UGA Football: Georgia vs Vanderbilt Game Breakdown With Shockley, Zeier, and Howard

The No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs continued preparation Wednesday Sept. 22, prior to Saturday’s Southeastern Conference matchup against Vanderbilt. Head football coach Kirby Smart met with the media on the SEC’s weekly teleconference call while players offered comments after practice.
Head Coach Kirby Smart
Opening Statement…
“We’re excited for this game and trip to Nashville. Our guys are excited for the opportunity. We didn’t get to play them last year, so our guys are looking forward to it. We have to get off to an early start with the early kick time.”
On playing good defense without some starters…
“The key to that is a good off-season, recruiting well, and playing a lot of players last year. A lot of these guys that are playing now, played some last year. We’re playing a lot of people this year. Somebody said 23-24 guys played in one game. That is what we build this defense on. Moral, effort, playing a lot of guys. When you do that it doesn’t matter who starts. It doesn’t matter how many returning starters you have because a lot of guys have played.”
On the defensive front…
“They play hard. They play with effort. They are good football players. I mean UAB ran the ball on us really well. We have to be able to play with a lot more consistency in what we are doing. We have to be able to mix that at a rate that we don’t give up explosive passes like we did last week. You can’t be good at one thing. You have to be good at both, and we’re not. We are functioning at one or the other each week and not both. That is what our goal is.”
As you might expect, Georgia quarterback JT Daniels has a favorite football movie. What that movie is, which he revealed during a Quick Chat after Wednesday’s practice, you probably wouldn’t expect.
It’s not “Remember the Titans” or “Friday Night Lights.” It’s not “The Waterboy” or “The Longest Yard,” two football comedies with Adam Sandler, or even the original “Longest Yard” with Burt Reynolds. No, Daniels’ favorite football film stars Andy Dick. Seriously.
A redshirt junior from Irvine, Calif., the 6-foot-3 and 210-pound Daniels in the two games he’s started this season has completed an exceptional 45 of 61 pass attempts (73.8%), for 438 yards and three touchdowns. All three of those TD passes came in last Saturday’s 40-13 win over South Carolina, with the scores going for 43, 38 and 4 yards.
As we sat for an interview in the Georgia offense’s team meeting room after practice Tuesday, senior nose tackle Jordan Davis, sporting some gym shorts from his days at Mallard Creek High School in Charlotte, N.C., looked happy and at ease. As he revealed during our Quick Chat, he is.
Davis is a 6-foot-6 and 340-pound irresistible object and unstoppable force — and that’s just his engaging personality. Whenever his playing days are done, Davis could go on to a great career talking football on television. Or maybe he could wind up on “Saturday Night Live.” Always regarded by his teammates as one of the funniest Bulldogs, Davis said he was more interested in sketch comedy than trying stand-up.
The preseason All-American is one of the leaders of the No. 2-ranked Bulldogs’ defense, a unit that didn’t give up a touchdown until last Saturday against South Carolina, in the 12th quarter of the season. When Georgia opened the season by beating Clemson 10-3 in the Dukes Mayo Classic in Charlotte, it was a very special experience for the hometown kid, a three-star recruit who has gone on to become one of the best defensive players in the country.
🗣 "We’re not practicing to beat somebody, we’re practicing to beat 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘!" —@KirbySmartUGA @GeorgiaFootball #SECInside pic.twitter.com/z3bLCE7eGd
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) September 22, 2021
OK LADD 👀 pic.twitter.com/dDzjdShBsq
— Kirby’s Vi$or (@VisorTalk) September 22, 2021
ATHENS, Ga. — University of Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart, along with a pair of defensive players previewed Saturday’s first SEC road matchup against Vanderbilt. The Bulldogs and the Commodores kick off at noon p.m. ET in Nashville, TN.
On Tuesday, Coach Smart, and seniors Quay Walker and Jordan Davis offered the following comments
Head Coach Kirby Smart
On finding a way to develop young players…
“It’s a continuum… You always play the guy that gives you the best opportunity to win the game. That’s what you do, and every decision we make is based on our opportunity to win the game. We don’t, I don’t know that we look down the road and practice. We say ‘okay, this guy is really talented but he doesn’t know our system offense or defense or special teams, but he’s talented, so we might put him in a position to get reps and be a two and grow.’ And then ‘hey, we’re up in this game let’s get him in there and let’s get him some experience.’But we never put him in there before another guy gives a better chance to win, because one play can decide a game. You know the left tackle boxed the wrong guy and the quarterback is hit from the blindside and I would never, I would never put somebody in there before they were the best guy to play the game I guess I don’t know if I’m answering your question”
On Darnell Washington and Tykee Smith…
“They both were running and doing cardio yesterday. They did a good job and ran today. They did not do their position work, meaning they didn’t go and take reps. But that was just walking off the field and they both ran really good today, they both hit at really good speeds. I talked to both of them walking off the field, they felt really good about where they were and they felt really comfortable. They’re not in cleats yet, you know cleats aren’t the best thing to run in for that foot injury. But they are in the rubber turf shoes, and they’re running really well. They’ve built up their volume so we’ll increase that tomorrow and see where they are. They’re in a much, much better place, and I’m really pleased. I saw them running with black shirts on today and I thought, ‘who is that guy that looks fast?’ But it was Tykee and Darnell.”
How the Bulldogs in the NFL fared in Week 2:
Bears 20, Bengals 17
Alec Ogletree, OLB: Ogletree posted three tackles, had one quarterback hurry, and defended one pass for the Bears.
Roquan Smith, ILB: Smith returned an interception 53 yards for a touchdown for Chicago. He added a team-high eight tackles, including a sack, and a quarterback hurry. Smith is sixth in the NFL with 19 tackles.
Trey Hill, OL: Hill was active for the Bengals, but he did not see any action.
Rams 27, Colts 24
Leonard Floyd, OLB: Floyd registered six tackles, including a sack, and three quarterback hurries for the Rams.
Sony Michel, RB: Michel had 10 carries for 46 yards for Los Angeles.
J.R. Reed, DB: Reed saw action on 11 special teams plays for the Rams.
Matthew Stafford, QB: Stafford went 19-of-30 for 278 yards and two touchdowns for Los Angeles. He is fifth in the NFL with five touchdown passes and seventh with 599 passing yards.
Rodrigo Blankenship, PK: Blankenship hit field goals of 48, 46, and 35 yards as well as one extra point for the Colts. He stands eighth in the NFL with four field goals.
ATHENS, Ga. – A season opener against Oregon in Atlanta, eight Southeastern Conference games and the annual tilt against Georgia Tech highlight the 2022 Georgia football schedule announced Tuesday by the SEC.
The Bulldogs will open the season against Oregon on Sept. 3, 2022 in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. This will mark only the second time the two football programs have met. The one previous meeting resulted in a 27-16 home win for the Bulldogs in 1977.
Georgia will host SEC contests against Auburn, Vanderbilt and Tennessee and will travel for league matchups against South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi State and Kentucky. The Georgia-Florida game will take place Oct. 29 in Jacksonville.
2022 Georgia Football Schedule | ||
---|---|---|
Sept. 3 | Oregon | Atlanta, Ga. |
Sept. 10 | Samford | Athens, Ga. |
Sept. 17 | South Carolina | Columbia, S.C. |
Sept. 24 | Kent State | Athens, Ga. |
Oct. 1 | Missouri | Columbia, Mo. |
Oct. 8 | Auburn | Athens, Ga. |
Oct. 15 | Vanderbilt | Athens, Ga. |
Oct. 22 | Open Date | |
Oct. 29 | Florida | Jacksonville, Fla. |
Nov. 5 | Tennessee | Athens, Ga. |
Nov. 12 | Mississippi State | Starkville, Miss. |
Nov. 19 | Kentucky | Lexington, Ky. |
Nov. 26 | Georgia Tech | Athens, Ga. |
2022 Alabama Football Schedule
2022 Arkansas Football Schedule
2022 Auburn Football Schedule
2022 Florida Football Schedule
Kirby Smart said he can't say if TE Darnell Washington and DB Tykee Smith will be cleared for Vandy but isn't ruling them out.
— Marc Weiszer (@marcweiszer) September 20, 2021
George Pickens update: pic.twitter.com/HHbnpi5zn0
— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) September 20, 2021
ATHENS, Ga. – University of Georgia head coach Kirby Smart and select players offered the following comments from Monday morning’s press conference. The Bulldogs will head to Nashville, Tennessee this week to face off against Vanderbilt on Saturday at 12 p.m. ET. This is the first meeting between the Commodores and Bulldogs since the 2019 season.
Head Coach Kirby Smart
Opening statement…
“I hope we can continue to do this and looking forward to having you all today. I warn you, be careful today because we’re probably having to go inside due to the rain, so it’s going to be a very confined space for us, it’s really tight out there, so you’d be on your own. I’m excited to get to work on these guys, you know, we didn’t get to play them last year with the COVID-19 kind of experience we had. Headed to Nashville where our fan base always does a tremendous job and turns out, so excited about that. We’ll have to prepare for an early preparation, because it’s very, very different when you have pregame meal at possibly 7,7:30, so that’ll be different for us. One of the things I forgot to mention is excited about the ‘Dawgs On Tour’ and the money that our pro golfers are raising—I want to give some awareness to that and those guys are challenging everybody to make pledges for the number of birdies they make—so somebody told me I need to make a pledge, so I’m pledging one dollar per birdie for those guys. You don’t think it’d be much, but somebody told me that could get anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, but those guys are giving back to the university and I think it’s great. Anybody that plays here, as an amateur, and then goes on to become a professional and be able to give back, which those pro golfers have done, I think it’s a tremendous honor for them to do that and want to help out with that.”
On Sedrick Van Pran…
“Sedric is a guy who we’ve always thought was really talented and we went and recruited him out of New Orleans. He’s got a wonderful family and he’s got relatives right in the Cobb County area that have come to games. I know his family comes up and stays. So he’s an exciting—really a great kid—very, very sharp kid who processes information really well, makes decisions and protections, makes points, does a lot of good things for our team. I think his growth was fast-forwarded through Warren (Ericson) being injured He would have gone a lot with the two’s anyway, but he got thrown in with the one’s, got a lot of good work in, and grew, and got better. His accuracy with snaps has continued to improve and must continue to stay at a high rate because the number one thing to success from an offense is number one, getting the snap, and he’s done a nice job of that. He’s had a couple, you know, plays in each game that make you go ‘What were you thinking there?’ He’s got to get those out, you can’t have—you may get beat physically and then very rarely does he get beat physically, but he can’t have mental lapses or, you know, do things on your own, and I think that part he’s still a work in progress, but I love his work ethic, I love the way he practices and leads and you can tell he’s going to be the kind of guy that leads in the right direction for the future for this team.”