Kirby Smart goes off at suggestion that he was calling a timeout against Auburn

#collegefootball #georgiabulldogs #georgiafootball

Georgia coach Kirby Smart speaks to reporters following Georgia’s 20-10 win over Auburn.

More from DawgNation: https://www.dawgnation.com/

DawgNation Social:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/DawgNationUGA/
X: https://x.com/DawgNation
IG: https://www.instagram.com/dawgnation/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dawgnation_uga

Follow the Team on X!
Brandon Adams: https://x.com/DawgNationDaily
Mike Griffith: https://x.com/MikeGriffith32
Jeff Sentell: https://x.com/JeffSentell
Connor Riley: https://x.com/kconnorriley
Kaylee Mansell: https://x.com/MansellKaylee
Cody Chaffins: https://x.com/CodyChaffins

The latest news about UGA Sports is brought to you by the staff of DawgNation.
#DawgNation #GoDawgs #UGA #georgiabulldogs #collegefootball

opening statement is uh tale of two halves. Um our kids never quit. I’m proud of our kids. I’m as proud of this team as I am probably any team ever for the performance they had because we did not uh come out, start fast, play well. They outplayed us. They played with momentum, tempo, run game, uh stopped us running the ball really in the first half and frustrating, but the kids never quit. And that’s never been more evident than a punch out on the goal line, which we practice all the time. And Rayan, CJ, whoever did it, it was amazing play that they’re not in until they’re in. And that’s our saying, they ain’t in till they’re in. And there were some long faces over there. But kids did a great job. Really uh electric atmosphere to play in. I thought at halftime, the the coaching staff did a great job allowing the kids to have some confidence. the drive before the half uh kept us alive and uh I think we were the stronger team in the fourth quarter and that’s what we pride ourselves on. So really proud of these guys. Take questions. Coach, what’ you tell your football team that win? I’m not allowed to say that. I did that a while back and I got reprimanded by my mother. So I I’ll use much better judgment this time and just tell them that I was proud of them. There were some guys in that room that played hurt, injured. Bo continues to play both sides. Micah’s hanging on by a string. Monroe went out on an injured ankle. Drew Bobo came back to a place that uh that he was committed to once and and and uh you know, it just it meant a lot to me to have these players go out and play the way they did. What did it look like for the coaches confidence at what defensive adjustments did you guys make? Zero. strike blockers, play blockers, better tackle, you know, um we we we we changed a couple things, but they were minor and things you guys wouldn’t understand. No offense, but it was just uh complicated and at the end of the day, we we won first down and gave us a chance to win third down. When you don’t win first down, I think we had five or six third and one or twos in the first half. You’re not stopping a quarterback run team on third one and two. You’re just not doing it. I mean, teams don’t stop us. Um, you got to get them in third and long and uh, we were able to do that better in the second half. I never got an explanation. Of course, it took the longest I’ve ever seen. Um, all I was told was someone saw a clear recovery, but they thought he or said he was down. I still don’t know if he was down. The official said that he was down. Uh, not an official that watched it. A different official said that he was down when his back was on one of the guy’s legs, but I saw the ball from the sideline jostle out. I couldn’t tell if it was across the line or not, but I didn’t know who got it. And then Kiren popped up with it way downfield. Um, but there was no explanation given. How different was it? Uh, how different is the game that play down poss? Yeah, it’s huge, right? I mean, how different is it? It’s seven and three, right? It’s 10-point swing. Seven for them, three for us. It’s 10-point swing and that’s a that’s a huge swing in the game. But look, we didn’t just get given, we didn’t get given a touchdown. We had to or field goal. We had to go get it. And when you come start on the one inch line and you sneak one, you bust a run out, you go two minute, you operate well with no timeouts and have a chance to score a touchdown and kick a field goal with a little over a minute. I I was proud of those guys. That that that gave us juice in life that we needed. I can’t hear anything you’re saying. She said drunk drunk drunk. Can you ask them to hold it down? That one’s trying. What can you say about just composure during the game? Well, he’s got he’s got composure. He’s got Yeah, that’s never been an issue. Composure is my issue, not his. He’s got great composure. He uh he’s got poison in the pocket. He’s tough. He takes hits. I mean, none of none of that surprised me because he’s got it right. We have to uh play more effectively in the first half. your final touchdown drive 8 minutes and 45 seconds on the clock 17 drive. What does it say? What can you mean for this drive? That that’s really who we are though. Like we don’t have these explosive plays and I’ve come to the conclusion y’all want them. Yeah, we’re going to scheme for them. We’re going to put them together. We’re going to keep doing it. We’re going to try. We’re going to throw the ball down field. We’re going to hit Noah. But that’s who we are. We’re a stay out of third long. We’re going to run the ball. We’re going to hit quick passing game. We’re going to use gunner’s legs. And we’ve had several of those if you think about it. these long drives. The problem is we’re having them on defense, too, you know, and uh it’s hard because I felt like the the first half we spent the whole I was 20 to six or I don’t know what it was, but the time possession was way out of whack. And um I’m okay with that. It’s your identity, but you need to play really good defense behind that kind of identity and and we’ve played okay defense. I mean, we we we it’s crazy how good we can play at times and how poorly we can play at times. Coach, you shut them out in the second half defensively. I know you said you didn’t make any defensive adjustments, but you know, when you try to pull off come back, how big was that? That was huge. I guess it’s the second time we’ve done it. I mean, really the third if you count Kentucky with the guys that were in the game, right? I mean, so I don’t want to say there’s not adjustments. Schuman and his staff do a great job. They made some different calls, but an awareness of what they were running after an off week, they hit us on some things that that uh honestly we didn’t rep and uh we had to rep them and we had to get get it fixed. We got it fixed, but we block. We play blocks and tackle people better. And that’s that’s that’s football. Why do you think the first half has just been so hard, especially with some of the slower starts for you guys? I don’t know. I wish I knew. I mean, I I would tell you if I did. I I asked the team that question afterwards. We got to get it solved because it’s it’s hard when you’re this style of team to play catchup. It’s not really who we are. Um but uh we got to get better. running 79 yard where you got to get better with that running like crazy. Yeah, I don’t know because that stat maybe is misleading. I don’t know. I’ll look and see how we are efficiency. I know we took how many sacks? I know one, two, and uh I don’t know how some of those things operated in there, but it was not the running game that we’ve had in the past and theirs was right. So, we showed them the stat that eight of the last 10 Auburn Georgia games were won by the team that rushed the ball more and that wasn’t the case tonight. And uh it’s is I still think we got a good running team and a good stop the run team, but I think they had a really good plan. Some of their rushing yards were uh perimeter things, rockets we call them, and that hurt us, but it wasn’t direct runs. How are you specifically of the mentality, the resilience it takes for a defense to bounce back in the first play? I don’t understand you’re asking. You’re saying how how do I feel about him or Well, like you mentioned being proud of the team overall, but that aspect of the defense specifically. How proud are you of that? Just the ability to bounce back up those first. I mean, awesome. Like like the reason they did it is because the offense possessed the ball. I mean, the fourth down stop for us and them. It was, you know, you can go back and forth. Should we have gone for it? Should we have not? Should they have gone for it? Should they have not? Both teams kind of sputtered on offense and defense started to take it over and it was, you know, it was some tough decisions made out there. We going for it or not? Kicking this long field goal or not? uh 3 to six margin on a field goal ain’t a lot, but I didn’t have much choice and so I had to play the game with the confidence of the defense and he probably was the same way. What’s it say about that, you know, seems like you guys were getting consistently late. Yeah, that that’s that’s a little misnomer because those are run plays. I mean, those are not uh you know, those are RPOS’s that if you’re talking about the ones on the perimeter, he caught Dylan blocked really good for him and burst. And I mean, those are runs and that’s uh that goes as catches, but that ain’t that’s not counted as a catch. That’s a run for us. You got a lot of questions about Noah Thomas. How big was that in this game? Yeah, I I you know, you everybody makes a big deal and that kid has worked so hard. He is in the huddle every game talking to defense, special teams. He’s full of energy. He practices so hard. There’s not one thing that he’s not doing right. And we have got to do a good job of and we did take some shots to him tonight. I thought he could have came down with a one. I thought it was close to a PI. You know, we’re trying to find ways. Well, he did have a PI. So, he had one that was a PI and one that wasn’t and those were both passes for him. And then he had the the override he called that he almost scored on. So, um, we’re going to do the best job we can to give those guys shots. We got to protect it, uh, and keep our quarterback upright and, uh, he’s got to hit them. I’ve never seen you so passionate after the table. You’ve never seen me do that. I don’t think I have. Never seen me. Anybody in the room get a second? I mean, like, like what are we talking about? Georgia, Florida, I don’t do that. I climb in the stands. What does this mean to you? I mean, so much emotion from you and the players going up. I mean, I just it’s so much goes into these games, guys. I mean, we got another one next week. So much emotion and so much energy. And uh this one was special for me because my dad uh I took Andrew today to little small town called Slap Out, Alabama. They they built a baseball field with my dad’s name on it. And they wanted to take me over there with a trooper and an escort. And I said, “Nope, I’m just taking me and Andrew. We’re going to go look at my dad’s field is named after him.” where I was born, a trailer behind a high school with two teachers that didn’t have anything coming out of college. And we loved it. And uh to go back and see that field where he was and you know, I mean, I I grew up coming to Auburn, so this place has always been very unique um to me. And uh they play on the video board me talking about Jordan Harris. So I’ll give them another sound bite. You know, it’s a great place to play. They can keep playing me here and show their recruits that. That’d be really good. But, uh, I’m proud of those guys in the room. Uh, is emotional for me because of, uh, my father being from here and a lot of his family went to Auburn and just proud of our staff. When did they name the field for him? And we can name that. They named it a couple years ago. He helped builds a baseball field there a long long time ago. Late 70s, won a state championship and u, I wanted Andrew to see it. So we went and just he and I whatever took a picture and had a good time together to try to get my mind off all the emotion and drama built into these games. A lot of pressure. I mean I got a lot of respect for Hugh guys. Hugh is one of my good friends and we talked before the game about you know what does it come to that that that you know I mean you feel like you’re playing for everything every week and it’s a game that we all love and there’s 130 of them. Guess there’s 131 now. There’ll be another one next year. I’m just happy for these players that they get to enjoy this. Did you guys want to take more shots at halftime or did you guys just protect cover better and how much you stretch the field in the second half? We just wanted more snaps. I mean, I don’t know how many snaps we had in the offense before that last two-minute drive. We just wanted opportunities. We were three and out, whatever. We had one little drive going. We took a sack on a miss protection deal. So, it it was tough. But it wasn’t about taking more shots. It was just being efficient. That’s who we are. We’re a five, seven, eight, four, five, seven, eight. That’s why we got 17 yard 17 play drives. We we we we have a coaching staff that puts together a good plan to go operate it. We’re not a uh it’s not a dynamic dynamic offense right now in terms of vertical speed and throwing the ball down field. Yeah, they’re clapping. So, I told him before the game, if these guys clap, it’s a penalty. They can’t clap because we’ll fault snap. I’ve lost games on that before in the stadium. And I told him, I said, “If they clap, I I’m going to tell you, I got somebody in the box watching every play.” They were clapping. So, I ran over to him and said, “They’re clapping. They’re clapping.” And uh he thought I called timeout. And so, I wanted to make sure he understood, “Go lipre.” Because I’m screaming, “They’re clapping. They’re clap.” I didn’t need a timeout because we were going to get it off before the shot clock. It was two one. We were gonna get it off before the the play clock ended and I didn’t need a timeout. It was the fact that they were clapping. I wanted them to call it because it’s a penalty. I saw you talking with Gunnar after fourth quarter touchdown. Frustrated that you didn’t get out of bounds. No. Go down. We won the game. So, they’ll be sending people to investigate that one because that’s a three to seven. It’s a three to 10 score. But we were we were we were we were we were thinking slide slide. He didn’t hear us say that. We had told all the players that we’re going to get the ball and Gunner thought we meant if we score we win and I was saying if we slide we could snap. We didn’t have all we do is kn the ball out. They couldn’t stop the game. So we had to go out and play those defensive snaps for no reason. That’s another analytics. Got time for one more question. Coach, you had an emotional moment with McCra and Branch right after the game. What did you talk about with them and how they fit into this offense? Yeah, I I just love those guys. They’re both uh guys that came in here from other programs, really good programs, and love love Georgia and competed. I wanted them to get a taste of this atmosphere and be able to enjoy it. They both played well and did good things for us. But really proud of this team, guys. That’s the message. Nothing else needs to be said than than how hard these guys played in the face of a tough crowd and tough adversity. I mean, we need a better atmosphere than that next week by our fans. Thanks, coach. We’ll have players coming in here directly.