ATHENS — Kirby Smart said after Georgia’s loss to Alabama that he would not lose any sleep over the defeat.
But he made it clear on Monday that the game did leave a lasting impact on his Georgia team.
“Our guys are fired up, got work done yesterday, and a bunch of them came in,” Smart said on Monday. “I think when you see our guys, you realize how invested they are when they hurt. It’s good when guys hurt, because you hurt relative to how invested you are in something.”
Georgia will get a chance to get things right this coming week against a Kentucky team that looks to be one of the worst in the SEC. But Georgia has played the Wildcats long enough to know it will also be a physical game.
The Wildcats went 1-7 in SEC play last season, yet had a chance to beat Georgia early in the season. The Bulldogs did play the Wildcats before Georgia lost to Alabama last season.
Georgia has not lost back-to-back games since Smart’s first season in Athens. The sport has changed significantly since 2016. With the influx of legal ways to make money, it’s fair to wonder if players care to the same degree.
Smart sees that passion in his team and expects it to show up against Kentucky.
“I’m glad that they were affected and hurt,” Smart said. “There’s a lot of college football teams right now that got teams that the kids don’t care. Like, when people hurt, you usually get a better response, right? You get a better mechanism of, like, buy-in or, like, doubling down on something, of, like, knowing who I am and knowing what I’ve got to work on. So, that part excites me to get to work today.”
The Alabama game showed just how much the Bulldogs have to work on, specifically on the defensive side of the ball.
Defensive lineman Jordan Hall stepped to the lectern on Monday expecting to be asked questions about Georgia’s third-down defense and lack of a pass rush. He knew those were reasons Georgia lost against Alabama, as the Bulldogs did not sack Ty Simpson and gave up 13 third-down conversions.
“People wanna point the finger at different things, but I take accountability for what I had a part in, which is not getting off the field on third down,” Hall said. “And that’s something we gotta own. It happened, you know what I’m saying? And we gotta brush that off. But honestly, we gotta understand that part of the game is adjustments.”
Georgia did shut out Alabama in the second half, but that did not change the final outcome on Saturday.
Hall and wide receiver London Humphreys both expressed a desire to get back on the field and correct what went wrong.
“If I could play right now, I would, you know what I’m saying? Like, if I go out there and play right now, I would,” Hall said. “But like I said, preparation is needed. We need preparation. We need to go review the game, what we did wrong, what we did right. But like I said, I mean, we’re all energized. We’re fired up about it.”
Georgia won’t have to wait all day on Saturday to do so, as the Bulldogs face Kentucky at noon ET.
The early start gives Georgia the chance to show that it processed the pain of the Alabama loss and used it to push the season forward.
The Bulldogs did not let an early-season loss to Alabama torpedo their 2024 dreams, as Georgia still won the SEC and made the College Football Playoff.
It can still do so in 2025. The next step in doing so starts on Saturday against Kentucky.
“My question is, what are you going to double down on? It’s a different day and age of college football,” Smart said. “It’s completely different out there. We’ve accepted it as coaches. We have to do a good job of the players responding to it. What do you double down on? I know more about my team right now than I did a week ago. I can guarantee you that. That’s what fires me up. I’ve got a lot of optimism after that game, because I learned a hell of a lot more about my team than I had the previous weeks.”
