Following No. 2 Georgia’s 37-0 blanking of No. 8 Arkansas in Athens, Razorback head coach Sam Pittman and a couple of his players addressed the media. Here's a summary of what they had to say after their loss to the Bulldogs.
…Pittman, who was Georgia’s offensive line coach from 2016 through 2019, started off his press conference by congratulating the Bulldogs. The head coach praised both Georgia's offense and defense, while adding his Razorbacks didn’t do themselves any favors by committing 13 penalties for 100 yards.
“[Georgia’s] big, they're physical. Kirby [Smart] had his team ready, and I didn't. That's the bottom line,” Pittman said. “[We made] a lot of mistakes in the game. But the bottom line is we're just not where we need to be physically yet, because they dominated us on both sides of the ball.”
…When Pittman was asked specifically about the penalties—the most by a Georgia opponent since Florida committed 14 penalties against the Bulldogs in 2017—the Arkansas head man seemed exasperated and somewhat at a loss for words.
“You know, I really have no idea. I mean, we practiced it. I have no idea why they jumped offsides,” Pittman said when asked about Arkansas committing false starts on its first two offensive plays. “I mean, I'm not a mind reader. Hell, I don't know. We practiced it, we practiced it with noise, we stemmed them, we moved them, and they jumped offsides. I don't have any damn idea why they jumped offsides. I wish I did, we'd fix it."
…Recognized as “elite” and having “answered the bell today,” according to Georgia’s Smart, the Sanford Stadium crowd this morning-turned-afternoon could be near-deafening at times, especially considering it was a noon kickoff. The Bulldogs’ homefield advantage certainly played a factor in Arkansas being prone to mistakes in what resulted in only the third shutout of a top-10 foe in Georgia football history.
“Obviously the noise played a big factor in the first half,” said redshirt senior Dalton Wagner, Arkansas’ starting right tackle. “Just hard to—we made too many mistakes. There is no excuse for it. No noise, no nothing. We made mistakes that shouldn’t have happened.”
…Offensively, Georgia attempted just 11 passes (completing seven for 72 yards)—its fewest pass attempts in a single game also since 2017 versus Florida (seven attempts). Instead, the Bulldogs played “Bully Ball,” according to Pittman, whereby they rushed for 273 yards and three touchdowns on 56 carries. Arkansas had entered the game allowing just 123.0 rushing yards per game.
"They (Georgia) found our pockets [in Arkansas’ run defense],” said Razorback senior linebacker Grant Morgan, who totaled a game-high 12 tackles. “If you watch the film or watch the game, they'd like to line up like the way we line our three down. They would line up and flip the back, or the tight end [would flip], and then try to hit the bubble in our defense and try to run to the open gap, to make either the nickel or safety, or make me or the linebackers play two gaps, and be able to come off and make a play. They did a real good job of scheming us up.”
…While the Georgia offense was evidently scheming up Arkansas, the Bulldogs’ defense shut out the Razorbacks while limiting the Hogs to a mere 162 total yards. Arkansas entered the game averaging more than 35 points and 480 yards per game.
“It's the best defensive front seven I've seen,” Pittman said of Georgia. “We used to go against them all the time in practice. They can roll guys in there. They have guys on their two-team they roll in there that could start for a lot of people in the SEC (or) across the nation. They're recruiting big, physical kids that can run and like to play football.”
