What Was Said: Kirby Smart reacts to Georgia win over Florida

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The top-ranked Georgia defeated rival Florida on Saturday in Jacksonville 43-20 thanks to 36 unanswered points by the Bulldogs after facing an early deficit. To help spark the change was Carson Beck in a homecoming to Duval County, Ladd McConkey stepping up big in the absence of Brock Bowers and the UGA defense playing like folks expected them to all season long – creating turnovers and getting after the quarterback. Here’s everything Georgia head coach Kirby Smart had to say after the win…

Kirby Smart Opening Statement

“We came in with the idea of focusing on the mindset of mission, team, me. We wanted to put the mission first, the team first and me last. We had a lot of guys do that today. We knew if we did it together, we’d put ourselves out there, and we knew we’d play winning football.

I feel this team is improving; we’re getting better but we’re still not where we need to be. But I’m proud of the competitors that went out and fought today for our university. I was proud of our fans, they supported us even though we did not start the way we wanted to. But we responded and played well. We were able to control the line of scrimmage, which ultimately is the difference in this conference. If you can win the line of scrimmage, you’ve got a chance.”

Smart on Carson Beck’s poise…

“I don’t worry about Carson; apparently you guys do. But I don’t worry about Carson. He’s very confident, he’s very calm, he understands football, he’s never too high, never too low. He studies really hard. He texts questions all week. He studies and meets with Coach Bobo. He puts a plan together and he makes good decisions. He’s continued to improve by not putting us in bad situations. There are things that are not on the stat sheet that I don’t have time to explain, but he does an elite job with run checks, looks, puts in the best play, the decision to throw the RPO or hand the ball off. There’s not really a value you can put on that. I know as a defensive coordinator there’s  nothing worse than feeling you have the right call, then he moves the back, he moves the tight end and you got a bad call. That’s tough.”

Smart on how the Florida rivalry fit into his initial plans of building a program…

“You can’t win the East without going through Jacksonville most of the time. It may not play out that way, but in year’s past we showed them the stat where 8 of the last 10, seven of the last 10 it’s come through Jacksonville, any maybe more than that.You’ve got to beat the best teams to win your division and Florida has certainly been one of those historically.”

Kirby Smart on the early score and what the defense responded…

“Not really. We’re kind of used to that. We gave it up to Vanderbilt, I think South Carolina. I think both of those games. But there’s not a lot of panic in that group. They need to rectify starting the game better, but the comfortable part is that nobody panics, we had some mistakes, some anxiety, we hadn’t played in two weeks. Give them credit, they threw the ball to a really good playmaker. We talked all week about Wilson was a really good player, and they did a great utilizing his skill set and we didn’t do a great job stopping him. But it wasn’t like there was a panic mode. It was can we control the run game. If we can control the run game, we’ll eventually slow down the throwing.”

Smart on all three units playing like they did today without Brock Bowers…

“It’s great. I told people this offense, I mean, it’s not built around one player. I mean, since Bobo was here before and had success offensively and Todd Monken was here and had success offensively and Coach Monken and Bobo came — like, it’s not built around one player. It’s really built around the defense. That’s the beauty of it is that you don’t have to have just one guy. Brock is certainly extremely valuable because you can scheme plays to make him the guy. Well, today they were plays we’d run with Brock that were just somebody else in those spots. 

And it’s not always Delp. I thought Delp did a tremendous job, especially momentum early in the game to go up and make that catch that he made. But Brock knows that. Brock’s over there to support those guys.”

Smart on if he was surprised Florida went for it on fourth down and how they did it…

“Not surprised they went for it at all. I actually had had the staff meeting before the game. I told them, I said, ‘My gut intuition is this game’s going to come down some short-yardage situations.’ I said that typically when you play Billy, he’s very aggressive in terms of analytics and believes in it, and he has a lot of fourth downs he goes for it on. We’re going to win some, we’re going to lose some. But, you know, we’re going to go defend it. We’re going to work really hard on that. I told the offensive staff, ‘If it comes down to a third-and-1 or 2 or a fourth-and-1 or 2, we’re going for it. And, shoot, they’re going to go for it, so let’s make sure we walk through that and do that more in the next 12-14 hours.’ And I’ll be danged if that play — it was early in the game where you can still overcome that play, but it was certainly a big momentum play that we thought if we had our eyes in the right spot we could play it.”

Kirby Smart on the ability to get tackles for loss and sacks today…

“Well, they gave us an opportunity to. You know, drop-back pass, you get a chance to. We don’t get a lot of opportunities for that in earlier games. The more people drop back and pass, the more we’ll be able to get to them. I thought our defensive staff — Schumann, Muschamp, Tray, and Fran — did a great job. They put a couple new wrinkles in that really helped in terms of getting pressure. We didn’t just do the same thing we always do. I think there was one call that we got 2 tackles for loss and maybe a sack all from that call that we had not run all year.”

Smart on if the turf was OK today…

“I didn’t really — I did ask some people before the game that it was called ‘lay and play’ and it concerned me because when you do lay and play, is it ready? We do it at our place, and I saw the seams, you know, so I was worried about it. But I never noticed anything during the game. Was somebody complaining about it? Was somebody complaining it?”

Smart on Shemar James getting hurt on the turf…

“He played. He played. But I asked them. I said, what’s the deal? They said they laid it over a week ago. We laid ours yesterday, and we’re going to practice on it Monday. It’s probably the same stuff. I think they do it all across the country for bowl games and things like that. I did not notice any issues with that, but I did see the seams in the grass.”

Kirby Smart on the blocked punt…

“Huge play in the game. Great scheme. Our special teams staff came up with it. We wanted to be aggressive, and we were. Joenel, they actually gave us a formation we had not seen, and Joenel made a great job, knocked it out. You only get two out of that because they ended up kickin the punt to us, and we didn’t do anything with it. It was really not as significant as you would like a blocked punt to be.”

Smart on the ability to reload despite losing so much talent…

“It’s really about the retention of our staff and our players. We have lost some really good players, and we have really had some injuries. I think the total effect has been that our kids believe. There’s a culture in our building of discipline. We don’t get penalties. We’re one of the least penalized teams in the country. We don’t beat ourselves. We have a quarterback who gives us an opportunity. We’ve got defensive players that play really hard. It’s a recipe for you to have success. The margin of that success is certainly measured, by you guys, by wins and losses, but for me, it’s the character of the kids I get to coach.

Smart on Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins coming back…

“We talked about it. Everybody was asked. You never asked about him, so all you have to do is ask. He was back during the week. He’s not completely healthy, but we shut him down for six weeks. We felt like it was time for him to come back. He said, coach, this foot’s either going to give or it’s not. I can’t keep sitting. I’ve gotta go play. He felt really good this week. I don’t think he was in very good shape, but he was an added boost for us, just morale-wise, to get a guy back that we think could’ve had one of the best years, and he hasn’t been able to. So I was really proud of him to get that sack, the first fumble of the season to recover.”

Kirby Smart on Ladd McConkey…

“I think it came at the right time, right? With Brock out, had Ladd step up and make plays. We’ve gotta keep him healthy because he’s such a weapon. He’s such a competitor. The yards after catch is what he gives us that a lot of other guys haven’t done. He catches it and runs with it, and he does a tremendous job. But hey, you’ve gotta give the O-line a lot of credit for the protection to get it to Ladd and the quarterback for making some plays. That third-down play he made was really special.”

Smart on the offensive line…

“They’ve played good a lot. They played a good team, and they zeroed us, they blitzed us. Carson was able to make good decisions. The play to Dillon Bell was probably the back breaker. Really incredible he was able to make that throw. They were in good coverage for it, Dillon beat his guy, Carson made a great throw and Dillon made a great catch. The protection was there too.”

Smart on Oscar Delp…

“Oscar’s great. He didn’t feel any more burden. We told him he wasn’t going to play anymore snaps than he normally does. He was going to go out and compete and work hard. Lawson Luckie gave him a blow, and hey, that’s why you recruit guys. You bring them in to play, and I wouldn’t say that he’s (Luckie) exactly ready for it. He got hit a couple of times in the run game, but he’s going to have to get ready for it. I’m talking about Lawson, not Oscar. Oscar did a tremendous job. He’s a very physical blocker, and the one handed catch he made over on our sideline kind of got momentum going.”

Kirby Smart on Amarius Mims and how close he was to playing…

“Don’t really know. I talked to him a little bit before the game. He felt like he was close, but it wasn’t completely ready yet. We’ll see again when he gets another week of rehab. Monroe is getting better with these reps, and Truss is too.”

Smart on key to Beck’s development…

“Carson’s commitment to getting better. He had really good coaching. He played in a really good system and was around really good players and he watched them. I honestly think the reps we dedicate to our 2s and 3s all year round make it easier for us to transition to next year. I felt great about Carson coming into the season because of the work he had had. We made him go out and go against the one defense. He plays against good teams.”

Smart on defensive performances and benefit of that to the offense…

“The field position battle. That’s overwhelming to a defense when you constantly feel like you’re up against a wall and the offense is starting, I don’t know what yard line we were on those two times but those were big momentum builders.”

Kirby Smart on look ahead to Missouri…

“I don’t care about the schedule. Whatever it is, it is. We just strap it on and go. It’s going to be a big one next week. That’s a really good team, I’ve always said they’re extremely physical, big, tough. Eli does an incredible job on offense. Nobody is playing better on offense right now in the country than they are with their quarterback. We looked at them during the off week. We took a day and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to look at these guys before we move to Florida,’ and they’re good. They’ll be well rested coming into our place.”

Smart on a typical Tuesday night for him with first rankings release…

“We look at all our tape. We watch practice, and then we go third down plan and go over that. I don’t even see it (rankings). I get text messages about it and things like that, but we all know the deal. You’ve got to win the games you play and take care of that. The rest is out of our hands.”

Smart on Brock Bowers being there Saturday…

“I just wanted to make sure he rehabs, puts my own eyes on him.

No, he’s great, he’s the spirit of this team. This guy ahs been in every meeting. He was in the punt walk through today. He goes to everything. He’s front and center, on time, ready to go and still he gets all his rehab done. That’s just the kind of kid he is. 

And everybody looks him. We’ve had other guys get that injury and they disappear for weeks. They come back. He hasn’t missed anything. He loved football. and he loves this team.”

Kirby Smart on the outside noise by the national media…

“I don’t even hear it. I literally don’t. So I don’t even address it. I think they may hear it because they’re on phones 24/7 and it bothers me that they may hear that our they may feel anxiety or pressure. At the end of the day the quickest way to lose it is to think about that. So when you think about attacking somebody and coming after them every play. It’s the mindset of Jason, Friday the 13th. They can’t kill Jason, he keeps coming back. You have to keep going that way aggressively so that you’re not paranoid about that. I don’t but I don’t see it or hear it. But I know it’s out there. Somebody texted me before the game, predicting all these people… we’re not going to win today. Golly, where is that coming from. You’re supposed to be my friend. He didn’t like to recruit though so it gets him.”

Smart on Daijun Edwards…

“I think he’s an unbelievably tough kid. Has great vision and balance. People hate tackling him and he plays behind a really good offensive line and offense. And he makes the most of it. You’ve not met a more durable, tough… I mean he picked up a blitz today and he threw it up in there and he’s about 200 pounds and the guy coming is 230-240. It says a lot about him and who he is.”

Smart on his evaluation of Missouri’s wide receivers…

“That wouldn’t be fair. I had one day. I know how talented they are. We recruited both of them, one of them hard. I know they’re terrorizing defenses across our conference. They’re extremely talented in a good system.”

Kirby Smart on starting fast on defense…

“I think we’re awake. If anything we’re overdoing it. We think it over, we think too much. We do a lot with our players, do a walkthrough, do a 100 play script the day before the game. Maybe we’re overdoing it. Maybe we’re a little nervous. I don’t know. I’d rather have them finish the way they finish than start the way they start.”