Georgia defense uses positive reinforcement for bounce back performance
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia’s defense was a topic of conversation last week ahead of a test versus Kentucky. Knowing what was being said publicly after the Bulldogs gave up over 200 yards on the ground to Auburn, Kirby Smart took matters into his own hands and handled matters within the walls of the football building. Instead of harping on the negative, Smart found positives that could be built on from the disappointing performance, and those showed with more consistency Saturday against the Wildcats.
“The first thing we did on Monday after the Auburn game was, we showed them 10 clips of unbelievable run defense against Auburn,” Smart said in his postgame press conference on Saturday. “We had some unbelievable strikes and blow delivery and getting off blocks. That’s what playing run defense is. We were really positive with them and showed them doing it right, and they responded to that.”
In Smart’s mind, that was the best way to move on. He has a pulse on his players and knew that they’d take to heart the desire to do better next time out.
“You just go on gut feeling. I mean, where are they? How are they practicing? Do they buy into what you’re believing or do they buy into what you guys are believing?,” Smart said.
“They have to understand the truth of what’s on tape, and the tape says, strike, block and play well against the run on certain plays,” he continued. “Not playing well on certain plays, some of that’s by lack of repetition. We didn’t practice it. Some of it we didn’t play physical to our standards. If you show that you can do it, we’re going to show you can do it. We don’t try to overthink it, we just try to show them what the truth is.”
The end result of the positive reinforcement was a much better outing against Kentucky. Georgia allowed just 183 total yards, it’s lowest number on the season, to bolster Bulldog rankings in the top-25 nationally for scoring defense (No. 10, 13.0 points per game), rushing defense (No. 23, 103.67 yards per game), passing defense (No. 11, 166.2 yards per game) and total defense (No. 11, 269.8 yards per game).
Georgia is one of just seven teams in the country – and the only one out of the SEC – to rank top-25 nationally in all four of those categories. Others are (alphabetically) Air Force, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Michigan and UCLA.
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Still, the Dawgs think that they can get better. Several players said so after the game. Tykee Smith expanded upon that theory on Monday.
“I think there’s a real upside. We look to improve every week,” Smith said. “Like today we’ll go to the meetings, go to the doctor, kind of fix the corrections, and go from there where we can improve at.”
“Just not trying to hold our heads down over one performance. Just trying to take it week by week,” he added, speaking on the bounce back from the Auburn outing. “I think the gameplan the coaches put together for this past game was a real good, well all the game plans are really good. But I think we really dialed in on this game plan and were able to go out there and execute.”
Georgia hits the road this Saturday to take on Vanderbilt. The Bulldogs are heavy favorites, coming in with a 31.5-point spread according to VegasInsider. Kickoff time from Nashville is set for 12:00 p.m. ET, 11:00 a.m. locally, on CBS.
