What Was Said: Kirby Smart after Georgia win over Missouri

Georgia defeated Missouri 26-22 on Saturday night in Columbia, a tough road win in the SEC for the Bulldogs. After the game, here’s what Georgia head coach Kirby Smart had to say in his postgame press conference…

Kirby Smart Opening Statement

“Two things we talk about all the time is composure and resiliency and we had to OD on those tonight because we certainly didn’t start very well, start in good field position. Look, I couldn’t be prouder of our guys. At halftime, nobody blinked, nobody questioned. It was the most together I’ve ever seen our team. The theme this entire week was do it for your brother and do it for each other. I thought they hung tight and did that. That said, there’s a ton of things to clean up and a lot to get better. I would be remiss if I didn’t give Eli, his team, the Missouri Tigers, the atmosphere they had tonight, some kudos, too. They played really physical, really hard and whipped our butt up front, but I’m proud of the way our guys played. When we had to run it, that was about the only time we could run it when we had to.”

Smart on Georgia’s final two drives of the game.

“I hate that we had to do that. It begs the question why we couldn’t do that earlier. The determination they showed. We always talk about rising to the competitive nature of the opportunity. The opportunity arised tonight and they answered the bell. If we don’t answer the bell earlier then we won’t be a very good football team. We’ve got to improve in those areas. It’s not like we haven’t been working on it prior to tonight. We’ve seen some of those things show through. Give Missouri a lot of credit. They tried to make us one-dimensional. It was tough sledding tonight. We didn’t have our best night for sure.”

On defense in first half limiting Missouri to 16 points

“They should. Let’s be honest. We’ve got better players than Missouri up front on our defense. I hate to say that but we do and Eli knows that. He did a great job running the ball, managing the clock. He shrunk the game. I thought he did a phenomenal job of attacking it, taking shots, but our defense rose up. Give Schumann, Muschamp and the defensive staff a lot of credit. They stayed aggressive. There were a lot of players hurt out there. Jalen Carter went down. We’ve got guys dinged up. Warren Brinson’s dealing with a groin. Smael’s out a while. I don’t know how long he was out but there were a series of plays he’s out. We’ve got Trezman out there and it feels like he’s on one knee. He’s struggling and didn’t get to practice much during the week. They fought. The biggest play of the night is probably Malaki Starks tackle on the 1-yard line or if it was 1-foot. It allowed us to stop them and we have played good red zone defense.”

Kirby Smart on Malaki Starks’ game-saving first-half tackle 

“It says he’s got a lot of ability. We didn’t fit the play right. We had two guys bust on the play, just things we don’t do. But for the most part, we bottled up the run. If you take that run out we controlled the run game all night. But that’s a big play for Malaki; I think he tried to strip the ball out.”

Smart on the performance of Jack Podlesny 

“Unbelievable. Think about the pressure on each one of those kicks. I feel for the kid. We’re repeatedly putting him out there in those pressure situations; he’s so confident and he has a way about him, he’s got a routine that he really believe in. He was the MVP of the night, him and Daijun Edwards for sure.”

On Jalen Carter injury update 

“It’s a knee, but I don’t now how bad it is yet. He tried to go back, he couldn’t. We think it’s an MCL, which is probably good news. Tough, too, because it was a tough block, a tough, tough cut block that they do well. He wanted to go back, but he couldn’t go back.”

Kirby Smart on what he saw from Stetson Bennett

“You know, Stetson didn’t play his best game.  I think he’d be the first to tell you. I don’t know whether the atmosphere got to him. He kept his composure. He led two really good drives down the field. The one drive before the last drive, he made some big time throws. But he missed some throws tonight, and I think he’d be the first to tell you he didn’t play his best game. That’s not all Stetson’s fault. That’s some of my fault, putting a lot on him on the road. That’s some of, Coach Monken will take some of that. We all take it as an offensive staff and a head coach, some responsibility of maybe we’re asking him to do too much. I thought he did a good job of what we asked him to do. He does have to be more accurate.”

Smart on Kelee Ringo’s performance

“Well, Kelee’s one of our veteran guys. He’s played the most, you know what I mean? They threw the ball at Kelee and Kamari a lot, but we also made them through it to them. When they can’t run it, what are they going to do? They’re going to throw it at those guys. We’ve got to make some plays on the ball, you know what I mean? There’s several opportunities that I feel like Kelee should have had a pick, and it turned into an incompletion or maybe a PI. He’s got to play with a little more confidence. Same way with Kamari, He had a great play on the last drive, Kamari did, that he played a double move and did an outstanding job. When you play corner in our defense, you’re going to be under attack because it’s hard to run the ball.”

On the attitude on the sideline when things weren’t going well

“It was great. We had a great mantra this week that every player had to pick one brother and he wasn’t leaving without him. He had to hold him accountable for whatever it is that that guy wanted to be held accountable for. I thought the message for the whole week was, are we taking the 11 best up there or are we taking the best 11? There’s a big difference, there’s a big different. Eleven best doesn’t win. When stuff goes wrong, it fractures. When you take the best 11, they stay together. This team bonded tonight. Now don’t get me wrong – we’ve got a long way to go. But the resiliency and the composure they showed made me proud.”

Kirby Smart on why the emphasis was togetherness this week

“I didn’t want to make it all about Missouri. You make it about the opponent all the time, you gotta make it about yourself. You gotta make it about improvement. About us getting better and not always talking about the opponent. I thought our guys bought into the wantness and having each others’ back. There were guys saying it in the locker room at halftime. There was a lot of confidence in that locker room. That was a program win in a game we did not play very well. The history of the program and the guys believing from last year helped us in the fourth quarter.”

Smart on the defense being exposed

“Oh every game is going to expose us. We got exposed on defense the week before and we worked on things to help with that. It helped us. So they did some really good things tonight that I’m not so much as sure if exposed is the right word but they certainly did some things that guess what, we have to have some answers for and we have to get answers for them fast. It starts with getting some wide receivers healthy and being able to run the ball.”

On cleaning-up mistakes, turnovers

“It’s frustrating but it happens in football. You don’t ever want to put it on the ground. but we had three games without any maybe. Then all of a sudden you get a little rash. We’re not getting them back. We’re not playing the ball in the air. I think Chris(topher) Smith should’ve had a pick. We should’ve had some opportunities to get the ball off them. We can’t put the ball on the ground and be successful. We have to do a better job of managing that.” 

Kirby Smart on Daijun Edwards

“He’s tough, man. He’s from the neck of the woods where they grow up playing football where they’re five, six-years-old and he just wants to carry the football. He took some shots tonight and got some hard-earned yards at the end. The physicality at the end of the game was really impressive by our offense. We do that drill every Friday and say you have to get two first downs on the defense and they’re allowed to put every guy they have in the box. I’ll be danged if they put every guy in the box and we still got two first downs and we couldn’t do it all night.”

Smart on the toughness of Edwards

Well it was the difference in the game. That and Pod, right. The toughness he showed, the resiliency he showed on that last drive. Let’s be honest, Kenny and Kendall did a great job too. Kenny is out there like a wounded man. I mean the guy was running for the team. Great effort, great toughness, running over people. There’s no way you can say he was 100 percent. He was doing it for his team. 

On Darnell Washington’s performance

“Couldn’t agree more. A lot of credit goes to Darnell and Stetson showing confidence in him to throw the ball in his area code and he goes and gets it. People don’t give guy a lot of credit but Darnell was one of those leaders in the locker room who said, ‘I want to run the ball. Get behind me. Let me move people.’ There was a play out there where he absolutely, on Brock Bowers screen, I thought it was a touchdown but it got to the one foot line that Darnell just destroys a guy. There’s no value you can put on that.”

Kirby Smart on Kenny McIntosh being banged up

“He didn’t do anything Monday but he practiced the rest of the week. He’s not full go. We’re trying to get him back. It’s a quad contusion. I don’t think it got worse tonight so hopefully he’ll recover quickly. But in this league, man, who’s not beat up? I promise you every team in the SEC going home tonight is beat up. It’s physical. It’s tough. It’s why you’ve got to have depth.”

Smart on Missouri’s resiliency and field goal kicker

“It’s incredible. He was incredible going into the game. I talked to Eliah (Drinkwitz) before the game and told him I’d have done the same thing you did, sit on the ball, kick the field goal to win. He found a way to lose it twice. You can do anything different and that kid comes out tonight and makes a field goal. A lot of credit to Missouri’s players, man. Their defense… and I felt that way going into the game, defensive coordinator we know well. We share a lot of ideas with him. He’s really aggressive. They played us tough.”

On what Missouri’s defense did so well

“Disruptive. I mean, they just attacked the line of scrimmage, you know? And you’ve got to make them pay for it usually on the perimeter. There’s a lot of — I wouldn’t call them unsound, but not worried about the past and they’re really aggressive. And they make up for it by getting hits on your quarterbacks. They timed up a lot of good pressures. The Hopper kid from Georgia [Tyrone Hopper] played really well for them and made some plays. They did a good job.”

Kirby Smart on if the coaching staff does or says anything when your offense has a bad first half like that

“Composure and resiliency, right? Give the players a way to help themselves. Your job as a coach is how do you help your players in moments like that. Claude told me walking over here, ‘You had to work tonight.’ Well, yeah. There’s a lot of work that goes into that because it doesn’t — especially, with a little more wisdom, it doesn’t do any good to yell and scream and holler and hoop and holler. The kids want to do well. You’ve got to help them. The environment makes that hard, and part of that is planning. You know, having a good plan that if things aren’t going well, what can you go to? You know, we’ve always relied on our ability to run the ball in these tough moments like this, and we didn’t really have it tonight. We had it at the end, but we didn’t have it early.”

Smart on Missouri’s big plays through the air

“They were throwing it and catching it. I don’t know which ones you’re talking about, to be honest with you. We played a lot of man. I mean, they’re going to throw and catch the ball, and man, I didn’t think they destroyed us passing the ball or anything.”

On if he can put his finger on what the issue was in the run game in the first half

“Gettin’ yo ass whipped up front. That’s what the finger was. Like, when you put on pads and you’ve got to strike another man, and he’s across from you and he weighs 300 and you weigh 300, somebody wins and somebody loses. So, the finger is we’re gettin’ our butts whooped, OK? Now, scheme-wise, we can maybe help them out. We can do some different things. We can look and find some things. Gap plays helped us. You know, we ran some gap plays, and that really helped us. But, when you’re not running the ball well, you’re usually getting whipped.”

Kirby Smart on what he learned from his team tonight

“Composure and resiliency, man. They believe in it. They believe in each other. They never doubted. But that doesn’t solve the problem that we’ve got to get better. I mean, you sit around a hotel all day and you wait to go to play a game, and everybody in the world thinks you’re going to go out there and blow some team out. I’ve been in this league too long, man. I know different. I know these environments you’re walking into, and you know what? It’s going to be really hard next week, too. And it’s going to be really hard the next week. And it’s going to be really hard two weeks after that. It just doesn’t change. You guys may think it’s going to be easy at some point, but I promise you, it’s going to be really hard in the SEC every week.”

Smart on Arian Smith coming back

“I didn’t think the guy would be back, to be honest with you. I mean, Ron [Courson] didn’t think he’d be back as quick as he got back. He got back and he made a play tonight, showed some confidence. We need him. I mean, if he had been coming along at this point — I’ve just got a lot of hope for him, and then the injury pulled him away again. And now he’s back out there and we’ve got to find a way to get AD [Mitchell] and back. And we’ve just got to get healthy at wideout.”