Kirby Smart satisfied with Georgia crowd, despite concerns over complacency

It would be understandable if Georgia fans weren’t exactly fired up for an opening game against UT Martin.

After all, the Bulldogs have won each of the past two national titles and were 50-point favorites heading into the matchup.

However, Georgia coach Kirby Smart loved what he saw and heard from Bulldogs fans on Saturday. Georgia opened the season with a 48-7 victory and the packed crowd was into the game from the start.

“Our fans were elite tonight,” Smart said. “I’ll be honest with you, I was concerned about complacency among our team. But I was also concerned about complacency among our crowd. And I thought the first time having a night game [opener] in it seems like it’s been a long time. So the atmosphere was really good for our players. We didn’t exactly respond to it well early. But I thought our fans were really good.”

As Kirby Smart alluded to, it wasn’t exactly a flawless start for Georgia. Despite being huge favorites, the Bulldogs were only up 7-0 at the end of the first quarter and 17-0 at the half.

However, eventually Georgia settled in and pulled away for a dominant win. Smart felt like his team was prepared going into the game. Moving forward, he’s hopeful the Bulldogs will perform better once the game begins.

“We talked a long time this week to our players about setting the standard for how we prepare for games — like during the week of practice. And how we prepare for games on Friday and how we prepare for games on Saturday. And I thought they did a really good job of that every day. And then setting the standard for how we play the games – we probably didn’t meet that criteria,” Smart said. “But I did think we had some players grow up out there today. When you look on the sideline and there’s five or six guys that are dinged up or banged up, we knew there were going to be some butterflies for some guys, particularly on offense. And I thought they grew up tonight.”

Up next, Georgia hosts Ball State on Saturday, before opening SEC play when South Carolina comes to town on Sept. 16. Smart expects his team to continue to improve and for the fan support to continue to be strong as the season unfolds.

“We get feedback. The next step in this process is ‘What is the feedback?’ … We’ve got feedback on the tape now. So we get to watch the tape and say, ‘What does the feedback say?’ And figure out who we are and where we go from here,” Smart said.