Kirby Smart gives his thoughts on Tennessee

Kirby Smart isn’t relying on previous success against Tennessee.

Georgia’s head coach is 8-1 against the Volunteers during his tenure in Athens. The Bulldogs have won eight in a row in the series since losing on a Hail Mary in 2016, Smart’s first year in Athens.

A win this Saturday would give Georgia nine wins in a row, matching Tennessee’s series-long streak from 1989-1999. But Smart isn’t looking to the past.

“Well, they’ve been really good games, right?” Smart said. “When you play in the SEC and you’re in these really tough top ten matchups, top 25 matchups, they can go either way a lot of times. At the end of the day, they’ve played us physical, we’ve played them physical. They’ve all been really, really tough physical games. I mean, I think being at home usually helps either team in terms of road versus home, but I don’t know that you can attribute it to anything, because this year has nothing to do with previous years.”

Much of the success rests with the Georgia defense.

Since 2017, Tennessee has averaged 13 points per game against Georgia. The Volunteers’ high in that span was 21 points in the 2020 matchup.

Tennessee is an offense that likes to spread the defense as far as it can to open up the run and downfield shots through the air. What does Smart see as the keys to stopping that system?

“Not give them anything,” Smart said. “I think you have to make them earn it, and we say go the long hard way. Make them execute, make them drive the ball down the field, all the way through the red area, and just make it hard to score. That starts with stopping the run and not giving up big plays. Those are the two key ingredients to Tennessee is, can you stop the run? Can you not give freebies?”

Smart will be getting his first look at Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar on Saturday.

Aguilar transferred from Appalachian State to UCLA and then to Tennessee this offseason. In his first two games with the Volunteers, Aguilar has completed 39-of-59 passes for 535 yards and five touchdowns.

“He’s playing really efficiently,” Smart said. “He’s got great arm talent; he’s a really good athlete. You can tell he understands the system. He gets the ball out quickly. He’s been very accurate. He’s had some really well-thrown balls, a couple they’ve dropped in crucial times. But he makes some good throws, and really a good deep-ball passer. I think he puts air under the ball, gives the receiver an opportunity to run under it. He’s made plays with his legs, which you have to do in this league at quarterback, and he’s been very, very impressive in the two games he played.”

When discussing both Tennessee’s running backs and the Volunteer defensive line, Smart mentioned the word “physical” multiple times. The Georgia staff has been preparing the team for the toughness of an SEC game since preseason camp.

Tennessee is a little banged up, as corners Rickey Gibson and Jermod McCoy are both expected to miss the game. But Smart is expecting nothing less than another war in a raucous Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

“They are built around toughness, running the ball and stopping the run, which they’re very good at both,” Smart said. “I think people have a mistake about their offense that it scores so many points, but they are very physical. You look at last year’s game between both teams, both lines of scrimmage were extremely physical, and it’s been that way every time we’ve played each other. It won’t be any different this time.”