Kirby Smart shares Georgia mindset on College GameDay: ‘Hunt with a purpose’

ATHENS —Georgia is back to being the hunters, a message Coach Kirby Smart relishes and has dialed back into the Bulldogs’ mindset.

Smart, appearing on College GameDay leading up to the 3:30 p.m. matchup with No. 1-ranked Tennessee, was clearly approaching locker room intensity levels.

“Hunt with a purpose, that’s the biggest thing,” Smart said with the College GameDay set making its 15th appearance at a Georgia game since the start of the 2017 season.

“Our guys know our best game is ahead of us, so we’re hoping it’s this one.”

Smart is also hoping the Sanford Stadium crowd can impact the game like it did in a 23-17 win over Notre Dame 2019, when noise helped trigger six false starts on the Irish and forced then-coach Brian Kelly to burn two second-half timeouts.

“We want to play aggressive, they’re coming to our house, we had to go to their place last year, and it was wild and crazy,” Smart said. “We want fans to be crazy today and affect the game.”

The last time a No. 1-ranked team in the AP poll lost on its home field was 2012 (Oregon, vs. Stanford), a string of 66 straight wins.

Smart had several strong takes on the game with the Vols, which pits a CFP No. 1-ranked team against an AP Top 25 and Coaches’ Poll No. 1-ranked team for the first time in history.

How to slow Tennessee offense

Kirby: “You got to take something away, you’ve got to make them more one dimensional. You’ve got to be able to stop the run, but you better be able to cover one-on-one, because if you don’t do that, then you’ve got no chance.

“There will be one-on-one situations, there’s no way to play Tennessee that you’re not one-on-one, so you have to be at your best and go out there and cover them.

“And you’ve got to affect the quarterback, nobody has really been able to do that. He’s played elite because of their offensive line.”

WATCH: Why Georgia must beat Tennessee to make College Football Playoffs

Importance of Stetson Bennett

Kirby: “I thought last year in this game it was probably Stetson’s best game. He protected us, he saved us from some sacks.

“Two or three times, he ran for third down conversions, and he ran for a touchdown on a boot where we didn’t have someone (blocked).

“So we’re going to need that kind of game out of him where he’s elusive and athletic and uses the playmakers he has around him.”

Unsung hero candidates

Kirby: “Anytime you ask the guys on the perimeter to cover one-on-one, they’re going to have to step up. So Kelee Ringo, Kamari Lassiter, Chris Smith, Malaki Starks, they’re going to be in one-on-one situations.

“You can’t not play one-on-one against these guys, because it’s too spread out, so they’re going to have to play well and we’re going to have to affect them with the rush inside.”

The chess match

Kirby: “We think we’ve got a really good organization in terms of how we rep their plays and what we do. But they still change just enough, they tweak just enough, that they know if you’re stopping this, then you can’t stop this.

“They’ve got answers for things, and they are usually one step ahead of you because it’s their offense, it’s what they do.

“It’s a form of the option in a different way, and they do a great job of managing that.”

Resiliency after big plays

Kirby: “You better play fast, I can promise you that, because they’re going to be at the ball every nine seconds.

“Get your cleats set. Get back, get set, play the next play. You don’t have time to think about it. Normally when you give up a play, you’ve got 40 seconds to worry about it, but they can’t even show the replay because they have to get back on the ball and get ready for the next snap.”