Everything Kirby Smart Said After Georgia Football's 27-8 Win over the Gators
ATLANTA - Georgia football coach Kirby Smart spoke with reporters after Georgia’s impressive 27-8 win over the Florida Gators.
Opening statement:
“To execute the plan during the week, it paid off for us. But overall, a lot of credit goes to the players for their work ethic. The coaching staff did a great job with their game plans.
On the play from Chris Cole and Quintavius Johnson...
“This, that's football, right? If you get sacks, then you get turnovers. Most fumbles occur on sacks. We got pressure on the quarterback. We affected both quarterbacks and I think anybody will tell you, if you can't run the ball, and they struggle to run it, it makes you one-dimensional, and then everybody gets to feast and rush the passer.
That was a big play in the game. It was a huge momentum play because, again, it's really a 14-point swing. If they go down and score, fumble, Chris picks it up and scores, which he has a knack for doing. That's a big play in the game.
On KJ Bolden...
“Yeah, he's a physical player. You know, he's a 190-pound guy that plays bigger than that. He's tough. H grew up in Atlanta playing youth football against guys like Baugh and I thought that was a great play for him to show his ability to knock back tackle and get low.
Really just proud of him. You know, he didn't have to play in the game. He wanted to play in the game. In this day and age, you got guys that might think twice about playing. I think he is a warrior. He is a competitor. He's everything you want on your team and I knew Thursday when he went out there and said, "Coach, I wanna play,” he's hard to take out of the game.”
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On injuries across college football...
“I don't wanna get judgment on, you know, what it is. I mean, everybody's practicing less, but everybody's getting injured more, and it doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up because we're not at the point of the ninth game yet. Nobody's played any more than they normally would have right now. So I don't, I don't have a good answer for that.”
“I do think that there was a big decision made when they did the rosters to what they did the rosters to, and we debated with a lot of higher up people, to come to the roster limitations we came to. It's gonna be interesting as this thing goes down the stretch because I think people's depth is gonna show up and people are gonna have to make a choice how you wanna practice, and do you wanna practice at all, or do you just wanna try to save everybody?
And it'll be interesting because I don't know that the players are any different. I think about the teams we had in '21 and '22, how physical they were and how they practiced, and I'm like, we can't even get close to that now. I don't know. I mean, is it different culture that guys don't want to as much?
I don't know, because they were definitely hungrier because there was a motivation to make it and you know, a lot of these guys, honestly, they make more than I made till I was 40. So it's just a different day and age.”
On defense creating havoc in the backfield...
“I thought Schumann had a good game plan, a very disruptive game plan. But the defensive staff did a tremendous job and tried to keep things simple because Buster causes a lot of confusion. We didn't do a whole lot.
We kept it simple and played fast, played hard. They had a chip on their shoulder to try to control the run game with less. And once you do that you fill up some lanes, some throws, and I think it disrupted the quarterback.”
On a bounce-back win after an off week...
“Yeah, it was important. It's just as important as it's gonna be next week. So it's no more important than it was for us to do it against Auburn when we didn't.vThey're all important. That's what we learned.
On Ellis Robinson...
“Yeah, his knee tightened up on him. I don't know if it happened on the interception, because I saw a replay of the interception and I thought he got hit right on the knee.
“We don't really know. There wasn't anything structurally wrong. It just tightened up on him. It looked like a Charley horse or a bruise, but honestly, I don't know.
On the play of the defense...
“Yeah, they played hard, man. They played really good. I felt they had a good plan and it was an effort deal.
“You know, they stayed behind the sticks. Even when we gave up throws, we got them on the ground quickly. No yards after the catch. They helped us. One of those balls is a tip, I mean, one of those balls should've been caught, and it bounces out of a kid's hand into our hand, and it should've been a completion.”
“Quarterback made a poor decision on the first one, just throwing it up. We got another one on a pick, so it's a sack fumble. You know, they played hard on defense. I was really proud of them. They worked really hard. The most proud I was was the red-area stop down there, and that was huge because we needed to win in the red area some. We've worked really hard on the red area.”
On players from the portal...
“But that's just not who we are. I mean, we do take guys out of the portal, and we've taken some guys that really believed in. I saw Etienne on our sideline tonight, what a great kid he was, and saw a lot of guys that have been around our program that came from the portal. But our culture's good.
Our kids enjoy work. They know they take pride in that. I like the player that stays two, three, you know, four years, and then if he's not playing at the end of third year, I get it, you know. He wants to go play. He needs to go play. But he's been invested. I want him to get his degree. I want him to stick around and do that, but I can't say that we're gonna do that all the time.
I don't know. I want to sign good high school football players. I want to coach people that want to be here, and I'm perfectly fine. They make whatever they need to make. That's great, but that's not gonna change how we coach.
On Sacovie White-Helton’s punt returns...
“I like what he did. I thought he was aggressive. If he does it, he's got to field it properly and take care of it. You know, I've played with a lot of guys that are scared back there.
So I don't think Sacovie's scared. I think he loves our team. He stays after practice every day for 20 minutes, and fields balls, and does stuff. That was a banana ball. It was them trying to get a turnover, and we're not gonna ever play scared here. So I don't believe in letting that ball just roll down there.”
Now, I'd like for him to make a good decision and catch a high hop, a Sunday hop, and we worked really hard on that. That's a field position play, and he's made a lot of catches on balls, and he had a great return tonight. So it really wasn't ball security. If you want to question his judgment, then the Alabama one, sure, you can question that.”
On enjoying the win...
“I enjoy this win just as much as I did the first one over them, whenever that was. I mean, it's not like it's, oh, it's more sweet because it's Florida. It's sweet because it's an SEC victory. It moves us closer to our goal. I'm happy for those kids in there.
It's not about me. But I mean I like the Pat Murphy statement of worry is a waste. So what good does it do? 90% of what you worry about never comes to fruition anyway, so the taking that off and, and making fourth-down decisions and being free to decide to do things aggressively and trust your players, I think that's important.
I enjoy that more than I do just the victory. The victory's great, but if we'd lost this game, we'd have been second in the SEC, and we'd been going to play Ole Miss. So I think people make too big a deal about the outcomes.
That's your job. I respect it, but we're in a league where it's gonna be brutal, it's gonna be tough, and the team that's standing at the end is gonna be the one that, that, that pushed through everything and persevered.
On Gunner Stockton’s extended carries...
“I don't think so. I think we felt like there were some things we could do with Gunner to get the extra hat and get the run game going.
I didn't think we got the most out of those. I thought that some of those plays would be better, honestly, and he slips and falls on one, and he didn't. He took some hits I don't want him taking. Look, I don't care what you say, it's, it's hard. We learned that against Auburn.
So when you got a extra hat in there, and you can run it with a guy like Gunner, the bootleg naked he does and runs down our sideline, he had three or four times he kept the ball. His legs have been a huge weapon for us, and he's really one of the toughest kids I've ever seen.”
He just, he never, he never flinches.
On Demello Jones...
“DeMello's got great ball skills. He is a competitor. He worked really hard the last couple weeks to get better. I'm proud of him. I mean, he had two picks tonight or one? Two. Two. And one- The second was called back, I think, wasn't it? Yeah, it was called back, but he had two. It was called back. Roughing the passer that's right. We lost out on that one. Yeah, that's right. So the one that was tipped is a little lucky, you know what I mean?
It was tipped and went right to him. But he's got good ball skills. I thought the play of the night was the, the fade down our sideline to six, to Dallas, that he, he gets the ball out, and that was a good throw. I mean, I gotta watch it, but I felt like DeMello affected it right at the last second with his, with his natural hands that he, he punched the ball out.
That was, that would've been a big play in the game to start their momentum.”
On the fans in the stadium...
“No, they're awesome. The, the venues are great. They're pro venues, you know? So the Jacksonville venue's incredible. Apparently it's gonna be even better. It'll be one of the best in the world possibly with what they're doing to it, and this is one of the best in the world. So I love them. Yeah, you tell me I could play in Atlanta every year for travel, we get home a lot faster, that's great, but we all know the ramifications that come into that financially, both ways.
If we're gonna pay these players, we have to make some money.
On Gunner Stockton’s play...
It says he continues to improve. He does what he has to do to win. He gets the the tough, dirty yards. He usually doesn't put us in situations. Dogs gonna be dogs, right? He doesn't turn the ball over. And then play good defense. And, you know, I don't know how far that can take us. I do think there's some things tonight that Gunner missed that he knows he could do better and, and he could hit.
And if he does, it takes us to another level because we really haven't played where the offense was clicking completely and the defense was. We haven't done that yet. But that's what complementary football is. You're gonna have an off night. You're gonna have a mistake. You're gonna have a turnover. Well, can each other, can the two work together to play really good football?
I don't know when that's gonna happen for us, but we can be really good if we're clicking on both sides of the ball. That starts with him. I don't think he played poorly tonight. Looking back at the video during the game, he had a couple times he had some shots that, that we might've missed.
On the offensive line play...
Yeah, I reserve judgment in this one because I don't know that I watched enough of it to see. I mean, there was enough things being said on the headphones that we missed a couple blocks, runs that would've sprung and been more explosive. They got us a couple times in pass rush, that Gunner did some things with his legs.”
“I would be remiss to say how they played tonight. Overall, I'm very pleased. I mean, we've been very lucky to, to stay healthy there, and we're, we're playing five guys, six sometimes in goal line packages. But I know we have to get better to go where we wanna go, and those guys don't shy away from the work that's required to do it.”
