Tennessee Tech head coach Bobby Wilder met with the media after his Golden Eagles lost to Georgia 48-3. Here's what he had to say.
"Grateful to Coach Smart. we had a conversation midway through the third quarter through some people about just taking care of the kids, keeping them healthy. So, grateful to Coach Smart for that, how he handled it. Most important thing for both teams when the score gets to that point is the health of both teams and wanting Georgia to be healthy so they can make a run at the National Championship and wanting us to be healthy so we can make a run in our conference at FCS."
On what surprised him about Georgia: "Seeing the size in person, that's the most impressive football team I've seen in person. I've been at FBS, I've seen SEC teams, size, how well coached they are. I said it earlier this week, I think Kirby Smart's the best coach in college football now. I think he's, with Nick Saban retiring, I think he's the voice of college football. He's the one that coaches need to look at to emulate. You watch how he runs his program, you watch his sideline, how professional everything is from the way he is, the assistant coaches, managers, trainers, equipment, everybody is just very detailed. That's the type of program we're trying to build at Tennessee Tech in terms of our level of professionalism and efficiency. Very much wish Georgia well. I want those guys to do well this year."
On the fight his team showed: "Yeah, it was like the bully on the school yard going against the little kid. The little kid is really just trying to get out of there and go home at some point. I think that's just an incredible mismatch in terms of size, in terms of the caliber of what they have. You look at our players and we had some incredible moments today. We had a 13-play drive on offense. I'm pretty sure Clemson didn't have a 13-play drive last week. We had one drive on defense that just impressed the heck out of me where they went 14 plays, 71 yards, and they had to kick a field goal. You see the fight, you see the caliber of toughness that our kids display against what looks to me like a borderline NFL team. The separation now between the P4, FCS, Group of Five, it's just insurmountable. I'm watching Indiana beat Western Illinois 77-3 last night. I'm watching Ole Miss beat Furman 76-0 last week. Relatively, losing 48-3, it doesn't look as bad, but the gap now with the collective is just so, so far from what I saw 31 years ago when I got into coaching. Hopefully we can get this thing fixed here in the next couple of years."
