Everything Kirby Smart Said After No. 2 Georgia Football's 42-7 Win over No. 10 Ole Miss
ATHENS - Here’s everything Georgia football coach Kirby Smart said after Georgia’s dominant 42-7 win over Ole Miss...
Opening statement...
“We talked about being on the hunt and being the aggressor, and I thought the game started that way from the start. Defensive coaches had a great plan. Offensive coaches did a great job staying aggressive. We wanted to own the line of scrimmage and I thought we did that. It's on to the next one now because they just get bigger from here.
But to say that wasn't a big win, it's a tough place to play against a quarterback that I have a tremendous respect for, and Coach Pete is a great coach. So tonight wasn't their night, it was ours, and our guys played really hard. I was proud of them.
On the defensive staff...
“Yeah, I was really proud of the whole defensive staff. You know, Glenn does a great job. We played them twice last year. Felt like we left a lot of plays out there and there's really only one way to play this guy. You either give him a lot of time and he gets you, or you give him less time and you try to get him, but he still may get you.
“He did a good job calling the game, and, our kids stuck to the plan. The plan was to possess the ball offensively on the line of scrimmage. They did that in the first half, and then stay aggressive on defense. The kids bought into that.
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On the run game and the start with the big run...
That makes the game what it is, right? If you can run the ball, it makes play action easier.
Physicality is our brand of football and it allows Gunner to take shots and do the things he does well as a quarterback. So the combination of that really helps. We couldn't do it without a really good offensive line and some good backs and a great staff. Look, our offensive staff, they still believe in a hat on a hat and running things with rules where a lot of people don't do that.
We scheme people up pretty good in the run game, and it showed tonight, both physically and schemematically.
On Talyn Taylor...
I'm happy for him. He works his tail off. He was open again a couple times on some plays that we had designed. He was wide open. But it doesn't always work out that way. It was very similar to last week.
But he's one of the hardest workers in practice I've been around. He runs the same speed all the time. People don't give him enough credit that he's stepped up as a gunner and done some things for KJ being out, which has been tremendous. So Talyn's a worker. He loves football.
We love coaching him because he's a special talent at getting open.
On eliminating the crowd with the fast start...
“It was a big factor because the last time we were here they were in it the whole game, and it was impactful last time. We had more procedural penalties, we struggled. We felt like we could take them out of the game if we could run the ball well. People are gonna load the box and stop our run, and we've gotta be multidimensional, and I thought we were tonight.”
On back to back strong weeks...
“I mean, we're a good team. We're a good team that's a week away from humility. You know, we sat on the road last time and beat a team at night that's a really good team, too, and didn't take care of business the next week.
“How you handle success says a lot about you and our guys are starting to kind of believe in each other and believe in the plan. So, I don't think it's about who we played or any of that. I think it's about the culture on our team and kind of the leadership, that they go about their work week with.
Because it's not going to be any different next week. You know what I mean? We have a good team coming to Adams next week that we have to be ready for. We're beat up and banged up and so is everybody else in the league. So, it's on to the next.
On his reacting to fans throwing trash on the field...
“No reaction. I saw some little small ice. I don't know what they were. But I didn't see bottles. It didn't seem like Texas to me. I thought they could've kept playing, but that's what it is. I mean, people wanna do that, not very smart. But it's interrupting a good game.”
On creating turnovers...
“I think speeding people's process up, you know, making them uncomfortable. We're rushing better. We're covering better. And when you do that, sacks are usually fumbles. I think we had a fumble off of a sack, and that's a big part of the game, getting turnovers. And when you force sacks, you force turnovers.
What have you learned about the depth on this team?
“Yeah, we don't have enough depth. I mean, I'm looking on the sideline for all the guys that are back home. I want to put them in the game and let them play, and we only got, you know, 74 with five or six specialists, four quarterbacks.
It just seems like we don't have enough depth. So I can't imagine how other teams feel because I don't feel like we have enough.
On keeping their foot on the gas...
“Yeah, the score has no bearing on what we do. We're trying to physically stomp people out and the score has nothing to do with that. Now, I can't say that we have done that consistently because at halftime I talked about games we've had leads on and we came out and didn't play real well. And I was a little disappointed.
There was a little lull in there that we didn't play real well and it got sloppy. But they fought through it, and that was kind of the talk at halftime is, you know, can you play with consistency regardless of the score? Human nature is to relax and say, "We're up. We got a lead. We're good." And I was a little frustrated with that at half because we didn't manage the turnover well at the half in terms of getting points out of it. And I don't mean that from an offensive standpoint. I mean that from me and the players.”
On the red-zone success...
“It's huge. I mean, that's one thing that we have been pretty good at and you know, defensively we don't have many trips down there, but our numbers are awful. But we have the fewest trips, but we don't have a lot of success.
So it's one of those things that we worked really hard in the red area. We had gone two games, I think, against Ole Miss back-to-back without one stop in the red area. I think we got one tonight. But they've been really hard. They're number one in the country in red zone offense. And so I think our offense kind of owned up to that match up and did a great job.”
On Jaden Reddell...
“They're weapons. They block well, and then when they block, they get open in the passing game. So I think Mike and them do a great job of using them.
Jaden, Ethan, Lawson, those guys are really good weapons, and they're so unselfish. You know that room is not about ego. Because any one of them could go somewhere and get a ton more catches, but they love it. They love Hartley. They want to win. They want to play in these atmospheres.
They want to play for Georgia, and that's what I love about our kids, man. They, they, they don't... You know, there's a lot of modita. There's a lot of kids happy for the other kids in there.”
On Nate Frazier...
“Yeah, he seems fresh, and he seems like he's pouring up in there. I was really proud for him on one of the touchdown passes. He had a big pass pro pickup, which was big for him. He's getting confidence in the passing game and blocking people, and people are gonna pressure us because they, they feel like that's the way to stop us.
“He ran the ball well and made pretty good decisions. He had one really poor decision, but he did a good job.”
On 3rd down success...
“Yeah, it was a key to the game. We felt like in the playoff game we struggled to get off the field on third down. We did well early and then we lost a bunch of third downs and it helps when you got him in third and long, and it felt like we had some third and longs tonight.”
“He's just elite at scrambling and making throws in that medium range, and then when you get him longer, you can speed things up on him.”
On Khamari Brooks...
“Kamari's done great. He also missed a touchdown play on tackle that you can't forget. So it's like one good thing comes with another. He's got to learn to get his hat across. He should've made that play. The back ran him for a touchdown, so it was a great learning experience for him, but he's very wise beyond his years. He's very mature. One of the most composed, savvy, intelligent freshmen I've been around. I love that because he's sharp. He's really smart.
On what Khalil Barnes has brought to the secondary...
“Experience, great value. He's a competitor. He's very instinctive. I mean, I just think about the plays he's made and the sack. He does exactly what he's coached to do, and he's a tremendous kid that we're dumbasses for not taking him out of high school. So I'm just glad he's here with us now.”
On what he learned from his team...
“Just another road in the journey that, you know, we can go play in tough places. We can go play tough teams. You can't read too much into it, because Ole Miss has had bad games too, and they've had really good games, and they've had really bad games. They've had a little bit of both. And I think everybody in the SEC can look at it and say, "Okay, where's the consistency?" It's... Nobody's 100% consistent.
I don't even know a lot of the other scores, but, you know, we've had our inconsistencies. So who is gonna finish November with the most consistency, and who's gonna continue to get better? So I've learned that our team is player led, care about each other, and, and it meant something to them coming in this place tonight.
On his first win in Oxford...
“It was good to get that out of the way, 'cause there's been some whoopings in here, man. It's good to get that one. There was a little bit of us that wanted that for the C.J. Allen’s and the Cashes of the world that, that had to walk off that field that night.
“I don't think revenge is a big factor in the game ever. Revenge lasts about five minutes. It makes me proud for those guys.”
