Georgia football wrestled its 22nd consecutive win away from Auburn, 27-20.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart discussed quarterback play, the dominance of Brock Bowers, field goal kicking, and more after the thrilling win. Below is the full transcript for what Smart said.
Opening Statement...
“A lot of credit goes to Auburn and their atmosphere. I told the television stations afterwards it’s an incredible atmosphere every time we come here to play. They’ve got one of the most loyal fan bases there is. I’ve got a lot of respect for Hugh and the job he’s done, and a great atmosphere to play in. Obviously we didn’t play our best game today, but we’re a very resilient team. I’m proud of the way we competed, and we’ve got to continue to get better. That’s the most important thing for our team. There were a lot of things we did wrong. A lot of things we did well. But we’re not going to get where we want to go if we don’t get better, so that’s the biggest thing.”
On what he told the team after the game...
“I’m proud of ‘em. Resilient as hell, competed. You know, the leadership of this team has shown up twice, and you don’t know how many times you’re going to be able to do that when you turn the ball over and you give people extra possessions. You just can’t do that. Good football teams don’t do that, and good football teams don’t let people run the ball for over 200 yards. That’s one of the things that we knew they could do well. I thought they really ran the ball well and used the quarterback and rushed the ball on us. We can’t do that. We’ve got to be able to run the ball, too, but I’m proud of the way the guys fought.”
On his confidence at halftime...
“Well, we haven’t been on the road. In the SEC, I don’t think people respect playing on the road in the SEC as much as I do. Being an SEC player, a veteran of this league, it is really, really hard to win on the road. And all you guys see is [No.] 1 versus whoever, a new program. It doesn’t matter when you play a rivalry game. The passion and energy’s there. It’s hard to win on the road in this league, and we won. But we’ve got to get better.”
On the play of Carson Beck and Brock Bowers...
“Bowers did what he does. I mean, the guy’s amazing. It’s a wonder why you just don’t go to him every play, you know? People know he’s there. Try to find ways — creative ways — to find him the ball. And, you know, we need guys around him and have. Daijun has stepped up. Ladd made plays today for a guy that didn’t practice much all week. He made some plays. Rara made a hell of a completion, just beat out off of the corner. Cash — you know, a lot of guys made plays. We need more playmakers around Brock so people can’t isolate him.
But I thought Carson played better in the second half. I never felt like he was rattled, and that was a concern coming in is would he be rattled by this environment.”
On getting Ladd McConkey back and Kirby’s first impressions...
“Well, for what he practiced, I thought we got way more out of him today. You know, I worry about him getting a little rusty. He’s so confident. He played great in this stadium the last team we were here if you remember, and he made some big conversions today. All I can do is hope that there’s no setback from this so that he can continue to get better.”
On being calm normally, amped up after this one...
“They all matter. They all feel good. We put so much into this, 16-18 hour days for five, six, seven days. These kids work really hard, and there’s a lot of buildup so when you have a situation where you were behind - I don’t know how many times, it felt like we were behind the whole game - and you come back and win on the road, it says something about your team and your character. Nobody panicked. I don’t know how good of a team we’ve got. I really don’t. I don’t sit here and proclaim that we’ve got some unbelievable team, but I do think that we’ve got a team that believes in each other, we connect and we step up when we need to step up, but we can’t keep turning the ball over.”
On Auburn QB run game...
“They’ve got misdirection plays, a lot of them that we practiced. No. 1, you get an extra hat when you have the quarterback. We all know that. So, unless you’ve got really good, really elite defensive line, linebackers and safeties that are filling and fitting just perfectly, one misfit is an 8-9 yard run. In the past, we haven’t struggled with that kind of run game. They hurt us. They copied some things UAB did, and we expected it. That’s what’s the disappointing thing. You expect it, and you don’t stop it. We’ve got to help our players and get better on defense.”
On back to back stops by Smael Mondon, Jamon Dumas-Johnson...
“That was the one right before the half? Yeah, that was big, I think he could have gone for a field goal but felt like he needed touchdowns. I was thinking the same thing - when do I go for it, when do I not? That was a big stop, but hell, we gave them another possession after that. We went out there, and I wanted to be aggressive, but they took a timeout and we ended up having to kick it to that. I’ll be danged if they didn’t have to kick it to us. It was a back and forth deal. Those were both big plays in the game. i thought, the second half, did we turn it over both of the first two possessions or just the first? Second one came back. It’s tough when you bank on getting the first possession in the second half and you gift it away. That really kills momentum. Overcoming that was different than South Carolina where he gained momentum, came out and scored. We lost momentum in the second half in this one. So, we can’t keep doing that.”
On Peyton Woodring’s clutch kicking...
“Big man. We’ve been putting a lot of pressure on him in practice but I don’t know that simulates it. There’s nothing that simulates what he had to do today. I told the team after the game, he begs to do the pressure kicks in practice and he made them in the game. I think the kid’s got something special to him.”
On the third down success on offense…
“Unbelievable job by the offensive staff. Unbelievable job. You go for 8 for 10 against air, it’s incredible. It’s hard to do that in our league with the defensive players they’ve got and rushers. They had a good plan, did an incredible job. I told the defense the halftime stats after the game. I was like, hey guys, we were unbelievable on third down. I think we were 3-of-6 on our offense and I was wrong because it was 8-of-10 by the end of the game. We take a lot of pride in third down and red area, being elite in the country. Our offense is starting to create an identity of being good at that.”
On winning while losing the turnover battle…
“Not supposed to do that. That means we must have won the explosives, but I don’t know if we won that. The explosive has been a greater indicator than the turnovers as Seth knows. It’s one of those deals that we can’t do that. We had three? The interception, I’m forgetting the interception, the two fumbles and then the interception…. I didn’t think we had three. I didn’t think that three was the margin because we got one on them to end the game, right? So it was probably two-one, maybe? It’s definitely not three.”
On his reaction to Malaki Starks’ interception…
“Get down. That’s like the national championship. I knew we could end the clock and he’s flinging the ball around trying to return it. It just goes back to the last time that happened here, you bat it down on fourth down. He picked it.”On if being elite is a matter of getting guys like Javon Bullard and Ladd McConkey back…
“I mean I just think there’s a lot more parody in college football. I don’ t think there’s a great separation between anybody. The pro scouts that come by our place, I always trust their opinion. They’re like, well, we’ve been to this place, that place, that place. Everybody’s pretty similar. There’s not this great margin. I told our team that we played a team last year in the national championship that won like nine games that were all one-score games or something. I don’t know that my heart can handle that because we need to get better. We’re going to play teams as good or better than Auburn. We’ve got to get better.”
On if Bowers belongs in the Heisman conversation…
“I hate getting into those, man. I hate getting into that debate because I’m worried about our team and so is he. Who can argue that there’s a better football player anywhere in the country? Just football player. The guy has the greatest toughness and grit that I’ve been around. He’ll do whatever you ask him to do for this team. I’ve got a lot of respect for that guy as a competitor.”
On Auburn’s ability to stop the run…
“Well they strike blockers. Ron Roberts, the defensive coordinator, they’re going to do a great job here. He does multiple defenses, he plays three down, four down. They play physical, they strike. They did a good job, played really hard. We left some plays out there, now. We had some plays that, they didn’t always stop us as much as we stopped ourselves, the turnovers and some self-inflicted wounds. But we did run the ball well on the perimeter. I thought the fastball helped take the crowd out of it at times. Look, to have a quarterback that’s never started go on the road at Auburn and not have a procedural penalty or a delay of game, pretty remarkable to do what they did. I thought we handled that really well. We didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot with penalties.”
On Kentucky running the ball...
“Yeah, that’s Mark Stoops’ team. They’re going to be physical. He’s a defensive coach. They run the rock. I’ve always said our kids are the most sore they’ve ever been after playing them. It was that way last year. It was a bloodbath last year up there. It’ll be the same way. I have so much respect for the way his team plays. The back they’ve got, I’ve heard he’s playing really good. I didn’t know what he had today, but he’s a great player.”
On figuring out how to play a full four quarters...
“I wish I had the answer to that. Can you help me? We’re trying. We’re trying. I don’t think we start poorly. I think we finish well. We have started games well before. It’s not a consistent poor start. We did some things well on defense early. We moved the ball well on offense early. At the end of the day, we score more points in the second half.”
On Carson never being rattled...
“What do you mean see it? He’s never flustered. I’ve told y’all he’s like that. He’s a calming voice out there. He got rid of a couple balls. He took off and ran a couple times when he needed to. The closest he came to putting us at risk is when somebody didn’t do their job in the front, and he almost got sacked. He tried to throw it away there on our sideline, and they should’ve picked it. At the end of the day, Carson’s a competitor.”
On what you learned from the long scoring drives...
“We can be really good when we execute. It’s hard to execute for 10-12 plays. You have to have explosives to catch a 5-play with a 60-yarder or a 6-play with a 30-yarder. You’ve got to catch some of those. We’re missing those. We missed Delp over the middle early. That was an explosive play. You know, we had a couple that I thought were close to PI, but they did a good job defending. They got a couple calls that advanced them. We missed out on a couple. I can’t argue with the call. It’s judgemental. But we need some of those to hit.”
On Daylen Everette’s performance...
“He’s getting better. He’s getting more confidence. He and Julio are having a great bad. Julio practiced really well this week, so he played some more. They continue to get better.”
On Ladd McConkey rep count...
“Well, he’s full go, but you can’t play every snap. If you don’t practice, you can’t go out there in that heat and play. It was a situational deal. We put him in. We did some run plays with him in. We put him in for some pass. On third downs, he was big. He runs certain routes really well. We used him as freely as we needed.”
On four possessions and maximizing...
“I don’t talk about maximizing. We work all week to maximize. It’s not like we go, let’s minimize this possession, you know. Everybody wants to maximize their possessions. There’s not enough of them. If you don’t get three-and-outs on defense, you’re probably going to have some of those. I’m disappointed in our run defense. We didn’t stop the run well. But you know what, they’re physical, and they have three and four backs in the backfield, including the quarterback. That’s as hard as you’ll see running the ball. What I’m disappointed in is we have third down, and we play man-to-man. A guy’s got the quarterback, and he leaves, and the quarterback runs, and we had them backed up. That cost our offense 20 yards of field position. Those are the hidden yards you just can’t do. You can’t give them gifts. You’ve gotta make them earn things, and we didn’t always do that.”