The Georgia coaches harped on it all through practice this week.
The No. 2 Bulldogs heard from their coaches they needed to buy into their role. In order to beat No. 8 Arkansas on Saturday in Sanford Stadium, they needed to not just know their place, but embrace it.
Georgia's defense did just that on Saturday afternoon, stifling the Razorbacks all day long in a 37-0 win.
The numbers show just how historically dominant Georgia's defense is.
Saturday's game marked the Bulldogs' first time posting consecutive shutouts since 2006. This is their first instance of back-to-back SEC shutouts since the national championship season of 1980.
"All we told our defense all week is, you ain't played nobody," Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said after the game. "We're going to tell them next week that they ain't played nobody. We're going to keep preaching to get better and grow."
Smart added that all week, the staff told the players they needed to buy into their role on the defense. Each player has a specific job to do, and 11 players all doing their job makes for a dominant defense.
For linebacker Nakobe Dean, that's trusting his teammates to close to the inside while he scrapes to the outside. Defensive linemen such as Travon Walker are tasked with occupying multiple offensive linemen to free up linebackers such as Dean to make tackles.
That can be hard for some players to sacrifice their own stats. Walker said that's not the case with this unit.
"This is a connection thing with us as a team," Walker said. "I feel like our connection is as great as it’s ever been. That just goes with being a team player and trying to go on and do better things."
That connection has been forged over the past several months. The team held what have been dubbed "skull sessions" over the summer to learn what motivates each and every player.
When the opponent threatens to score, Dean said they remind each other of their "why." That helps the group re-focus and keep opponents out of the end zone. Through five games, the Georgia defense has allowed just one touchdown.
The defensive coaching staff also helps keep the players motivated. They keep them hungry with talk of being elite and the ever-elusive Georgia standard.
"They've really done this great messaging, where they're showing elite defenses," Smart said. "The teams that were like super elite—the Ravens, the Bears. What's happened is, everybody wants to be them. Everybody wants our defense to be those guys, emulate those guys. It's really made them not go about playing the opponent. We're playing the standard, and we're playing this, 'Can we be this elite team?'"
Through five games, the Bulldogs have been nothing short of elite. The defense itself has allowed 13 points through 20 quarters of play. The Georgia offense put up 14 on its first two drives on Saturday afternoon.
The old saying of defense wins championships might not be as true as it once was. But through the early part of this season, Georgia's group is certainly trying its best.
"We've got this really good vibe on our team of complementary football—offense, defense, special teams—and the defensive coaches do a great job of selling to the defense that, hey man, what you're doing is elite. It's special," Smart said.
