Georgia Bulldogs Release Hype Video for South Carolina Gamecocks Showdown
DON’T MISS OUT: Get our insider newsletter today!
ATHENS - Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs are headed to Columbia for the first SEC game of the season. The program released its pre-game video heading into the showdown with the Gamecocks.
Celebrate Georgia's 2021 NATIONAL TITLE
Check out DAWGSTRUCTION NOW!
The Georgia Bulldogs had been crowned 2021 national champions 45 minutes earlier. Celebratory confetti stuck to the players’ cleats as they entered the locker room. Teammates, coaches, and support staff shared ardent hugs. The goal, some four decades in the making, had been realized.
And then, just moments later, the theme shifted. After Coach Kirby Smart thanked the seniors and the juniors who had delayed their NFL announcements, he put the returnees on alert. While embracing the 2021 title, begin focusing on how to do it again in 2022.
“I know all of the players will remember this feeling, but I also want the men coming back to stay hungry,” Smart said. “It’s special to win, but it takes blood, sweat, and tears. It takes connection and toughness. Our job now changes as coaches. We have to do a tremendous job of ex- plaining to our kids how the wind blows at the top. I’ve seen it first hand and it is not easy. As you climb that mountain, it is windy up there. There are a lot of kids to replace off last year’s team who were tremendous leaders, and hopefully that will carry over to the younger ones.”
That process began with offseason workouts and continued through 15 practices last spring. Smart and his staff enter pre-season camp with a good working knowledge of their latest team’s makeup and Smart, for one, likes what he’s seen so far. We were really talented last year, and not that we’re not talented now, but we’re going to have to win in different ways.”
“I’ve been concerned about the void in leadership and how we can create leadership opportunities,” he said. “From Day One (in the Spring), they were pushing each other, cheering each other on the side- line. It’s almost like they wanted to emulate the guys before them. They can emulate what some of those guys did on the field. They can emulate the standard, though, and I think they’ve done that really well.