Georgia on mission in 2022 to do something last year's team didn't

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart joined Scott Van Pelt on Thursday night’s SportsCenter and shared an interesting tidbit into the mindset of his team this year. Reigning national champions and sitting at No. 1 in the College Football Playoff rankings, the Bulldogs have an opportunity on Saturday to take the first step towards something that last year’s team didn’t do: win an SEC Championship.

Of course, the game in Starkville wouldn’t lock them into that, but it would secure the SEC East for a fifth time in Smart’s seven years at the helm. Georgia however has only won the big game in Atlanta once, coming in 2017 over Auburn.

“That is awesome, but that is the last thing on our mind,” Smart said in response to Van Pelt asking him about attempting to be the first repeat champion in the College Football Playoff era. “This team’s driving factor is they really want to win an SEC Championship. You can’t really do that without winning in Starkville. They want to do something last year’s team didn’t do, and we didn’t win the SEC last year. So it’s one step at a time, and you can’t win the SEC until you win the SEC East.”

The Bulldogs took control of their destiny in the SEC East last Saturday with a 27-13 win over previously unbeaten Tennessee. The Volunteers came into Athens for a highly anticipated game ranked No. 1 according to the College Football Playoff committee while Georgia held that title in the eyes of the AP and Coaches poll voters. It was just the third time in history that two No. 1 teams met during the regular season, so it’d be understandable why one would want to celebrate the win. Not the Georgia players though.

“Our players have got a great DNA trait. They talk about it each week. There’s good leaders,” Smart said. “You know, I was worried coming into the team meeting Monday about them patting themselves on the back and being all high and mighty about the Tennessee game. We were going to have a memorial service to kind of bury that game and put it away, but a bunch of the players came to me and were like, ‘Coach, you don’t need to do that. We’re over it. Let’s go.'”

“I really try to enjoy the moment, enjoy the victory, enjoy the moments we’ve had as a team to celebrate. You’ve got to embrace them,” Smart added when asked about how he’s found a balance between celebrating being on top of the College Football world with last season’s National Championship while also wanting more. “But it’s almost kind of reinvigorated our staff to say, ‘Okay, now what? What’s the challenge?’ The challenge this year, we don’t have the same kind of guys coming back as leaders that were like three and four year starters. But I feel like our staff has done an awesome job of taking these guys and making them believe.”

Georgia goes on the road to Starkville, Miss. to take on Mike Leach and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Leach of course is known for his unique offense while Smart’s DNA is on the defensive side of the football. And for him, he likened the challenge of preparing for the air raid to that of an Etch A Sketch.

“It’s tough, it’s unique. Thank goodness we had an off-week three or four weeks ago where we tried to prepare for Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Kentucky. We had to prepare for a lot of things. This offense we’re about to play, there’s not really any overlap between the one we’re now about to play and the one we played last week. I liken it to playing a triple option team in the middle of the season, you have to change your defense, you have to change your calls completely. It’s like starting over. We call it ‘Etch a Sketch.’ You just erase it and start all over with the players.”

Kickoff time from Davis Wade Stadium is set for 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN. Georgia and Mississippi State have met 25 times prior to Saturday’s matchup with Georgia holding a 19-6 overall advantage, the last coming in 2020 when JT Daniels found Jermaine Burton for 197 yards and a pair of touchdowns on his way to 401 yards passing and a 31-24 win between the hedges. This is just the seventh meeting in Starkville where Georgia has won four out of the previous six.