Georgia looking to grow and gain experience, not get out of a slump
ATHENS, Ga. — It’s safe to say that Georgia hasn’t played its best football the last two weeks. The Bulldogs were caught sleep walking against Kent State and only won by 17 despite being 40+ point favorites. Then, this past Saturday at Missouri, they once again struggled as heavy favorites, needing a fourth quarter comeback to beat the Tigers 26-22. Despite what some may believe, Kirby Smart doesn’t think that his team is in any sort of slump. And quite frankly, he doesn’t want to look into the rearview. He’s more concerned about making sure his team is ready for what is to come.
“I don’t look at it that way at all. I look at from day to day. I worry about what we’re doing today. Just like I’m going to worry about what we do tomorrow, tomorrow,” Smart said on Monday during his opening press conference of Auburn week. “I don’t look at it as a hitting slump or some kind of funk or anything like that. A lot of that is predicated off of what the other team does and what we do. Very different teams we faced between Kent State in three down, Missouri and the way they played us. Just different things. So I just don’t really look at it that way.”
Of course, the Bulldogs are winning. They’re 5-0 on the season and ranked No. 2 in the country, even after a pair of disappointing performances. Winning won’t be overlooked in Athens.
“He (Smart) said, ‘A win is a win.’ It really doesn’t matter how we get it as long as we come out on top in the end,” Georgia defensive lineman Tramel Walthour said. “He’s telling us we’ve got to come together as a team. That’s something we preached at Missouri. We knew we had to come together and connect more to come out on top.”
“Every game, it’s always going to be not easy work. You’ve got to have composure throughout,” wide receiver Dominick Blaylock added. “In the locker room we’re always saying ‘Composure. Keep your heads high’ to have the team rockin’ and rollin’.”
That kind of connection and composure that Walthour and Blaylock talk about is something that comes with time. It takes leadership to form that kind of an identity, and leadership is still something Georgia is looking for. Last year’s group had it, but that was a team led by 15 players that went off to the NFL this past offseason. They were older and had been in games like Saturday’s at Missouri. This group though? They’ve got to experience it in order to grow going forward.
“I think anxiety would be one of the things that you worry about with a young team in really the first real road environment, because the South Carolina game played out so different. We started really fast. I guess we were up 14-nothing, 21-nothing pretty quick. The crowd really never got into the game. Took them out of the game. We didn’t do that the other night,” Smart said. “So some of those youthful anxiety guys playing in that kind of atmosphere for the first time, we’re a team — last year’s team, they would’ve played in that a bunch of times. There is a lot of youth there, but to be honest with you, it was a great opportunity to see what we’re about. I don’t know if you could find any greater adversity than be down 10 points to in the fourth quarter. Resiliency, all those things, but we got to make sure we do a good job building on that and start faster and better.”
Georgia’s next game on the schedule poses a little bit of a different challenge for the Bulldogs – a traditional rivalry. When Georgia and Auburn meet, emotions are involved more than they may be in other games. After all, the two teams have met 126 times before Saturday, making it one of the most played matchups in all of College Football. It could be a stage that creates more anxiety for a young Georgia team. It could also be just what the Bulldogs need to get going fast and shake off the slow starts they’ve had the last two weeks.
