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.”
Freshman tight end Brock Bowers has very quickly become a big, productive part of the Georgia offense, an offense that through three games is showing that it’s quite happy slinging the ball around the field.
In Saturday’s 40-13 win over South Carolina at Sanford Stadium, Bowers again led the No. 2-ranked Bulldogs in receptions and targets. He was targeted eight times and finished with five catches for 53 yards, with 26 total yards after the catch. The Bulldogs’ first offensive play was a 21-yard strike from junior quarterback JT Daniels to an open Bowers moving toward the right sideline.
A speedy 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, as he dramatically demonstrated during his 89-yard touchdown against UAB last week when he outran everyone for about 79 yards, Bowers is from the outset of his career proving to be tough for defenses to handle.
| Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 13 | |
| 14 | 12 | 14 | 0 | 40 |
| Game Stats | USC | UGA |
|---|---|---|
| Total Yards | 310 | 491 |
| Pass Yards | 214 | 307 |
| Rushing Yards | 96 | 184 |
| Penalty Yards | 9-70 | 7-52 |
| 1st Downs | 13 | 26 |
| 3rd Downs | 8-17 | 9-12 |
| 4th Downs | 0-1 | 0-0 |
| TOP | 31:57 | 27:10 |
ATHENS, Ga. — Led by another stifling performance from its defense, the No. 2-ranked Georgia football team opened up Southeastern Conference play in emphatic fashion on Saturday night at Sanford Stadium. The Bulldogs got multiple explosive plays from their offense — junior quarterback JT Daniels threw for 303 yards and three touchdowns — and a dominant showing from the defense in a 40-13 win over South Carolina.
Along with intercepting a pass and forcing a fumble and a safety, the Bulldog defense held the Gamecocks to just 96 yards on the ground. Getting persistent pressure up the middle and often from the edge too, the Georgia defense spent much of the game in the South Carolina backfield. The defense piled up 3 sacks, 6 tackles for loss, and many more hurries, pressures and quick throws. Junior linebacker Nolan Smith had a busy night with a team-high 8 tackles, including 1.5 sacks, and he forced the fumble.
Quick Summary On The Victory: Second-ranked Georgia carried a 26-6 lead into the half and won 40-13 over USC to improve to 3-0 overall, 1-0 in the SEC. The Bulldogs scored five points in the final 26 seconds of the first half, and then the defense forced a pair of turnovers on USC’s first two possession of the second half that led to 14 points. Georgia’s opponents have scored only 23 points in three games, which matches the total through three in 2019.
More Havoc By The Defense: South Carolina was limited to 13 points, tallying 310 yards on 63 plays. The final stop came on 4th-and-goal from the nine. Georgia finished with one INT, three sacks, and six TFL. With 10:55 left in the contest, USC got a 36-yard TD pass from Luke Doty to Josh Vann which marked the first TD allowed by the Bulldog defense this season. In the first half, USC was held to six points on 131 yards (8-rush, 123-pass) on 28 plays.
𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 at Sanford Stadium…
an absolutely unreal experience. #GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/06nRQYsZ5h— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) September 18, 2021
𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 | 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐫
🎙️ Voiced By: Richard Appleby pic.twitter.com/q7Wj2f6ciI
— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) September 16, 2021
