Kirby Smart gives honest assessment of team after Auburn win

AUBURN, Ala. — Saturday’s showdown against SEC rival Auburn gave Georgia head coach Kirby Smart another opportunity to learn about his team.

Two weeks after trailing at halftime to South Carolina, Smart watched as Georgia overcame a 10-0 first-half deficit to go into the locker room tied. With a chance to take even more momentum, opening the second half with the ball, the Bulldogs turned it over on the first play from scrimmage. They were trailing once again just three plays later.

Walking away victorious in the end, it took composure for Georgia to come from behind. The Bulldogs tied the game at 17 with 1:03 to go in the third quarter. They took their first lead at the 10:57 mark in the fourth quarter, and after Auburn matched Georgia’s 20 points with 6:21 to go, the Dawgs needed one more score for the win.

“I’m proud of ’em,” Smart said after the game when asked what he told the team. “Resilient as hell, competed. You know, the leadership of this team has shown up twice, and you don’t know how many times you’re going to be able to do that when you turn the ball over and you give people extra possessions. You just can’t do that.”

“Obviously we didn’t play our best game today, but we’re a very resilient team. I’m proud of the way we competed, and we’ve got to continue to get better,” he added. “That’s the most important thing for our team. There were a lot of things we did wrong. A lot of things we did well. But we’re not going to get where we want to go if we don’t get better, so that’s the biggest thing.”

Smart harped on the turnovers – specifically the one out of the half – and Auburn’s 219 rushing yards as problems that need to be addressed. Notice that’s one on each side of the ball, and the issues go hand-in-hand. When the offense gives it to the opposing team in plus-territory twice and that turns into 14 points, the defense feels the pain. When the defense can’t get off the field because the opponent is rushing as well as Auburn did, the offense feels a bigger burden on them.

Smart, who came off as rather confident during his halftime interview with the TV crew, said that the early issues he felt like were a result of playing on the road for the first time. As a former player and longtime coach in the league, he knows just how tough that can be. The response however was exactly what he wanted.

“We all stayed composed, all stayed together,” tight end Brock Bowers said. “I’m just so proud of all the guys in our room. We really fought through and grinded it out.”

“We’re a composed team, and we’re resilient. It continues to show,” quarterback Carson Beck added. “Those are two of our four DNA traits. We’re connected, came in and knew we were going to be on a composure mission. That was the theme for the week. It was going to be loud, and we stayed calm, cool and collected and ended up winning.”

After the game, Smart was rather excited. When he’s oftentimes on the cool, calm and collected side – just like he wanted his players to be – he showed tons of emotion coming off the field, throwing his visor into the stands. It was his was of releasing everything that gets put into each and every Saturday. While fans might be frustrated about execution issues – and Smart is too – the head coach understands it’s not easy to win any given game.

“They all matter. They all feel good,” Smart said. “We put so much into this, 16-18 hour days for five, six, seven days. These kids work really hard, and there’s a lot of buildup so when you have a situation where you were behind – I don’t know how many times, it felt like we were behind the whole game – and you come back and win on the road, it says something about your team and your character. Nobody panicked.”

“I don’t know how good of a team we’ve got. I really don’t,” he continued. “I don’t sit here and proclaim that we’ve got some unbelievable team, but I do think that we’ve got a team that believes in each other, we connect and we step up when we need to step up.”

Georgia, still ranked No. 1 in the Coaches Poll released on Sunday, hosts No. 20 Kentucky this coming Saturday in Athens. The Wildcats are undefeated and coming off of a big win over Florida. Kickoff time at Sanford Stadium is set for 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN.