Smart on his players: "They're competitors"
It has been an unhappy Georgia Bulldog Nation following Saturday’s loss to Florida. Certainly, it's understandable that fans are upset.
They're not the only ones.
Head coach Kirby Smart said Monday that everyone associated with the team inside the Butts-Mehre Building is angry with what happened. However, with four games remaining on the schedule, starting with Saturday’s contest at Missouri (Noon, ESPN), the Bulldogs are not about to call it a year.
“They're competitors. If you have a competitive nature about you, which most good football players do, it’s about the program, it’s about the seniors, it’s about leaving your legacy—it’s about the number of wins your senior class can have and the bowl opportunities you have. It's about us,” Smart said. “I've really felt that our kids—I’m telling you—I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me, but I also felt there was a lot of fight in our kids on Saturday.”
Next up is a Missouri team under first-year coach Eli Drinkwitz, formerly at Appalachian State, who has endured some first-year pains of its own.
The Tigers (2-3) are coming off a bye week with some major injury questions on both sides of the line of scrimmage, and like Georgia, have other injury questions that will not be answered until time for kickoff on Saturday.
Bulldog cornerback Eric Stokes said he will do his part to make sure his teammates don't have any trouble getting ready for the game.
“My message to the young guys is, ‘Hey, man. You never know when your moment is going to happen. Everything is crazy that’s happening in every game, so you never know when it’s going to be your moment out there,” Stokes said. “I just want you to be ready, because I never knew my moment for the Missouri game two years ago was finally going to happen.’ .... We still have a lot to play for and all this, so I’m just going to keep motivating my young guys to make sure their heads aren’t gone, and make sure they're good."
Smart, too, prefers to look on the bright side.
“For me, I don't hone in on the adversity, the problems, the issues. We're fortunate, knock on wood, in terms of COVID. We've been unfortunate in terms of injuries, and they seem to happen in bunches. We’ve had quite a bit,” Smart said. “I certainly didn’t think coming out of the game that we would have some of these injuries we had in the Florida game. But you don't control that. You don't focus on it. You get next man up and you try to prepare those guys to play.”
No LeCounte, but no excuses
Not having Richard LeCounte to help relay the defensive signals did not play a role in Saturday’s loss to Florida, Smart said.
Although Gator quarterback Kyle Trask made it look awfully easy against a beleaguered Bulldog secondary, LeCounte’s physical presence was missed a lot more than his ability to make defensive calls.
“Richard doesn’t make all those calls. The way defenses work, you have a linebacker who makes a call, and then you have secondary sides,” Smart said. “You have a free side, strong safety side. Richard handles the strong safety side, which is usually field side. And Lewis handles the free safety side, which is usually the weak side or the boundary side. So that side stayed kind of intact, when you're talking about the linebackers with Lewis. The other side, Chris’s (Smith) side, was him and the strong side linebacker. I thought Chris handled communication very well. He’s very bright—communicates in a lot of ways just as good as Richard.”
Unfortunately, Georgia’s secondary breakdowns were so obvious that even a novice fan could tell what they were.
Florida’s success on the wheel route was of particular concern.
“Our breakdowns had a lot more to do between linebackers and coverage, communication of the free safety and the corners in the boundary, and some really bad eye control,” Smart said. “What I call eye control is, ‘Are you looking at the right thing?’ It has nothing to do with the scheme they did, just has to do with, I'm looking at what I'm supposed to look at, and I will cover him. If I look in the backfield, then I won't cover him. Don’t pop out of the ground 25 yards downfield, and we had some bad eye control, not communication.”
Smart said he was disappointed his secondary didn't do a better job, considering they spent most of their recent bye week focusing on communication and eye control.
“(During) the off week, we had a list of goals for the defense, and number one was communication coming into the off week, how we communicate in coverages and adjustments. Number two was eye control,” Smart said. “So, we really tried to harp on those things and make guys accountable for communicating. But obviously, we didn’t do a good enough job of it.”
Quotable
Smart on Missouri: “I think Eli (Drinkwitz) has done an incredible job taking over and really having locked in and gotten the ability to throw eye candy and move people around. Defensively, they play really heavy fronts. Historically, when we've played Missouri, they're hard to run the ball against, so they do a really good job of mixing things up. He's taken his offense, and you can see the elements from App State where they have a ton of shifts and motions. You know, after the last game, that's something we have to improve on. They do it really well, and they really confuse people in how they play the game. His quarterback (Connor Bazelak) is doing a really good job. It’ll be important that we clean up the mistakes we made the last game in order to not make those, and also that we play better on special teams to help our offense with our field position—that’ll be big for us.”
News and notes
The SEC announced that next week’s home game against Mississippi State has been set for 7:30 p.m. and televised by the SEC Network.
One item of note: On Monday, the SEC also announced that Saturday’s game in Starkville between MSU and Auburn has been postponed due to positive Covid tests and quarantining within the Bulldogs’ program.
