Field Street Forum

University of Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart and several Bulldog student-athletes offered the following comments on Monday.

Head Coach Kirby Smart

Opening statement … 

“We are moving forward and have been getting prepared for this game since really yesterday morning. We will have our first practice today. I’ve got a lot of respect for these guys, having worked there for a long time. They’ve got a really good program. They’ve got really good football players, physical at both the offensive and defensive lines, extremely physical and extremely big. They do a really good job in special teams. They are always well coached, play the best players on special teams, similar to the way we do. This is what college football is all about, so we are looking forward to the matchup.”

On the prolific offenses in college football and how Alabama has succeeded so well on offense … 

“What’s made them succeed well is players. They’ve got really good players. Sark [Steve Sarkisian] does a great job of implementing the system that the kids can execute. It’s based on really hard guys to cover outside. They’ve got one of, probably the best backs in the country if not one of the best backs in the country. Najee [Harris] runs the ball really hard, and they are massive upfront. So, offensively, they are not built like some of these teams that go tempo the whole time and go hurry-up the whole time. They can go up-tempo and they do tempo well, but they are really big, they can take shots down the field with explosive wideouts they have. They make you defend the entire field.

“I think college football as a whole is more offensive because the rules lend it to be that way in terms of allowing — you can have linemen a little further down field in college, so the RPO game gets to be big. You can do tempo in college football at a lot higher rate. Tempo hasn’t been successful in the NFL because you get your quarterback hit and, to be honest with you, a lot of those NFL teams their linemen aren’t built to go tempo. They are not built to go 70, I mean 100 plays a game, and go really fast. A lot of the teams that have the most success statistically are tempo teams in college football. I think that has a lot to do with the success and the numbers you are seeing. Alabama capitalizes on a great system with a really good scheme and really good players.”

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21

Tennessee 2-1 , 2-1

44

 Georgia 3-0 , 3-0

ATHENS, Ga. – The third-ranked Georgia Bulldogs defeated the 14th-ranked Tennessee Volunteers 44-21 Saturday at Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium in front of a crowd of 20,524 and a nationally-televised audience on CBS.

After trailing the Volunteers 21-17 at halftime, the Bulldogs came out in the second half and shutout Tennessee 27-0 in the second half of the game. It was the second year in a row that Georgia has shut Tennessee out in the second half.

“I certainly didn’t expect it to go that way. We didn’t start the way we needed to,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said. “We’ve got to show a lot of improvement in a lot of areas and just disappointed in our start to the game. Anytime you spot somebody seven [points], that’s not good. We gave up some explosive plays on defense. But the positives were we didn’t blink. We’ve got a very emotional team and I thought in the locker room, there were a lot of emotions shown. … We’ve got to improve our ability to execute and play with discipline and composure, and we didn’t do that at all times today.”

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By John Frierson
Staff Writer

The Georgia defense, which had allowed one touchdown and three field goals through two games this season, faced its first big dose of adversity on Saturday afternoon at Sanford Stadium. If the third-ranked Bulldogs were going to knock off No. 14 Tennessee, which was putting up a good fight, that vaunted Georgia defense had to tighten things up a bit in the second half.

It very, very much did.

Georgia linebacker Monty Rice, who forced a fourth-quarter fumble and returned it 20 yards for a touchdown, produced more points than the Volunteers did in the second half. Led by the defense’s second-half shutout, the Bulldogs won going away Saturday, 44-17.

“We might just have the best Defense in college football right now…” — Former Georgia receiver Tavarres King tweeted late in the first quarter Saturday.

And here’s what former offensive lineman George Foster tweeted: “Dude, this defense is primed to be the best that has come through the school. Straight up DAWGS on every level(.)”

It would be hard to argue with that through three games.

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Defense Pitches Another Second Half Shutout:
Third-ranked Georgia shut down UT in the second half for the second straight year, allowing no points and only 71 yards on 39 plays plus the Bulldogs had a defensive score of their own in a 44-21 victory to snap UT’s eight-game winning streak. Thanks to five Bulldog sacks, UT finished with minus one rushing yard, tallying 214 yards of total offense. Last year, Georgia held Texas A&M to minus two yards rushing in a 19-13 victory here. Georgia came in ranked fourth nationally in Scoring Defense and third nationally in Rushing Defense. Last season, Georgia led UT 26-14 at the half, pitched a shutout with a defensive score, and won 43-14.

In the first half today, Georgia surrendered 21 points to No. 14 UT, however one score came by the Vols defense and another was a one-play drive (36-yard TD pass) as Georgia trailed 21-17. In the first half, UT had 143 yards (19-rush, 124-pass) of total offense on 24 plays with eight first downs. After a failed fourth down attempt by the Bulldogs in the 2nd quarter, UT took over at the UGA 36 and threw a game-tying TD pass to Palmer with 6:40 left.

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