Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart and two players, wide receiver Zachariah Branch and punter Brett Thorson, spoke with the media on Monday about their upcoming SEC home game against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Fifth-ranked Georgia and 17th-ranked Alabama will square off on Saturday, Sept. 27 at Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga. The game will be televised by ABC and streamed via ESPN3 at 7:30pm ET (Buy Tickets).
Chris Fowler will call the play-by-play, Kirk Herbstreit will provide analysis, while Holly Rowe will report from the sidelines.
Below is a transcript of the Alabama press conference which was provided by UGA.
Head Coach Kirby Smart
Opening Statement
“Obviously, you guys know who we play, and we are preparing for that game by the end of last week and moving forward that way this week. Excited, big stage, big time game. Athens, the economic impact on this city, and just what it’s done for the community is going to be huge. Got a lot of great home games, but this is one of the feature ones, and a really good program. Coach DeBoer’s done a great job, to me, trying to fill somebody’s big shoes, and he is doing a great job in his own right, in the way he approaches things. They have a good football team, a big, physical, fast team, just like they’ve always been, and it should be an exciting game.”
On changes in the Alabama offense…
“Ty’s [Ty Simpson] different than Milroe [Jalen Milroe], you said it. So there’s a difference in that, but he’s a really good athlete. He’s a tremendous athlete. He played in games last year, and you watch all the snaps he took, and he has 60, 70, 80-yard runs that are running down the field, outrunning good defenses. So he’s a talented player. I would say he’s probably the hottest quarterback right now in all of college football. His two last outings, I don’t know that I’ve seen an incompletion. Like, the ball does not hit the ground. He’s been accurate, he’s been quick with the ball. They’re really hard to defend because of their skill. They’ve got tremendously skilled receivers, backs, tight ends, but you’ve got to have a trigger guy that can get those guys the ball, and they do. And he’s seen the field. I didn’t realize in the Florida State game, it was as messy and sloppy as the weather was at times, like we were playing a game during that time. So I had no idea until last week, you go watch, and you’re like, okay, it was a rainy, sloppy game. In the other games he’s played, there’s been no sloppiness. I mean, he’s accurate, he’s quick with the ball, he’s a good decision maker, and he’s made some elite throws. So they’re clicking right now offensively for sure.”
On facing Alabama at home…
“Being at home is an advantage. Just as I say, going on the road is hard. Going on the road last year to play the games we played was hard. Going to Tennessee a couple of weeks ago was hard. Playing at home, it helps. The atmosphere helps, the crowd noise helps, being familiar with your surroundings and all that stuff helps, but at the end of the day, you have to go play football. It comes down to matchups, it comes down to who blocks and who tackles the best, who executes and does things in the key moments of the game. So, certainly glad it’s at home, but we’ve still got to play well.”
On the Alabama wide receiver group…
Block, man, they’re physical. They come off, they hit you. You’ve seen them on tape go vertical, make vertical plays. Obviously, the talent Ryan [Ryan Williams] has, but there’s a lot of people that focus on him and try to take him out of the game. And the Bernard [Germie Bernard] kid has been incredible. I feel like he’s been there forever. He’s only been there in his second year, he came with those guys. He is the catalyst to that offense because he does so much. He is similar to Dylan Bell, but they use him as a back. They use him as a point of attack blocker, reverse guy, gadget guy, vertical guy, and deep routes. I mean, he’s a complete player and he’s really physical. And I have a lot of respect for the way he plays. But all their wideouts are playing at a high level right now, because their quarterback is. And when your quarterback’s throwing and catching, throwing the ball well and they’re catching the ball well, it’s hard because they don’t just do one thing. They have multiple schemes.
On if Sanford Stadium is a tougher place to play…
“The toughest place to play is where the best players are. So I don’t know what, it’s hard to see what you referenced there. When you have really good teams, they’re hard to play against. I don’t know that the atmosphere alone makes it that way. I mean, I’ve played in some, there’s a point of no return, like A&M. It’s really loud. When I coached at Alabama, Auburn was one of the hardest places, Tennessee was one of the hardest places. I mean, they’re all hard, LSU. They’re all really hard to play in, and I think ours fits in that same category of hard to play in. But it’s what you’re playing against that makes the difference. I don’t like making it about the athletic department or what kind of atmosphere they create. The fans create the atmosphere, not the athletic department. And our fans have done a great job of giving us a competitive home-field advantage that is equal to other places in the SEC.”
On the offensive performance against Tennessee…
“We’re trying to get better at everything. I can’t sit here and tell you there’s one area where okay, we have to do this. We have to score touchdowns in the red area, we have to be able to run the ball efficiently, we have to be able to play action, we have to be able to drop back, we have to build a perimeter block. I mean, there’s nothing that didn’t need work coming out of the Tennessee game. We didn’t go back and say, ‘Man, we’re really good at this, let’s put this on the back burner, and let’s go work on these other areas.’ We work on everything every day, because we need everything every day. So the days we worked last week– three or four days we worked– we targeted different areas and tried to get better at them.”
On preparing for Alabama in the post-Saban era…
“I don’t know where that question’s going. I mean, how do you prepare for anything? We prepare for every team the same. We don’t go, ‘Okay, we have to prepare for Tennessee differently than we prepare for Alabama.’ We prepare by doing what they do and try to do it better than they do it. In terms of the look we give our guys, which is really hard to simulate, but I don’t see it like, ‘Okay, Coach DeBoer is there, we’ve got to prepare this kind of way.’ They’re a really good football team with really good players. They’ve changed defensively and they’ve changed offensively, and you know what? They’ll change every year as their personnel changes. [Jalen Milroe] is different from [Ty Simpson], but they’re both tremendous athletes and our preparation is what we’re trying to remain consistent.”
On advantages from the bye week…
“I mean, it’s equal, right? Because in this case, we both have bye weeks, so I don’t see it really different in terms of preparation. We worked on other opponents, we worked on ourselves, we got a lot of young guys reps, got some time off to get away, which the players got this weekend. So I don’t see the prep being different than most weeks for us, just a little more time.”
On Ryan Williams…
“He’s a dynamic receiver. When you’ve got a guy that’s a 100-meter champ and explosive and has the ball skills he has, I mean, he possesses all the traits of elite wideouts. He’ll make you miss, vertical threat, quickness, toughness, I mean, he’s an all-around great player and he’s proven to be an explosive play waiting to happen.”
On the Alabama running back group with Jam Miller potentially returning…
“Well, he’s extremely physical, but they’ve kind of done it by committee. I mean, when I look at them through the first games, it reminds me sometimes of us. I mean, they’ve got big, they’ve got small, they’ve got fast, they’ve got athletic, they’ve got it all covered. And they play them, they play their backs and keep those guys fresh and healthy. Obviously, Jam has more experience and he’s really physical, hard to tackle, point of attack, can get after it, and a really good pass protector. I mean, he’s just a veteran. It’s like looking at our group and saying, okay, ‘Is there one guy that’s played more than the other guys?”
On the right side of the offensive line…
“They have to grow up. We have to play better across the offensive line. It’s not just one side or the other. I think when you look across college football, I tune in and watch games on Saturday, there’s nobody I’m going, man, that’s a dominant offensive line right there, they’re just running up and down the field on this SEC defense. It doesn’t happen. I mean, you don’t see scores that are really high scoring. You see really good defensive personnel. You see tough road games. It’s not going to be any different in ours. Every team in the SEC is trying to get their offensive line better or as close to right as you can get it. We’ll be trying to do the same, trying to create depth and competition and grow guys in those areas.”
On Zachariah Branch and the receivers’ blocking…
“Zachariah’s been great. He’s a hard worker. He practices every day, regardless of what the touches he gets. He’d never been a me guy. He just wants to win, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win. If that’s going deep, go short, do whatever you have to do to be successful, protect the ball, get positive yardage, run behind the blocking you got, and do a great job of it. The tight ends and receivers have been physical. We’re going to always demand that guys do that first, because there are much easier yards through blocking than there are just throwing the ball vertically in our league. You have to be able to do both, but you have to be able to protect the perimeter and do things with blocking and be physical, and that’s one of the traits we wanna have.”
On if night games are louder…
“I would agree with that statement, that it’s louder at night than day. I think, depending on the day and the time of the year and the temperature, it can take its toll on the fan base, just like it does on the players. I mean, we’re not as fast, our GPS numbers say 12 o’clock, 3 o’clock games. They’re not as fast when it’s 85, 90 degrees with a humidity factor like we have around here, you end up with who can survive, not who can be the fastest. And at night, you don’t run into those things. I think the crowd has a little longer to get prepared for it, and they’re louder. I mean, they’re not as taxed, not as much heat. So the games I’ve coached in, played in, been a part of, night games are a little more rowdy.”
On the Alabama defense…
“They do multiple things. They’ve got a lot of moving parts, a lot to prepare for. They move their backers around, they have different looks they give you. They disguise in the secondary, they move players around, they have different coverages, they mix man and zone well, but their physicality is the biggest thing. At the point of attack, they’re really physical and they play really hard. I think they have a really good defense and they’re well coached.”
On the pass rush finishing sacks…
“Finish on the quarterback. We had multiple opportunities. Their guy was better than the guy that had them, but we had guys back there. You have to finish on the quarterback.”
On Dontrell Glover and Bo Hughley…
“Just improve. Just go out today, they’re going to get SEC action today. They’re going to get it tomorrow, the next day, and they’re going to get it next week. The idea is to continue to get better and to execute at a high level, and do things that they can be successful at. People around them have to play well. It’s not just them. We want to play well around those guys and give them a great opportunity to play well.”
On Kalen DeBoer…
“I think he’s still doing that (implementing his identity in the program). I think it’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. To take that situation and go into it, takes someone very confident in themself. I think he’s proven that he’s won everywhere he’s been. He’s been very successful everywhere he’s been. He’s not afraid to do it his way and be good at it. I’m sure he’s absorbed some things that he wanted to keep the same. But at the end of the day, it’s buy-in, it’s players, it’s the coaching staff, it’s everybody involved. It’s a lot to be measured against, obviously. But he knew that before he took it (the job).”
On Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis’ kick blocks…
“I didn’t get it right away. We were working in the building, and people reached out to me and started sending texts. Then I asked somebody to send the video, and our video guy, Jeremy Klawsky, sent me the clip of it. I was like, ‘I’ve seen that before,’ because he’s blocked a lot of field goals around here in terms of his force and his ability to get off and then to scoop and score. He looks physically great. I just did a Zoom with [Matthew] Stafford this morning and it’s pretty amazing to hear him talk about those guys and having to go against them and thinking they had the game won, and then have it stolen from them like that.”
On evaluating quarterback pressures…
“We evaluate it based on opportunities, right? We haven’t had a lot of opportunities. I think people try to measure those things just on statistics and rankings, and you can’t do that. We played a very heavy run team in Tennessee, and a team that we were behind, ultimately. Then the other two opportunities, we had the lowest number of snaps we’ve ever had. Didn’t get many opportunities to and we also subbed out a lot of guys. I don’t sit here and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so concerned about our pass rush.’ We have to do a better job in everything we do, but I feel good about the rushers we have, and we’ve got to go out and execute. When we get an opportunity to rush, we have to rush.”