Kamari Lassiter shares motivation entering 2023 season as three-peat favorite

Heading into the summer, Georgia is the odds-on favorite to finish the 2023 college football season as national champions. But as defensive back Kamari Lassiter discussed the motivations for the Bulldogs, winning a championship isn’t the central tenet.

If the Bulldogs did win the national title this upcoming season, it’d be the first official three-peat in college football since the 1930s. But Lassiter isn’t worried about history making so much as focusing on not letting the competition catch up.

“I think we’re motivated by just, you know, not getting complacent. Not trying to stay stagnant. If we stay stagnant, then people will catch up to us. And if people catch up to you, you’re eventually going to get beat. And just the not wanting to lose,” Lassiter said.

In 2022, Georgia went 15-0, only really coming close to losing in the College Football Playoff semifinals against Ohio State. The Bulldogs were 14-1 the year prior, losing to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game before avenging that loss a month later in the title game.

With a 29-1 combined record the last two seasons, the expectations have become clear for the Bulldogs: beat everyone on the schedule.

And if Georgia does that, a three-peat will take care of itself.

“At Georgia, we want to win every game. We want to win against everybody we play. So I mean, just the will to win is what’s keeping us going, what’s motivating us,” Lassiter said.

Lassiter explained the ‘eating off the floor’ mentality of Georgia defense

Few coaches have proven as masterful a motivator as Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, who has guided his program to back-to-back national titles through a combination of elite recruiting and pushing all the right buttons.

Smart is always on the hunt for his new catchphrase, something he can get his players to rally around.

He appeared to find it during spring football practice, coining the term ‘eating off the floor’ as a new mantra. By the end of spring football practice, just about every player on the team seemed to be talking about doing just that.

So what, exactly, does eating off the floor mean at Georgia?

“Eating off the floor is just a mentality: You’re not too big for anything,” Lassiter said. “You’re not too big to do the little things right, you’re not too big to do the things that got to you where you are.”