Kirby Smart on message to Georgia critics: ‘I don’t say anything to them’

There had been some chatter coming out of September that Georgia wasn’t the same Georgia anymore. For Kirby Smart, though, he doesn’t care one bit about any of that noise.

Smart stayed steady postgame after the best performances of the ‘Dawg’s season, a 51-13 win over No. 20 Kentucky, on Saturday night. He said that he had nothing to say to their doubters when they looked a little off and will still not have anything to say to them after they looked like their old selves against the Wildcats.

“I don’t say anything to them – I’m worried about our performance,” said Smart. “I didn’t say anything when we didn’t look well, I’m not going to say anything now.”

Smart has one focus and one focus only. He wants the Bulldogs to get better week by week so that, regardless of where the polls rank them throughout the year, they’re the top-ranked team after the final game of the season.

“I’m really concerned with what we can do from this game to get better for the next one because we want to be elite at getting better,” said Smart.

“I don’t care, I don’t care (about being No. 1). I want to be the number one team at the end of the year,” Smart said. “The goal to get there is to get better. I could care less where everybody ranks us.”

If the goal is to get back to the College Football Playoff, this weekend’s 38-point beatdown of Kentucky calmed some nerves in regard to Georgia’s shot at making it back to that stage. After five games of decent enough play, the Bulldogs finally burst onto the scene with a season-high of 51 points plus 608 yards on offense while holding UK to a season-low of 13 points and just 183 total yards.

Still, no matter what anyone says or writes about Georgia now, Smart isn’t interested whatsoever. All he sees it as is a step in the right direction for his team in their title defense rather than a justification for a spot in a poll that, frankly, he doesn’t care about to begin with.

Smart warned Georgia players about Kentucky taking shots

Kentucky did not do itself any favors against Georgia. Nothing ever really got going because of the constant penalties called against them.

Kirby Smart said Georgia was ready for Kentucky to come out firing a bit. He said, before the game, that they warned the team about some shots the Wildcats would take. He wanted to make sure his team was going to keep a level head and not retaliate in any fashion.

“Our team had great discipline tonight to not get cheap penalties,” Smart said during his postgame press conference. “We told them. We said ‘Hey, look – Kentucky is going to have some penalties. They’ll have guys push you or shove you’. I just said don’t respond. I thought our guys were really good.”

Smart believes it proved the kind of discipline his team has — something not everybody talks about.

“People don’t ever talk about the discipline our team has,” Smart said. “I respect our guys for not retaliating or taking shots when people do things to take shots at you.”