UGA Football coach Kirby Smart Sounds Off After Drilling No. 1 Texas
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AUSTIN - Kirby Smart and UGA Football made the trip to Texas and took out Steve Sarkisian and the No. 1 Texas Longhorns. Here is what Kirby had to say after the game.
I was proud of the effort of our team tonight. I felt we had tremendous fan showing from our fans who showed up, and there's a lot of them there. I thought the atmosphere was incredible. Anytime you play on the road in the SEC, it is. A lot of respect for Texas and their team. A lot of resilience with our team in terms of overcoming many obstacles, including some self-inflicted. Our inability to catch a ball was almost comical. But I was proud of our guys.
Nobody really gave us a chance. Everybody doubted us, and I really felt like we'd gotten better over the last three weeks. We played a good football team tonight. They'll win some games. I told our kids coming into the game it was going to be a challenge. Win or lose, we weren't out of it, and that's the case now. We're not in it, so it's one of those things we've got to keep getting better.
On 100th win
Yeah, a lot of credit goes to a lot of people. Sam Pittman, Chaney, Dell McGee, Todd Monkin, a lot of players. Kamari Lassiter, DeAndre Swift here tonight, (DeAndre) Baker just flooded the sidelines, and so many other people had an involvement in those 100 wins.
It's pretty cool to hit that number because when I started, I thought that was unreachable and unattainable. And now, in 10 years, 9 years, I don't know how many years it is, we get there. It's a credit to this university and the support we have that we've been able to do that.
On the pass interference reversal
Yeah, he just said the guy got it wrong. The guy called it on the wrong guy, which it took him a long time to realize that. So it's one of those things that I don't know what I'm allowed to say or not say, so I won't comment because I want to respect the wishes of the SEC office.
But I will say that now we've set a precedent that if you throw a bunch of stuff on the field and endanger athletes, that you've got a chance to get your call reversed. And that's unfortunate, because to me, that's dangerous. That's not what we want. That's not criticizing officials. That's what happened.
ONLY 150 MADE! GET YOURS TODAY
On any explanation for no delay of game after the trash incident
I didn't even ask that. I don't know if it's a warning first or what they have in terms of that. But you would think there would be some form of penalty or punishment on the team that's responsible for it. But that's beyond me. I don't really know why.
On who would've been the right guy for pass interference
I guess the offensive guy. Eleven and seven - two distinct numbers. I don't know in all my coaching career I've ever seen that happen that way. And it's pretty unfortunate.
On the squib kick coming out of halftime, going for it on 4th and one late
I mean, they needed two scores, and we could end the game with less than a yard. If I ever get a chance to end the game with less than a yard, then I'm going to count on the offense to do it. Just like we did on the touchdown run to create that. I think that's not necessarily aggressive. It's just intelligent. You know, what am I going to gain? Maybe 50 yards of field position versus winning the game. We're going to go for it every time. Fourth and one on the road to Texas to win the game? We're going to do it.
So the kick was, they have a very different alignment, and that was not the planned kick. It was unfortunate. Peyton missed the ball a little bit. And we weren't trying to squib that.
On Daylen Everette’s game
Well, he did some good things. He also had some plays that he probably wished he could have over. You know he had a pick that I thought should have been a pick six, but he caught the ball. So that's an accomplishment for us. But he did tackle well. Schumann helped those guys and did some good things to mix things up. And we changed things up defensively that I think helped us.
On what made Georgia's pass rush so effective
The quarterback holding the ball you know? I think the biggest thing was not knowing what we were in every play and affecting the timing of the routes. We've got good pass rushers when we can go. The bigger factor in the game was the inability to run the ball because we felt like if they could run the ball it was going to be tough. They really never established the run, and that's what this league is. That's what you've got to do in this league because if you can't do that it makes you more one-dimensional.
What Jalon Walker means to UGA
He's a high-character leader. He was the guy that presented me with the football in there after the game, the 100th-win ball. He's just such a high-character kid and high moral value and great family. You think back to all those wins you get in recruiting and how you really don't know how important they are. I think back to when he called and told us he was coming, what that changed his life towards and what it changed for us. His dad reached out the other day and said: “Kirby, y'all have done everything you said you were going to do with my son, and I really appreciate you making him a better man.”
On Carson Beck
Is that your opinion? I'm going to let you say that because I want to make sure I say on the record that I don't agree with that. He had probably eight or nine drops, and that's hard on a quarterback. Psychologically, when you start a game and you have drops, sometimes it affects you. I'm not saying he played perfect, but I saw a third-and-four scramble where he put his life and body on the line and made an incredible play. I saw a guy step up on third down, back up, lost all momentum, and threw a missile to Arian that changed the course of the game. I think he played pretty good. But everybody will look at stats and everybody will look at other things, and they'll have things to say. We'll keep on playing with Carson Beck.
On Carson Beck and interceptions
No, I don't think so. He had an errant throw that the guy made a great play on. It's a controversial play. I don't remember the other one. I'm sure it was No. 7. I guess he had three, right? I can't remember the other one when it was, but I don't think he's doing anything different. We don't have some of the same guys, you know what I mean? He's carrying a lot of that burden with him. I think the offensive line played really good. I thought we ran the ball well. He had a lot of drops that maybe without the drops, he don't have as many interceptions.
On being doubted going into this game
Our whole program was being doubted. I mean, did you watch the show this morning? I didn't because I was in meetings, but I got 8,000 texts about it. Somebody was doubting us. Maybe it wasn't y'all, but there's a lot of people doubting our kids and the ability to go on the road and win. Look, we were able to win this game because of what we had done before this. Like, going to Kentucky and playing and going to Alabama and playing. We didn't flinch. You don't flinch when you've been in these battles.
On if he used that as motivation
No, I didn't talk to them about it at all. I talked to my team about intent. Our intent was to come here and attack and be aggressive. Everybody has a different intent when they walk on that field.
On Dominic Lovett
Yeah, I love Dom. He's got a great spirit, great kid. He makes some big plays for us tonight. He is a great leader. I didn't see him do that, but I don't doubt it. We have a great core leadership group, and I challenged them on Wednesday. They needed to step it up.
If we were going to do something, they needed to do something. They couldn't sit back and wait. They've done a great job thus far, but they really haven't affected or impacted enough people. We talked about execution. What creates good execution? Habits. You only get a chance to do the habits in practice. I thought the leadership group did a great job with our team this week.
On if the defense cut it loose
Yeah, I guess. It felt like we, because of our ability to win the line of scrimmage and stop the run, we were able to play confidently. We left 1,000 plays on the back end, guys. You've got to make plays on the back end. We're not finishing plays. That's frustrating.
On what the win says to the doubters
I don't know. Maybe they didn't doubt us. They just believed more in Texas than us. I think we're a very well-respected program. We've got a really good team, and we played a couple of really good halves. We flashed some ability to be really good. We just have to be able to sustain it longer. Look, I know everybody thinks I play that doubter role... all that. I really don't care. I mean, I don't. But after the game, it's a lot easier to say. I don't bring it up to our players. Everybody thinks that we preach nobody believes in you. Our intent was different. Our intent when we walked on that field was completely different.
On Trevor Etienne
I thought we threw the ball good. We just didn't always catch it. But Trevor ran the ball hard, physical, tough. You know, disappointing we couldn't close the game off like we should have. That's not all on him, but he's got to get a yard. We got to get a yard. But we got to get a yard.
On Texas’ QBs
That's hard for me to judge not watching the tape because I don't know if it was protection-based, if it was a bad night. I was very concerned coming into the game of extending plays, of scrambling around and throwing the ball downfield and us not finishing on the quarterback. And I thought we affected the quarterback more in terms of disrupting the balls, knocking the balls out, causing the fumbles, sacks. I mean, all that was good because they were getting in third and longs. And if you get teams in third and longs, you're going to be pretty successful.
On third down defense
Yeah, that's impressive, 2 for 15.
On if he learned anything about his team
Oh, no, I knew. I knew. I knew at Alabama. I knew. There was going to be no flinch. They're not backing down.
It doesn't mean that we're going to guarantee a win or anything, but I told you the momentum was gone. Everything was gone. And on third and 12 or third and whatever it was, he steps up and fires on the area in the middle and it changed. I thought Mike was really aggressive there. He came back with a flea-flicker play or whatever, reverse pass, that hit for another big play. And once we flipped the field, it was all momentum.
On going into the bye week
Humility is two weeks away.