ones that decide who the guy is. We don’t need anybody in the media telling us who should be the starter and that kind of thing.”

So no stats on Brice Ramsey, Faton Bauta or Greyson Lambert. All that Richt would offer up was that each “had bright moments” in Friday’s scrimmage, the first of the preseason.

But if anybody played well enough to emerge as a clear leader, Richt wasn’t saying.

“There hasn’t been a huge landslide of one guy just running away with it,” Richt said. “There’s been moments on any given day where if you had rounds (like) in boxing you might say that this guy won this round, that guy won this round, that guy won this round.

“So I will say it’s still a very tight race. I don’t believe we have any separation at this point.”

Ramsey, Bauta and Lambert received close to an even amount of snaps in the scrimmage, according to Richt, who said it was unlikely the competition would be pared to two for the second scrimmage.

For what it’s worth, players made available for interviews afterwards said it was a good day for the offense. Richt was happy with the deep passes, saying each quarterback had at least one long pass “that was on the money, had a score or a long gain.” But he wasn’t as happy with the short and intermediate passes, saying the passing and catching on such passes wasn’t  “up to the standard that it needs to be for us too play winning ball on a consistent basis.”

Kolton Houston, a sixth-year senior, has never been through a quarterback race. Aaron Murray had the job locked up his first four years, and Hutson Mason did last year.

“I mean they’re all three good, so it’s not like they’re just all three sucking,” Houston said. “I think that’s the problem, is they’re all three doing good. We’re gonna be fine whichever one gets to go out there.”

Then Houston was asked if it would be better to settle on a starter sooner rather than later. He scoffed again.

“Twenty-seven left and 27 right sounds pretty good to me. So as long as we’ve got that we’re gonna be all right,” Houston said.

So Nick Chubb’s job seems secure.