Kirby Smart was pretty candid as he met the assembled media following Georgia’s 34-20 win over the Florida Gators, beginning his remarks with a heavy sigh, and a pointed admission.
“That was a tough one guys” he noted accurately, before continuing “we didn’t play our best game.”
No one is going to disagree with that sentiment. But Coach Smart had more to say following a game that looks prettier on the scoreboard than it did on the field, including:
The bottom line: “You cannot turn the ball over and beat good teams….The recipe for playing good football is don’t turn the ball over, run the ball, and play good defense.” Smart pointed this out in the context of noting that Florida has done those things in the last few weeks, and it explains some of their recent success.
On Carson Beck’s performance and all those interceptions: “We all know the turnovers. And some of those are on Carson and some aren’t, but we’ve gotta do a good job of helping him. Because when we’ve needed him to make plays and he’s needed to step up…..he made plays.”
More specifically, and perhaps stating the obvious, Coach Smart noted that Beck “can’t throw the ball late over the middle.” Smart also noted that the offensive line has to do a better job protecting Beck, as of the picks happened when he was hit and the ball came out high.
On Dillon Bell’s big night: “He’a a spark of energy. He’s a guy that we have to get touches to, and we try. The touches that he got were difference makers.”
On Nate Frazier’s big day: “We’ve been trying to grow him up the whole time. We gotta show confidence in him and play him, because a back can’t make it in t hi s league trying to do it by himself. And I thought he did some good things tonight and he had a couple of mistakes, I’m not talking about the penalty, a couple of mistakes that could really cost us but he’s really gotten better in protection and I’m fired up about him in protection because he’s not shy of contact.”
On what he told Frazier on the sideline after his touchdown/ personal foul: “Don’t be stupid, man. I’m not interested in all the shenanigans. We’re meat and potato people.”
On whether there was a letdown following the emotional win over Texas: “No, I don’t think one game affects the other. I think Florida’s got a really good football team.”
On CJ Allen’s critical interception: “It was a big play. I thought the guy was wide open and they had a nice play call….The guy was open and CJ Allen jumped up to make a freaky athletic play to snag it, and that was probably the play of the game.”
Once more, when asked about the interceptions: “If you throw the ball that’s going to happen sometimes. But we also won the game because he can throw the ball.”
On Dwight Phillips, Jr’s first Bulldog touchdown to stretch the lead, and his role on the team: “That’s a great call by the offensive staff. They reached out to me on Tuesday or Wednesday and said ‘‘is Dwight gonna travel?’ because he hasn’t always traveled….I said yeah he’s up, he’ll be an emergency back because of all the injuries at running back. And they put a package in for him and he did a great job.Everybody on this team loves that kid. Both his parents are great, they both ran track at the University of Kentucky, his Dad was an Olympic gold medalist. I’ve never met a kid that everybody on the team likes as much as him. He just works really hard and I was glad for him to get that play.”
On Anthony Evans and the return game: “Anthony’s dealing with a little bit of a hamstring and we’re hoping to get him back. It happened late last week and that’s why we train multiple guys to return the ball. Malaki was the next guy up on punts and on kickoffs it became Cash.”
As always you can watch the full video below thanks to the good folks at Bulldawg Illustrated. Be sure to stop by and see them, clicking on every link you see. Until later…
Go ‘Dawgs!!!