Georgia defense aware of mistakes ahead of Kentucky
The Georgia defense had a weekend to lick its wounds following a 41-24 defeat to Alabama. After a game that featured several swings, thanks in large part to turnovers and missed opportunities by Georgia’s offense, head coach Kirby Smart said the defensive unit has recovered from their performance against the Tide.
“They're in a good place,” he said. “Each one of them individually got some goals and things to work on. They worked really hard on those things. We understand that, when you play a team like Alabama, there are going to be matchups that are one-on-one. We lost too many of those. The goal is to get better. How do you lose less of them? How do you lose less one-on-one matchups? Well, you go back to the drawing board and work your tail off. You get better at tackling. If you watch teams fundamentally across the country, we’re trying to say we're going to out-fundamental you. We're going to get off blocks, and we’re going to strike people. We're going to tackle people better than the people across from us. There's no magic potion for it.”
Smart said the players each accepted their mistakes in an effort to learn from them.
Defensive back Lewis Cine even made a vow on behalf of the defense.
"Alabama has a lot of great weapons on offense, but we need to play our assignments correctly and composed, even when things aren't going well or how they should,” he said. “Next time we play another team like Alabama, we will play to our standard and not allow certain plays to go by and capitalize on opportunities."
Jermaine Johnson had some shining moments in his return from injury. The senior linebacker tallied four tackles against Alabama, including a sack and two QB pressures. Georgia’s defense as a whole has created plenty of “havoc” this season, which Johnson attributes to not taking themselves too seriously.
“I don’t know. We’ve just been cutting loose,” he said. “It’s been a big point of emphasis at practice. The ball, the ball, the ball. So, I think it’s just been guys playing fast and trusting their technique to go out there and make plays. It’s been no secret formula or anything. We’ve made more of an emphasis about the ball and been trying to attack it as much as we can.”
Even after his performance, Johnson remains cognizant of the fact that Georgia must limit mistakes if they are to win a game of that magnitude.
"When you have two teams like Alabama and Georgia—Alabama is a pretty great team, and we have a pretty great team— so when you have teams like that, with players like that, plays are going to be made,” he said. “You can only hope that either your team makes more plays, or your team makes the least amount of mistakes. It’s a football game. Things happen, and things happened a little more in [Alabama’s] favor, and they executed very well.”
While the Georgia defense is focused on correcting their mistakes ahead of the matchup with the Wildcats, they aren’t above looking forward to a possible rematch with the Crimson Tide.
"You're going to win some and lose some; it's part of the game,” Cine said. “Mistakes were made on our part, and they capitalized on them and made more plays. We're going to correct them and be ready for when we play them again.”