Too many 'WTF" moments

There’s a different acronym head coach Kirby Smart revealed Monday that’s being used to describe the mistakes made by his players: WTF.

Use your imagination, and consider yourself correct.

Saturday’s 49-3 win over Oregon might have seemed impressive, but during Monday’s press conference to preview this week’s game against Samford, Smart did not see it that way.

There were simply too many “WTF” moments for his liking.

“It’s like usual, when you go back and watch the tape, it’s never as good as it seems and never as bad as it seems. That’s kind of the mantra coaches use,” Smart said. “You put in the tape, and you think you played pretty well, then you see some glaring mistakes, errors that you made that you got away with. It brings you back to reality really quick when we watch it Saturday night and Sunday morning.

"I was pleased with the way our players went about it, they overcame some mistakes with effort, and I saw them celebrate other players which I thought was awesome.”

Linebacker Trezman Marshall asked a reporter if he knew what “WTF” means. “I didn’t want to say; I didn’t think anybody else did,” Marshall said. “But I wanted to see if you do.”

Marshall acknowledged that most players do indeed have their “moments.”

"Usually, in my case, if I have a WTF moment, it means I bit up on the run too much, and I’ve got to turn and run,” Marshall said. “Besides that, I really don’t think I have too many WTF moments.”

Correcting those moments will be a huge focus for the Bulldogs during their game Saturday against FCS Samford (4 p.m., SEC Network).

Eighteen different players (including 12 true freshmen) saw their first action for the Bulldogs. That doesn’t include numerous players who only received limited reps last year.

Between the two, that’s a lot of players who, in Smart’s mind, need to improve quickly, before the season continues much further.

“They have a lot to improve on. There were a lot of mistakes, mistakes that they’ll tell you were like—we call them WTF moments: 'Why did you do that? You didn’t do that all year,'” Smart said. “The largest growth for those games is games 1-3 in terms of reactions to those mistakes. I’ve always wondered, what makes a guy fortunate to not make some of those glaring mistakes? I’ve come to accept them, because for me, it’s more of your response to them. I guess we’ll get to see what those young freshmens' response is this week.”