Georgia scout team unsung heroes of National Championship per Kirby Smart
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — There was plenty of praise to go around after Georgia shellacked TCU 65-7 for the 2022 National Championship. Stetson Bennett has gotten plenty of love. It feels as if Todd Monken might be near blank-check territory and the defense, well, it held one of the nation’s most explosive offenses to just seven points.
But Kirby Smart used the tail end of his post game press conference to make sure everyone knew about what happened in the lead up. When all the questions were asked, Smart gushed over the scout-team defense — the group that mimicked TCU’s confusing 3-3-5 attack.
“I want to say one other thing before we finish,” Smart said in a joint presser with Bennett. “I promised our guys, I promised our guys – you all know I did this – you all tell them – somebody write a really good article because our defensive scout team did the most unbelievable job.”
It started with a meeting. Smart and Georgia assistant coaches met with a group of players who rarely, if ever, see the field. Those players were made to meet like they were a true defensive unit. Georgia’s new indoor facility allows for that because it has meeting areas for the scout team.
The players and support staffers responsible for preparing the scout team studied. They watched film together. Their objective was to emerge from that room when they could do it better than the Horned Frogs.
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Did they actually do it better? It can be argued that the Georgia “look squad” did a better job than TCU did on Monday night. Texas Christian gained just 188 yards of total offense. The Bulldogs sacked Heisman Trophy runner-up Max Duggan five times and they racked up nine tackles for loss. The Horned Frogs went 2 of 13 on third and fourth down.
It was domination and plenty good enough and there were no shortage of folks who deserved a pat on the back — that includes an early enrollee from the 2023 class.
We had a guy CJ Allen, No. 6, he did it as good as they did it,” Smart said. “We had Collins, 57, he did it as good as they did it. We had guys be their guys and do their defense exactly right. Until the last day we were walking in there, they were giving an unbelievable look. That set our offense up for success. Scout team makes a difference, and we had a hell of a scout team to give these guys a look.”
