UGA Football Coach Kirby Smart Wants Bounce-Back Game From Dawgs vs. Auburn
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ATHENS - UGA Football coach Kirby Smart’s No. 5-ranked Georgia Bulldogs are getting ready for the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry against the Auburn Tigers. Here is everything Kirby said on the Monday before the game.
Opening Statement…
“As of yesterday, we got in super late obviously on Sunday morning and then got started on Auburn Sunday. They’ve got a really good football team. Got a lot of respect for Hugh (Freeze), gone against him for a lot of years. Obviously, the record may not indicate, but the record doesn't speak for what this team is. But they’ve got a really good football team and today we start on them. So, with that I'll open it up for questions.”
On improving the players’ execution in games…
“You try to show them on tape and explain where we went wrong. You check your quality control of how much did we rep that, how much did we rep that versus that look. Did we do it enough that we can actually say they should have gotten it right? Because if you do everything once and you only get one look at it, which that's not what anybody does, that's not enough. But if you do everything 10, 20 times you can't do as much. And so, then you run out of, you get lower execution, but you get higher volume and it's a constant balance between what you're doing and how well you're executing. Plus, on defense it's hard because you don't know what you're getting. You don't dictate the play. They dictate the play in the formation, you respond to it. So, it's offense, defense, both. And there's great examples of really good execution and there's great examples of poor execution.”
On the team’s slow starts this season…
“I don't know. I don't have a great answer for that. I can't sit here and say they need to play desperate. I think that's not a good choice of words to play desperate. I think they need to play aggressive and play loose. But I don't want to ever be playing in desperation. But there was good execution. There was some good execution on third down. There was some poor execution on third down. Some of third down was knowing you have fourth down, which is not really the case in every game. That was a very different game to evaluate from a standpoint of the second half because everything was very different than maybe a start of a game. It's hard to even evaluate because of that because you had to throw the ball, you had to catch up. But certainly, proud of the resiliency they showed to do it. But just as proud as I am of that, I'm disappointed at the start of it. But like I said, we've got to go get ready for Auburn, who's a really, really good football team.”
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On the running back group…
“Not sure on Rod (Robinson). Nate's (Frazier) doing a great job. He's improving week-to-week. He takes a lot of pride in his performance. He's a hard, hard worker. He's very conscientious about it. Trevor's (Etienne) been playing really good, and Cash (Jones) opened some things up for us the other night. We didn't get to play Branson (Robinson) near enough, but there's no explanation. He's not doing anything wrong. Really, the opportunity didn't present itself the other night because of the type of game. It was very clear to see the type of game it became after three series or four series. That wasn't going to be a patient, methodical game that might fit Nate more than what it turned into.”
On the team’s character following the game…
“I haven't seen them much. To be honest with you, Sunday is their dedicated day off, so I don't get to see a lot of them. I visited with a lot of guys, and they've been in good spirits. They're excited for an opportunity to go play. They know what's at stake with Auburn. It's a huge, historic rivalry. This game has always been that way. Then for me, when you turn the tape on and watch their defense and their offense, outside of turnovers, they've got a really good football team. They've turned the ball over, and they've made that very clear. They've got good players. They've got good wideouts. Quarterback’s playing better and better, and they've gone back and forth between them. But the focus for us is on them because I know what they can do. I know what kind of coach Hugh Freeze is. I know what kind of offense they've got. I know their defensive coordinator. They're going to have a good team and be ready to play.”
On what stuck out from the game tape…
“Some things probably did. Some things that when you sit back and watch the tape pop up, but nothing that I would want to share or anything. We've got guys that we've got to do a better job as coaches, we've got to do a better job as players, we've got to do a better job as an organization, but nothing that's worthy of sharing.”
On getting freshmen prepared to play…
“It's been an ongoing process since most of them got here mid-year. So, we had 15 practices in the spring, we had summer, we had 26 practices in fall camp, then we've had all the practices up until now, and I think those guys are continuing to get better. You always worry about a little bit of a lull in there when they hit a road of, well, ‘am I going to play or am I not going to play?’ That's usually passed by now, because we've played however many games, four games, so they start to realize, ‘Oh, well, I might not be up right now’, and that's when you get alarm bells ringing of, we may need them. So how hard is it to get them ready to play? It's hard. You've got to prepare, you've got to get ready, and really, in the cases that you get guys playing, it's usually a phenomenal talent or a need. A tremendous need, meaning you have a deficit at that position, he's got to go play. In the case of KJ (Bolden), he's a talented player, and we have other talented players, but sometimes you have people in front of them, and it's about growth, development. We talked today, you know, Jordan Davis hadn't really played at this point in time his freshman year. Quay Walker didn't touch the field. Eric Stokes didn't do anything. Ladd (McConkey) was on the scout team. They were all pretty good players.”
On the tight end room and increased penalty yardage…
"I don't know, they gave a more heightened awareness. It was one of the big things going into the season that they were going to call defensive holding at a higher rate. I don't know what those statistics indicate, I know we've had it called a few more times than we've had it called in the past. That was not a call the other night that was really called very much but we are higher in penalties and there's no great explanation. There's also not a stat that says being higher in penalties equals losses. Usually, your aggressive teams that get penalized play aggressive and sometimes that works in reverse. So, I don't have a great explanation for it. Tight ends, you know, it's different cause I'm not evaluating that room based on last year. It's a completely different room. Certainly, have made some plays, left some plays out there, and continue to grow and get better is the hope. I got a lot of confidence in those guys' ability, and we got good players in our tight end room."
On keeping the loss from lingering…
"I think we have a very set routine here, and we don't make our routine based on outcomes, so whatever number of wins we've had prior to this one, we're going to do the same thing we do today. I really believe in that process. I believe in telling the truth about the opponent, telling the truth about the strengths and weaknesses of who you're about to play, and then you coach every week the same."
On Auburn’s young wide receivers…
"Fast. Athletic. Great size. I mean they were phenomenal players coming out and they both have special attributes in terms of ball skills, playmaking abilities, speed, dynamic receivers, and those guys, you want to catch them while they're young. You want to catch them when they're early in the season, not as they're getting season vets of the SEC. You can see these guys growing up on tape as they make more and more plays.”
On Jordan Hall, Sacovie White, and London Humphreys…
"Hopeful that all of them are able to play."
On the offensive line’s performance…
"The offensive line did some really good things, and I thought we challenged them to communicate better. We had better communication, especially in the front. We were able to run the ball with some success there early while it was still relative, it's hard to evaluate the offensive line in that game because of the way the game went. Now, they did some good things, and some things that they can do better, but it's a different evaluation because it became such a different kind of game."
On Hugh Freeze’s offense…
“It's the RPO game. He's hung his hat on the ability to have RPOs. I think he's done a good job adjusting to where it's not just that. For a while, he was an RPO guy when RPOs came out. He was the head of the game at doing those. He's evolved. He still does those. He still has the quarterback make decisions on plays, whether to throw it or run it, because you can take advantage of defenses doing that. He's added new wrinkles and twists that you see in the NFL, you see across college football, using motions and eye candy and sorts of things to create an advantage or create a leverage or a mismatch. He's done a good job evolving while keeping the RPO game. The RPO game is the biggest difference. They are fully committed to being able to do and throw RPOs.”
On the edge containment…
“Some of that is scheme, some of that's player. It's shared. Improvement of what we're calling based on where they're attacking and how we're playing it technique-wise is a combination of things you can improve on those. The common fan likes to talk about contain but contain is built on the call and a lot of things outside of just keep contain. It's not that simple. There are defenses where you're built to go underneath, defenses where you're built to keep it with the secondary. Sometimes it's a corner, sometimes it's a linebacker, sometimes it's a defensive end. It's a shared responsibility that we all have to get better at.”
On Auburn QB Payton Thorne…
“I think the guy's a really good football player and a really good athlete. Whatever noise or criticism they get from people, I don't respond to that because I watch what's on tape. He played really well against us last year. The three games I've seen him play this year, he has done a tremendous job of knowing when to go with his feet and when to make throws, decision-making. He's a really good quarterback that's a good athlete, which when you have that combination along with the skill players they have, it becomes hard to defend.”
On avoiding slow starts in the future…
“Put together packages of plays that sequence, making sure the players understand exactly what the plan is, how to do them. Each game's been different. The Clemson game was different than the Kentucky game. The Kentucky game was different than the Alabama game. The Alabama game, first play of the game, we have a great play open up, and then we have a shot play that we think's going to work, and we don't hit it. Then we have an OPI that's rarely called, but it's called, and then you're behind the eight ball. But it's not that it was unsuccessful, it was that we had a plan to attack, didn't hit on some of those, you've got to come back the next drive and flip the field. I'm always looking at it, ‘Did we create field position advantage if we weren't explosive?’ We did in the first drive, but then we didn't for a while, and there was a little bit of lack of communication. So, there's a lot of things that go into that, and I think it's very clear that we've got to execute and communicate better, but I also think we have the players to do it with. I'm very confident in our offense and our offensive players.”
On Mykel Williams…
“He's sore, is all I know. I talked to him, he was sore, but don't know much more. I'll know a lot more today.”