Kirby Smart discusses back-to-back undefeated SEC seasons after win against Kentucky

CBS Sports sideline reporter Jenny Dell brought up a good stat about what Georgia had just accomplished with a 16-6 win at Kentucky on Saturday: The Bulldogs are just the third program in the last 40 years to have consecutive undefeated conference season in the SEC.

A pretty good tidbit by most any measure and Dell cited her source for that note as Georgia head coach Kirby Smart. Smart had apparently shared that fact with the broadcast team at some point and then discussed actually accomplishing the feat with Dell on the field.

“Well, it means somethings for this program,” Smart said, “Because I have immense respect for this league. And when you play in this league, you play on the road, you win two years in a row, it shows what kind of character your team has. It’s tough. It’s hard on the road. So, that was the next step. That was kind of the momentum to play this and now we gotta go get ready to play a big rivalry game.”

While the Bulldogs didn’t blow the doors off Kentucky, Smart wasn’t particularly concerned about that, either.

“We got a good team, we’ve got a bunch of good players that play hard. We knew it would be this kind of game against them. We talked all week, ‘You’re going to get limited possessions because they’re going to eat the clock.’ And they did a great job of that. And we didn’t play great red area offense and we didn’t stop people on defense. We let them control the game a little bit with the tempo. But, really proud of the way our guys played,” Smart said.

Smart had harped on more efficient offense going into halftime

On a Saturday when a handful of top contenders and unbeaten teams have had to gut out some really close wins, Georgia found itself in a dogfight with Kentucky on the road. The Georgia-Kentucky game was a defensive struggle in the first half.

Georgia led 9-0 at halftime, with Kentucky doing a nice job shortening the game.

“Our offense is operating really well, we’ve only had I think maybe four possessions, I’m not sure,” UGA coach Kirby Smart told CBS sideline reporter Jenny Dell at halftime. “So we’re being efficient. We’ve got to do better in the red area; we’ve been efficient, we just haven’t scored touchdowns.”