Everything Georgia Football coach Kirby Smart Said After UGA's 38-14 Win Over Vanderbilt
 ATHENS - Georgia football coach Kirby Smart spoke with reporters after Georgia’s 38-13 win over Vanderbilt.
On the atmosphere...
“A great atmosphere out there today. A little warmer than we probably anticipated. I think the fans felt that way, too. But our guys pushed through. I think to play well in this conference, you've gotta be able to take as many punches as you give, and I thought our guys really responded well today.”
We really needed this kind of game, tough, physical, hard-fought. Punch, punch back. Punch, punch back. Because that's how you play in the SEC. So I was proud of our guys for that. Probably played the most complete game we've played so far in terms of all the way around, and responded well in the second half.
On Gunner Stockton...
“I thought Gunner did an outstanding job with execution, played probably his best game. Really a physical game. A lot of respect for Vanderbilt. They had a good game plan and did a nice job breaking through the game.”
On defensive adjustments...
“No. They did the same thing. I mean, there's not a big difference.
On facing adversity...
“Yeah, it's all about how you respond to it, right? Sovwe get adversity every Monday through Friday and that's important to creating our DNA.”
“We’ve got to really physically see it in the heat and the toughness, and trying to be in shape. I'm really proud of the guys in the second half to respond and show their conditioning level.”
On 3rd down defense...
“There a lot of things we can do to improve. At the end of the day, you know, you’ve got to have an identity on third down, and they did a good job executing on third down. At the end of the day, you don't trick teams, you know. You gotta go out and play them, and they executed at a good level, and in some cases we did, and in some cases we didn't.”
On the team acheiving the vision...
“Yeah, I don't know that I had a vision for game five. The vision changes every week. Where are we now and where do we need to head?
And each week we reassess that. So to look at it from beginning to now, sure, I'd like to say we'd like to be 5 and 0, right? I'd like to say that we're, we're operating on all cylinders. I'd like to be healthy. There's visions of all these things, but they change. As you have injuries, you got guys in the game, out of the game, your team changes and adapts.
You're better at this than you are at that. I'm very pleased with where we are. We have to get better. I mean, honestly, I don't know a team in the league that doesn't.
On Landon Rolden...
“Yeah, he's doing great. He's really smart, bright kid. Understands defenses and coverages, has speed. Can compete to win, can catch the ball, and I’m proud of Landon, especially with the special teams. Proud of some of the things that he did there, but he made some plays today.”
On Bobo and Stockton’s relationship...
“They do a tremendous job on offense, those guys. They're executing at a high level. They're hard to defend. They got multiple personnel groupings. I believe in running the ball, believe in being physical and you know, have an experienced quarterback.
So those things allow you to be aggressive, be explosive. But they're well equipped to do.”
On the next game...
“Next week in the SEC, guys. Guess what? Week after that one, there's another week. I mean, they, they, they're all big. Not one of them's not big. This one was big. It wasn't big to y'all. It was big to us because I have respect. That team never quits. I mean, there's teams that were up on them, they came back. I mean, that, I'll enjoy this victory and then we'll turn the page tomorrow.
“Come Sunday we're gonna turn the page on that one. That's what we do and we're really consistent in our approach with it and, and that's all there are the highs and lows.”
On Nate Frazier..
“The plan was to play him if we needed to, and Chauncey was a little banged up, and that was the scenario we thought we would use him in.”
He ran some. He probably could've continued to play but I could've got to playing as we scored and did some things. Hopefully he'll continue to get better. We knew he would improve every time that he doesn't have to go out there. He's getting closer to 100%.
On Dwight Phillips...
“Dwight’s awesome. He's a great kid to be around. Enjoyed to be with. We were trying to find ways to get touches and he capitalized on a lot of his moments when he got a chance.”
“That's what part of being a good player is. You take advantage of the opportunity you're presented with, and he's done that.”
On the secondary...
“Played good. When you go to one-on-one situations, you're not gonna let them off. You can't give up PIs, and we had two of those, and those are gifts. But look, this league is becoming a closer to the NFL. They're calling things tighter and there's more PIs called each and every year, and they're calling things tigh.”
“But it wasn't like there was a bust or a lack of technique on those 53 calls. We just have to play better.”
On injuries..
“Blackshear is banged up. I'm not sure how bad it is. It's shoulder.”
On the offensive efficiency...
“I talk about it all the time. We're a very efficient offense. We wear you down, just the anaconda effect. We pound you, hit you sideways, shots. You know, a lot, lot of different offensive plays, formations, and, uh, and conversions. We had some big third down conversions, and those drives really did some damage.
The heat took its toll on them. We were able to stay fresh on defense. It was a time of possession type third quarter. Those two long drives, you know, makes it really hard on their defense, but it really helps, uh, our defense. You mentioned that this was the most complete game the team has played this year.”
On practice this week...
“It's going to be important this week, the next week, the next week, the next week, and the next week. So we gotta get better. And whether it's a complete game or incomplete game, we gotta find a way to win. And when you go against really good players, really good teams, you know, if you don't beat yourself, dogs are not supposed to beat the dogs.”
If we can out-execute people and not beat ourselves, then we're gonna be in everything we play. We just gotta play well and finish.
On the offensive line...
“I thought our offensive line played really well today. Vanderbilt presents a lot of problems defensively and, uh, they brought some, some guys in, uh, unorthodox positions. They had some timely pressure calls. We took advantage of those and he didn't make, you know, the catastrophic mistake.”
Made the close one there on the almost safety touchdown play. He had no way to get out of that. He had nothing he could do, and he still saves. You know, probably running the ball better than stopping the run for three games.
It was a great day. It was a great day. We, we played really well. I keep saying we follow the kids and we had some tough calls for them.
Their offense was in the right call a couple of times. It hurts when a couple times we just didn't do our job. But I think we tackled extremely good today
On his running backs...
“We’ve got good backs. We’ve got good coaches, good schemes. Look, we're gonna get whipped sometime too, but we're gonna keep coming at you and throwing blows like I said. We're gonna take some blows and you're gonna give some. If we keep our quarterback upright we can be efficient.”
On Jordan Hall’s blocked kick...
“So, so proud. He, he played with so much effort. He's one of our inspiration leaders. It matters to him. He cares. Uh, you know, chose to come here from out of state, and he plays really hard and competes really hard. So happy he got his, his finger on that.
On not looking ahead on the schedule...
“Do what we do. We have a process that we really feel good about. We take time to really drive home what our purpose is each week and we don't fall very far from that. Buy-in of the kids for just what you said is, I mean, everybody in the country trying to stay focused this week.”
“We just try to sell it to the team. It's not about who we play, it's really not. It's about how we do or better.”
