ATHENS — It was far from pretty but it was another win for the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday.
The Bulldogs came away with a 24-14 win over South Carolina Afterward, Kirby Smart had plenty to about Georgia’s performance.
Below is a full transcript of what Smart said of the win.
Opening statement...
“Hats off to Shane Beamer and his team. What a tremendous job those guys did. They came into a tough environment with some relatively young players. They showed great composure and started with a really great plan against us. I thought they out-executed us for sure in the first quarter. I told him, ‘your kids played hard. They played really hard.
Next I’d like to thank our fans. The momentum in the second half was created, No. 1 by the offense having a really good possession in the second half and No. 2 by the fans. I think the fans and the feeling of that momentum is a powerful thing. The momentum of our fans in the second half of sticking with us and sticking by, staying with us was incredible and that momentum really turned things around for us. Gave us a lot of momentum.”
On what the halftime message was...
“Calm. Composure. We talk about our four DNA traits. When things get tough, that is what you do. You rely on your DNA traits. I was pretty excited at half because I said, ‘We’re going to find out what kind of team we got. This is it, right here. This is our moment.’ We’ve had moments in other games and we’re going to win one moment at a time in the second half. No one is going to go out there and score a 14-point touchdown. You’re going to win one moment at a time, play-by-play. When we lose a moment, we have to win the next moment. And they kind of bought into that. The drive allowed us to get some momentum and that was the difference in the game, the momentum in the second half.”
On South Carolina getting pressure in the first half...
“They didn’t seem like, they were getting pressure. They did a good job. When you block five guys and you do five and six man pressures, they’re going to get pressure. You have to win quickly, you have to get the ball out. You got to have a good plan. You have to make them pay. And they made us pay. We pressured and they made us pay there on probably the most pivotal play of the game on the first third down in the red area. We pressured and they made a really good call and we missed about five tackles. At the end of the day, is what they did or what we did? Their pressure was effective early and we made them pay for some of it. We got our running game going and that was the difference.”
On Brock Bowers+Dominic Lovett and their involvement...
“Of those nine, six or seven of those were runs. We had this conversation before, remember. Those were catches that were runs. So actually the run game worked a little more. And then the run game you don’t recognize worked well too. Both of those worked We take a lot of pride in that because if we’re going to struggle to run the ball or if we’re going to struggle to have healthy backs, we have to create it other ways.”
On Daijun Edwards being this effective in his first game...
“Absolutely. I would’ve expected Daijun to be that effective last week, this week or next week. He’s a good back. A tough football player and we’re fortunate that he was healthy today.”
On how the offensive line played without Amarius Mims and his injury...
“Well we practice that all the time so it’s kind of what we do. Put the next man up. I don’t know it’s an ankle sprain. I don’t know how significant. No clue. Seems like there are ankle sprains all over the country right now. Everybody has an ankle sprain. We’ve got ankle sprains everywhere. I don’t know how significant it is but we’ll find out.
I was proud of the way Truss being able to bounce up there and play. If you remember Truss’ history, he has been up there and played I guess 2 or 3 years ago. He’s played out there before. I can’t say how he played but we were able to run the ball.”
On Mykel Williams...
“Really good pass rush from him. He’s our most dynamic rusher. You probably saw it better than me. I was watching the coverage but I felt like he was back there a lot. He’s going to have to be effective for us to get pressure.”
On the slow starts...
“We adjust well at halftime and play really well in the second half.”
On the first half...
“I can say that we played good in the second half and we’re going to try and figure out what is going on in the first half. I thought we created an identity and how we played in the second half. Give them credit and say, ‘Hey, good job. What can we do better?’ Try to keep adjusting and keep getting better. I thought their quarterback was on rhythm. You’ve got to do something to get him off rhythm. He was very effective that first drive. Gave up two plays that we shouldn’t give up, the big post to 17 on the second touchdown drive and the 3rd and forever when we gave up a big play. I give them a lot of credit for that. Less than us.”
On if clock rules affect in first quarter, first half or if it was how South Carolina’s offense operated...
“Both. They played with pace. For them to play with pace, it’s a long drive. We’ve got to get off the field. I told them, ‘Look, we’re going to get six possessions in the second half.’ I don’t know how many we ended up getting, but told them we were going to get six possessions and we’re going to have to score on four out of six. We’re going to win one moment at a time and go out and do it over and over again. Outside of the possessions that ended in field goals in the second half that we missed, I thought we did really well with the possessions.”
On kicking game concerns...
“I’ve seen better in practice. He’s been really consistent in practice. We’ll go back and watch the tape, look at it and continue to re-evaluate it. We’ve got to do something there. We’ve got to be able to score points. I’d like to not have to kick those field goals. That’s the first answer.”
On Daijun Edwards...
“It’s huge. He makes people miss in the hole. He gets yards after contact. He’s very confident, an experienced player who’s tough. He’s a traditional Georgia high school football player. He’s a really good player from a really tough area and an affective runner.”
On Rara Thomas...
“I thought he had his best week of practice last week. We’ve got to find ways to get him the ball and use him and his skillset. That second half, his number got called twice. He made both of the plays and did a great job.”
On assessment of David Daniel-Sisavanh...
“I don’t know. There were a couple of plays he played a little high and hesitant. I thought he got better as the game went on, played better. Dan (Jackson) played too. Those guys both played in that position with JB being out. I thought they stepped up big time. That was a tough game to go into for your first start.”
On Kendall Milton, Marvin Jones Jr injury updates...
“Kendall had, they had taped him up and were saying he might be able to come back. I want to say it was an MCL but I’m not sure. We had Dillon and Daijun able to go. Marvin is dealing with a little bit of a sickness. Hope to get him back this week.”
On what he saw and learned about his team...
“Did they answer the bell. There’s lots we can talk about at being better. Lots. Starting fast, starting better, what’s causing it, why are we doing it? The world has questions on all these things, but I found out a lot more about my team today than I did any other day this year. I’m thrilled that when I came in the locker room, they were committed to each other talking about what we have to do better. Offense was over here, defense was over there, nobody was bickering. We were in complete control, calm amongst the storm. They responded.”
On Carson Beck’s response...
“He did a good job. I don’t know what his numbers ended up being, 27-of-35, that’s pretty good. Maybe it was those runs, that’s the deal. That’s what he’s done well. He throws the ball downfield well. I thought he got rid of the ball when he had to, made plays with his feet and took off running. I thought Carson did a tremendous job of being the commander and leader of this offense. Does he have to get better? Yes. He had some throws that were inaccurate, but I’m very pleased with the way Carson has played.”
On Javon Bullard and Ladd McConkey injury updates and if McConkey’s was the same...
“No, Ladd was not dressed out —”
On if McConkey was dealing with the same situation as before...
“Yeah, it’s the same situation as before. It’s his back. Javon, I don’t know. He was going to be a game-time decision. He practiced a little bit on Thursday I think it was. He went out and moved around and felt OK, and then in warm-ups he didn’t feel like it was all there. It bothered him, so we had to go with the other guys.”
On if he’s relieved that Georgia got this test out of the way...
“I’m not relieved. I’m not ever relieved. I mean, my expectation is we go out and dominate and create a nightmare and make people want to never play you again. We didn’t do that today. We didn’t, like, make them never want us to play them again. But we did respond to adversity, and that’s all it is. It’s going to happen all over the country, guys. Go look. It’s going to happen all over the country. People have to play close games to get better, and the expectation that’s created of these teams that are the top-tier teams, it wasn’t created by them — it was created by perception. You are what you do on the field, and we are right now a team that has played three average first halves. I don’t know if they’re even average, but they had a response.”
On the secondary’s response in the second half...
“I don’t know. I still thought we cut some guys loose. You know, we got more pressure, but you’ve got to be able to cover. They’ve got good people that can throw and catch the ball. That’s the name of the game, and he can throw it now. This guy can spin the ball. He can throw the ball, and he’s played a lot of football.”
On the defensive line’s play and how they transformed in the second half...
“I thought they were more disruptive. We had them out of rhythm, so it’s easy to say we got pressure in the second half — we had them behind the sticks, had them off rhythm, they were a little bit sloppier. They had us off rhythm in the first half, and momentum’s a beautiful thing.”
On Cash Jones taking advantage of opportunities...
“Good player, man. He’s a perfect example of work hard, stay in the program, stick around, get calloused, been injured, just keep working. Just keep working, and your opportunity comes. I mean, the guy was a really good special teams player last year, and he goes out there today and makes I think two great runs, right? He had two really good runs. I know the one touchdown. He does what he’s supposed to do. He makes plays with his feet. He’s a product of the culture that we create with hard work.”
On if Brock Bowers is banged up...
“He looked good to me. Did he do something today to look like he was hurt?”
A reporter mentions Bowers popped into the medical tent for a moment...
“Well, he may have had to go to the bathroom, Chip. I don’t know. I missed it too. All I saw was him running over people. I mean, he had two plays where he couldn’t get a yard, and he made nine. I’m very pleased with what Brock’s doing.”
On Bowers’ odd motion where he moves backward...
“I missed it because two of the runs I was watching people blocking and praying we weren’t getting holding. Over on their sideline maybe? I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to tackle him. Have you seen his thighs? I mean, he runs through tackles and hits people and is physical, so I don’t know how he does it.”
On Tate Ratledge’s holding call when Georgia was in the red zone...
“Yeah, I didn’t see it. I mean, it was on the other sideline. He pulled around. He got up [threw his hand up] like, ‘I held. I did it.’ That one moment, we lost that moment. We’ve got to win the next one, you know? And we’re literally playing moment by moment, and when you do that it minimizes the pressure you feel in every moment because you’re trying to move on to the next one. And we try to make it really simple for them.”
On similarities to last year’s Missouri game...
“I mentioned that at halftime to them. I used that as a reference of we’ve been here before. We’ve done this before. We are resilient. Shane said it after the game. You showed why you have a championship-caliber football team. Teams that are championship-caliber, they find a way when they don’t have their best game. We’ve got to find out why we don’t. Why didn’t we have our best game? Because I certainly felt like we had great practices and like we improved. I’ll be honest with you, I thought we played so much better offensively. We didn’t get rewarded for playing better because of A, kicks, and B, not cashing in in the red area. We’ve got to be more effective in the red area. But 29 first downs, good grief.”
On what you learned about your team...
“Resiliency. They’re not going to quit. They’re not going to point fingers and blame each other. Also they — we — gotta get better.”
On what you do to get better in the first half...
“Better playing. Better execution. You’ve got to break things down. We got one less possession because they got the ball first. That first possession seemed like it was really long. So opportunities to get better. I wish I had the answer. I don’t. I’m not smart enough to know the answer.”
On conversation with Carson Beck at the half...
“We believe in you. We’re getting ready to come out here and do this thing. They’re bringing a lot of pressure. We’ve got answers for pressure. We practice for pressure. We knew they were going to bring pressure. I would bring pressure if I were them too. We were very confident about it. He was not frustrated. That’s the one thing about that kid, now. He is not emotional. That’s the opposite of me.”
On Carson knowing exactly what he’s seen when he leaves the field...
“Well, they played quarters coverage, and he’s reading this. He goes high-low, and he sees it, and he throws it. He does a good job. Now you can’t be perfect when they get pressure in there, so there’s times things are beyond his control. He probably had five or six checks today that were looks we didn’t want to run that play, and we were going to run another play, and he did a great job of that. He keeps us out of bad situations, which is what you ask your quarterback to do. We put a lot on him. We put as much on him, as we put on Stetson. He handles that well. The guy’s got really good command of our offense and understands it.”
On the momentum and energy like the start of the third...
“It’s awesome. I can’t put it really into words. I felt it. I felt us taking over the game with the momentum of the fan. It was a like a steam roll. Decisions you make as a coach, whether you’re doing this, this, or this, that goes into your thought process because you’ve got momentum. I don’t want to lose the momentum, so I’m not going to do something silly or stupid right here. Let’s keep the momentum going, and I think that becomes really important.”
On how rewarding Tykee Smith’s progress has been...
“It’s very rewarding. He’s tough. He’s physical. He’s a leader on our team. He practices so hard. He holds the kids to a standard. You know, he had a tough year last year. He was upseated by a younger player, and he had a hard time with that. He overcame that. He told our team before the season, he said, guys, I lived in a tough world last year. I was always frustrated and upset I wasn’t playing. I was coming off an injury. Now this year, he’s playing well. He’s playing with great toughness. He just embodies what we’re about. He’s teaching other players what to do, and he’s a great kid.”
On what stands out with Daylen Everette starting at corner...
“Practice. I don’t think he played great, but he practiced better. If other guys want to play, they need to practice better.”
On what caused red-zone issues...
“I have to watch the tape. I can’t even say. Penalties. Going backwards. I don’t know. We had success, and then we don’t cash it in. I’ve gotta watch it and see. I can’t remember those sequences. It seems like we’re first-and-10 on the 10. There’s really not a worse situation from the 10 in. You like it when you hit a big play and score, or you hit a big play to the 4 and score. But when we have first-and-10 at the 10, there’s 20 yards right there, and we have not executed well there. We have to work on it and get better.”
