Everything Kirby Smart Said After Georgia Football's Shocking Loss To Auburn

 ATHENS - Kirby Smart had a lot to say after Georgia’s tough 27-24 loss to the Auburn Tigers.

“Tough one. We like to say the dogs don't beat the dogs, but they found a way to beat themselves today. I'll open by giving a lot of credit to Auburn. Their physicality showed. I thought they were physical at the line of scrimmage. Their quarterback is really hard to tackle. We knew that coming in.

“He did a tremendous job with yards after contact, getting out of sacks, keeping them in good normal down distances. But we helped them. You know, we gave them three turnovers and some really critical, undisciplined, penalties. Like I say, humility is a week away. Auburn played better than us today, executed better than us today, didn't turn the ball over, and hit their red area plays, and we had some really, really untimely, undisciplined, uncharacteristic penalties.”

“So I give them credit, but at the end of the day, we pick it up. Everything we want to do is in front of us. I know it's a big deal to everybody else, but to me, it's another game, and we have to turn around and get ready to go play again because it is a war in this league week in and week out. Everybody can beat everybody. And I'll open it up.”

On speaking with Gunner Stockton...

“I really didn't get a chance to talk to him. We had to go out and stop him on defense. Saw him in the locker room, his head was up. I mean, we wouldn't have been in the position we were in if it wasn't for Gunner. You know, we wouldn't been able to do some of the things we did if it wasn't for Gunner. I mean, 6 of 12 on third down, that's efficient against these guys, and I'm really proud that he's growing up and getting better.”

“He had all the success last week, and so many people want to reach out and talk about it, and it's so tough. He did no difference in his preparation. He didn't do anything different. They did a good job and took a lot of our run game away, and that puts a lot of pressure on him. And I thought he did a good job keeping us in the game.”

“Very unfortunate on the fumble. If there's anybody I'd pick to have the ball in their hands, it'd be him because he does a great job with his ball security”

“The one they were in two man, he stared the guy down too long. Safety made a great play off the hash. That's probably a checkdown or throw the middle read off a two man. Safety made a good play. And then the other one we had a boot naked out there. The guy was open. He just missed him.  He said, "I just missed him," and, overthrew it a little bit. And he had I think it was Ethan Barber or somebody right there wide open. He needs to put it on his body and he threw it over him a little bit.

On his injury on the first drive...

“Well they checked him out and said he was good. He had a stinger in his shoulder, which, you know, numbs your shoulder, but that happens a lot in football and you come back from that. But they were checking him for you know, concussion and things. They checked him out and brought him back in and said he was cleared.”

On how it impacted him the rest of the way...

“I don't think so. He's had that before.”

On undisciplined play...

“Well we talked about it. You know, penalties was one. We literally just gave them third down, rough the passer, don't get off the field when we substitute on our sideline. Those are silly, silly penalties. And then they hit, you know, they hit two plays. You, you have to make this guy throw the ball to beat you.

So they throw a trick pass, and we have two players that are on it, and they kinda collide and the guy makes a good play. And then the play on DeMello. DeMello's in great coverage. He's in great coverage position. That happens. They made two plays to get 14 points. If you hold either one of those to field goals, then it's a different ballgame.

But give them credit, they are physical. Their quarterback's a good runner. And when you have a quarterback run game, man, it's just really hard because he has an extra hat. They were running plays with a lead blocker and a back, and we're a good run defense. We have a really good run defense to stop people, and they made it hard.

On KJ Bolden being out...

“I don't know. I mean, I thought Jamarley stepped up and made some plays. He communicated well. He got tired in the game. But we tried to play Jamarley and Zion Branch some. KJ's been really good for us back there because he's a little bit of an eraser. But that doesn't matter. I mean, at the end of the day, we gotta go play with the guys we’ve got.”

“Those guys in that locker room, they know. I mean, we practiced good this week. I was really pleased with it. And guys practiced hard. We knew it was gonna be a physical game, although the outside world didn't think that. Auburn has a lot of pride. They got a lot of experience, and that quarterback has played in a ton of games, and he's a good football player.

And when they don't turn it over, and we turn it over three times and hand you extra possessions on penalties, dogs beat the dogs, man. And that's no disrespect to Auburn, 'cause I think they were really physical. They did a good job on the line of scrimmage.

Why do you think that is though?

Why? I don't have a good answer for that. I mean, I don't know why we turned the ball over three times. That happens sometimes. We didn't get the ball off them, and, they protected the ball. Their quarterback was protecting the ball really well. The undisciplined penalty, I don't think you can really control turnovers.”

“You know, Gunner's gonna have that sometimes. But the undisciplined penalties was probably the most disappointing thing because we talk a lot about it. We show the roughing of passers that were called in our league all over it and say, "This is what you can't do." But it takes great restraint not to do it, and we didn't have great restraint.”

On if Georgia changed their scheme...

“I did not. No, they played a lot of the same things. They stopped the run a little better. I felt like we had them really off tempo, off base, attacking, moving, hitting some explosives. We stalled out there for a couple drives and they did control and win first down run better. We were in second and long a lot and didn't get the run game that maybe we had in some other games.

On where they have to get better...

“Number one, we’ve got to get in better shape. Number two, we’ve got to get some guys healthy and back. We had about eight or nine guys that really didn't practice this week in terms of getting them to the game coming out of the last game.

“We’ve got to improve. We can't turn the ball over, we can't have undisciplined penalties. But we're really good in some areas. I mean we got a good defense, we got a good offense, but we gotta get better. I need more players to play winning football. I need to be able to play more than five linemen.”

Need to be able to play more people up front that we can count on and, and be dependable. Like, we played Anthony London tonight on third down, and I thought he was dependable. I gotta go watch the tape, see how he played, but we're trying to play more guys because I don't know that we can make it through this grind without it. So we just need more guys that can play winning football.”

On injuries...

Well, we were in a better situation than we were last week. I mean, to be honest with you, we, we, we basically went into the game the exact same, thinking Nate would play, as we thought last week, and, you know, he did play. And so, uh, uh, we were, we were in a better situation than we were the previous week.

“We didn't run the ballsgood. I mean they got a good run defense now. We knew that going in. They were playing lots of snaps on defense because of their offense. And, you know, when their offense gets going, and they got clicking, and they get the quarterback run stuff going, it's heavy duty lifting to try to stop them.

On moving forward...

“Our team's gonna come back to work. They're gonna go grind. We got great leaders. This is where you come together as a team. This is actually where you get to do your coaching job. It's easy when everything's going good. When everybody starts to question everything, and that's where you step up as leaders, and that's where you step up as coaches.”

“Doesn't shock me at all that we did not play our best, but it should not happen. And everybody wants to, say, "Well, it was, it was 'cause of this, it was 'cause of that, it's 'cause of their off week, 'cause of Alabama." Hey, at the end of the day, we didn't played our best game yet, and that's what we're in search of. And that's my job to try to get them to do it.”

That they'll work. They'll respond and they'll work. They'll listen and they'll work, and we gotta go to work. We're not, we're not much better than other people. We don't beat ourselves usually. We don't beat ourselves usually, and we did tonight. But we're not some exceptionally just way better people. We have to execute, play with discipline, don't turn the ball over, and be efficient.

And if you do that, then you typically win. If you don't, then you end up in a situation where we're in tonight

There is nowhere to run and hide in this league. Nowhere. And so you just gotta find ways to get better and, and try to win the next moment.”