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Kirby Smart acknowledges Georgia's home-field advantage vs. Alabama, downplays importance

On3 imageby: Jake Rowe16 hours agoJakeMRowe
Georgia Football
Nov 29, 2024; Athens, Georgia, USA; A general view of the stadium during the game between the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets against the Georgia Bulldogs during the second half at Sanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

Kirby Smart will soon get a chance to coach his eighth game against Alabama, the place the employed him for nine years while Nick Saban was head coach. Georgia has lost six of the seven chances thus far, but none of them have been at home where the Bulldogs haven’t lost a game since 2019. That’ll change this time around.

Smart is often quick to talk about how difficult it can be to play on the road in the SEC. That’s why he’s also able to acknowledge that there’s an advantage when Georgia gets to host a team inside the friendly confines of Sanford Stadium.

But, to that point, being home or away is never the most important factor in a game. Performance is key.

“The atmosphere helps, the crowd noise helps, being familiar with your surroundings and all that stuff helps,” Smart said on Monday. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to go play football, and it comes down to matchups, it comes down to who blocks and tackles the best, who executes and does things in the key moments of the game. So certainly glad it’s at home, but we’ve still got to play well.”

Georgia has experienced some incredibly tough road environments over its past 17 games. The Bulldogs have played at Alabama, Texas, Ole Miss, and Tennessee, going 2-2 in those games. They lost at Alabama just a few days short of one year ago after falling behind 28-0 in the first half. The Bulldogs battled back to take a 34-33 lead in the fourth quarter, but the Crimson Tide needed just one play, a 75-yard hookup between Jalen Milroe and Ryan Williams, to score the game winner.

With its back against the wall, Georgia went to Texas and got a 30-15 win in October. Then it lost 28-7 at Ole Miss in November. Both the Crimson Tide and the Rebels lost two weeks later to send UGA to the SEC Championship game. Smart and company have played just one SEC game this season and it was at Tennessee, a game they won 44-41 in overtime.

All of that speaks to the fact that it is tough to win on another team’s home turf. Georgia struggled mightily with a lackluster Kentucky team last season in its first true road game of the season. There are other examples of such play in the past.

Still, when it comes to being challenged on the football field, Smart believes other things outweigh where his team is playing.

“I mean, the toughest place to play is where the best players are,” Smart said “So when you have really good teams, they’re hard to play against. I don’t know that the atmosphere alone makes it that way. I mean, there’s a point of no return, like (Texas) A&M, it’s really loud. I coached there when I coached at Alabama. Auburn, one of the hardest places, Tennessee, one of the hardest places. I mean, they’re all hard, LSU, they’re all really hard to play. And I think ours fits in that same category of hard to play in. But it’s what you’re playing against that makes the difference. I don’t like making it about the athletic department, what kind of atmosphere they create. The fans create the atmosphere, not the athletic department. And our fans have done a great job of giving us a competitive home-field advantage that is equal to other places in the SEC.”

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