ATHENS — Kirby Smart knew there was not a whole to take away from Georgia’s 45-7 win over Marshall. The Bulldogs were massive favorites on the afternoon and it showed.
Still, the Georgia coach had plenty to say after Georgia’s season-opening win on Saturday. The head coach said plenty, including an interesting comment about the fan support on the afternoon.
Below is everything Smart said.
Kirby Smart recaps Georgia football win over Marshall
Opening statement
“Really proud of our guys today. I thought we started fast offensively, defensively. Start of the second half, it was really important to me to get things going and start the way we wanted to in the second half. Special teams I thought, we were fast, played a lot of players on special teams. It’s a weapon for us, blocking a punt, some of the punt returns. We were able to do some good things. So we’ll take this, we’ll go watch it, and we’ll try to continue to improve as a team.”
On how he felt the team did running the ball and stopping the run...
“I thought we did okay. I thought there were a couple times we had some breakdowns up front defensively, where a run, seven, eight-yarder pops out, especially later. Started subbing some guys in, they didn’t play to our standard. Offensively, there’ll be things we could have done better, but there were things we did well. Some runs we worked really hard on in the offseason were big for us. We’ve got to continue to improve in that area and be more consistent and take the lost yardage plays out of it. Those were the drive killers when we had negative runs or lost yardage plays.”
On an update on Juan Gaston after his injury...
“Don’t know much. We took him to do an MRI, it looks like an ankle. We don’t know if it’s a high ankle or not in terms of that. We’ll get him checked out.”
On Daylen Everette…
“Yeah, he’s injured.”
On Gunner Stockton’s performance...
“Proud of Gunner. Great leader, great competitor. Just does it the right way. Got us out of some negative plays. Had too many times that we could have been sacked, that he escaped. He took care of the ball well, made good decisions, made good reads on his pulls. Continues to distribute the ball and did a nice job.”
On why Gunner’s teammates like him so much…
“He’s an effective leader. He’s a passionate leader. You get what you expect. He cares about every one of his teammates. He treats everyone the same. He leads, he’s passionate about it. People say, well, does he have fire, passion, and energy? If you compete against him in something, he does. He’s got a lot of fire, passion, and energy. I think you saw it on some of those runs, how bad he wants it, and how bad he competes. I mean, there’s things that you can look back on this game, and he can do better, and he can make some decisions. But I think everybody on the team loves the guy because he’s so genuine. He’s genuinely him. He’s just, he is who he is. He doesn’t try to put up a fake facade. He’s just a worker.”
On Earnest Greene leaving the game and how he thought Bo Hughley did filling in for him...
“I thought Bo filled in great. I have to watch the tape to evaluate it. Ernest was doing a little bit of lower body stiffness and wasn’t able to go. So Bo jumped in there and did some good things.”
On the play of some of his freshmen...
“Yeah, those kids have got a lot of growing up to do. I think, when you look across the board, each one of them got a little taste. The wideouts got some taste. I thought Talyn played an outstanding game at gunner, made a huge play on special teams. Elyiss worked on the scout team all week against our defense and has gotten better, and was able to make a play. I mean, I can’t mention them all, but I was really proud of all those guys. And they’ve got to get confidence, and they’ve got to prove in practice that they consistently perform and execute at a high level. I don’t know whatever reason everybody wants to talk about the freshmen. I’m all for talking about them, but I want to talk about the guys that played in the first and second quarters as well.”
On Zach Branch...
“He pushed really hard. It was important to him. I think he probably was a little amped up and a little anxious, which, you know, that’s one of the things that happens is you cramp up when you do that, and he ended up catching some cramps there for a little bit. But he’s practiced so hard. He’s embodied our FPE, and I thought it showed today. I mean, I told the team, I said, don’t be surprised if he has a very explosive, great game because he practices so hard. So it becomes natural in a game when you practice the way you practiced. And I thought that showed today on some of the screens he caught, the punt returns he had, the third down conversion over the middle. He did some good things.”
On KJ Bolden’s blocked punt...
“Yeah, I didn’t know who got it out of him and Cash. I know that it was schemed for Cash or him to be free, and they worked really hard on that. Coach (Kirk) Benedict and his staff did an awesome job putting that together and worked really hard on it. And I was proud of K.J. because it’s important to K.J. He stays after practice to work on things like that. And as a leader on our team, not everybody’s willing to sacrifice staying after practice and doing stuff like that, and it paid off for him.”
On Dwight Phillips Jr....
“Dwight’s a great back. Dwight’s a competitor. He works really hard. He’s well-coached. He’s tough, disciplined. I love Dwight. Dwight’s been one of our bright lights of fall and spring. He does what he’s supposed to do. He doesn’t say a whole lot, works really hard. He’s really fast. He enjoys football, and he continues to get better.”
On rotating players early in the game on defense...
“I’m not real sure. I mean, the approach is play the guys that are good enough to play. We want to lead the country in snaps over 100. So our hope is to play 25, 30 guys if they’re good enough to play. And if you can play winning football consistently, then you’ll play.”
On Kirby seeing his mom after the game...
“It was great. It’s great any time you get to see family after a game. We only get to do these things 12 times a year, less than that sometimes, less than that at home. So you better enjoy them. If you can’t enjoy them, why do you play the game? And that’s what I told the players is you got to enjoy it. You got to embrace it. It was emotional for her. First game she’s been to without my dad, so it was an emotional moment for her, for sure.”
On how the defense played with enthusiasm...
“Well, I mean, I think that team was overmatched a little bit, but that’s beyond our control. All we can measure is how hard we play. We talked about how many plays we would have 11 hats outside the hash, and that’s a measurement for us. And I know the first couple plays we had all 11 hats all the way outside the hash where the ball was. But we’ll judge that by watching the tape, right? I’m not going to sit here and say that we played as hard as we could because I don’t know that. Guys got hot. I thought we got a little tired both sides of the ball, and so did they. You know, you’re affected by that heat, and we got to do a good job getting to be the best-conditioned team.”
On Raylen Wilson...
“Biggest development for him has been leadership. He’s taken on a role of not being afraid to say things, hold people accountable, and he’s in a room with great leadership and Chris (Cole), Justin (Williams), and CJ (Allen), and he doesn’t shy away from that. He holds himself accountable and others accountable, and I’m really proud of who Raylen’s becoming as a player, but probably more importantly as a man and a kid that can help us.”
On Gunner running the ball...
“I think it’s dictated a little bit by the defense, right? Like, so that wasn’t a called run for Gunner. It was based on what they did. A lot of times the defense controls who runs the ball, and they attacked the back, and they took the back away, which forced Gunner to pull it. And we’ve got to have answers for that because they had a guy standing there unblocked. The guy just didn’t tackle him. So the idea is if you can use the quarterback to run the ball, it adds an extra element, and it makes it harder to stop the run. You’re seeing that across college football. I saw it last night in the Auburn game, Georgia Tech game. When you’ve got a quarterback that can run, guys, it’s, you know, running the ball is easier than throwing the ball, but running the ball in some conferences is harder than others. There are no free yards in football. You learn everything you get, so when you have the extra element, it certainly helps, but, you know, you’ve got to be smart about it, too.”
On where Gunner Stockton is as a pure passer...
“Um, I don’t know. Define ‘pure passer.’ What does that mean?”
The reporter explains just purely in terms of his passing...
“Well, it depends on how much we have to pass him, you know what I mean? Like, he’s really good on the run. He scrambles, makes plays. He extends plays. He does a great job navigating the pocket, understands where he has to go with the ball. Certainly think he could improve as a running quarterback, a boot-naked quarterback, a play-action quarterback, and a drop-back quarterback. But he distributed the ball well today, and that will be a measure of decision-making he has to do all year.”
On what he saw from the tight ends and how impactful having that much depth can be...
“I’m excited about them. I want to watch and look how they played. You know, we put some guys in position to make blocks. I saw some of those guys miss blocks, so, you know, we’ve got to find the best ones that do the best job, and we’ve got to find the best personnel groupings that give us the best chance.
“I judge things based on can you break a tackle, so did anybody break a tackle? Can you block people at the point of attack? Did anybody block people at the point of attack? And if you do neither, then you’re not actually benefiting us. And I’m not saying they’re not, but I’m saying let’s watch it and see because we don’t just call plays to run plays. We want to get the best playmakers on the field.”
On what he learned about his team today...
“That they have energy., they have enthusiasm. They enjoy the game. You know, my probably best moment was when Thomas Blackshear caught the ball, there were 12 receivers on the sidelines celebrating that catch. We had 15 defensive linemen hugging a walk-on defensive lineman, [Clinton] Barlow, who’s taken 1,000 snaps on the scout team and never gotten to play really in a game and make a tackle, and he made a tackle. So the connection, the energy, and the enthusiasm on the sideline of cheering for others, what we call Mudita, I thought that was the best part of the game.”
On Kyron Jones’ play and what he brings to the secondary...
“Kyron’s consistency. He tackles well, he runs to the ball, he understands our defense. He keys and processes, but the best thing he does is thump people. He’s extremely strong and physical, and in this league you have to have safeties who can tackle.”
On if this was a week where he learned more about his team from practice compared to the game...
“Well, if you add up all the practices, yes. If you do them one for one, I would say the game. But four practices for a game, I’ll take the four practices and find out a lot more than the one game, but one for one, I’ll take the game.”
On Georgia’s 32-game winning streak and why Georgia is so good at home...
“Really good players. I mean, it’s hard to play when you have really good players, and that run you’re talking about, we’ve had a lot of really good players. I think playing with discipline and playing with execution really helps.”
On if the offense, defense, or special teams impressed him the most today...
“I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s hard to measure, you know, with a team that was outmatched. We were better than them, but we did what we had to do, and, you know, we converted some fourth downs to help loosen things up and give us some breathing room and play some guys.”
On his thoughts on the fans’ attendance because it looked sparse...
“Yeah, you said it. I didn’t.”
On how he feels going into Austin Peay week after today’s performance...
Well, I’m not even thinking about — I’m thinking about how we can get better. Like, where we can take the parts of what we have and improve it. What are we going to do this week to get our team better while also staying healthy, and that is a fine line in college football. There’s coaches that, you know, talking across the board, there’s not as much depth, you know? Nobody has depth, so who can survive the gauntlet without losing too many guys and playing tight football games and be able to win those football games."
