Post Game Quotes

UGA Sports Communications

Coach Kirby Smart On the win over Austin Peay: 

"We're happy to get the win. It was a good way to start. The kids played hard. But there are a lot of things we can improve on. We knew we couldn't get better until we played a game. We'll learn from this one, learn from our mistakes. We'll get some things ironed out." 

 On what it's like to play a game vs practicing: 

"It's simple to me. If you're a doctor, you don't base the operation on who you're operating on. You want to do the best every opportunity you get. The same with a financial adviser. You do the best you can every time. We want to be physical and dominating and not worry about the scoreboard. It's about how you play. We did it in spurts, just not consistently." 

On Justin Fields: 

"He had some butterflies. I think he was a little nervous early and wasn't sure what the defense was doing so he took off. He's a great athlete and is able to do that. As he grows, he'll see different defenses and he'll need to try to take advantage of their weaknesses." 

On traveling to South Carolina: 

"We played hard, but there's a lot to improve on. It won't be as easy next week. South Carolina has really good players and their coaches have done a great job. They have a quarterback like Jake Fromm, who knows the game. In the SEC, it's that way every week. There are tough environments to play in. ... It will be loud, but it's still a football field and all that matters is doing the best job you can do with discipline and execution." 

On playing a lot of players: 

"A lot of kids got to play, and it's a great opportunity to play in the first game." 

On the fans: 

"Our fan base showed up and packed the stands. It was awesome for them to support us that way." 

Sophomore Tailback D’Andre Swift 

On evaluating performance in the run game:

“I think we need to be more physical, that’s for the whole time. We have a big game next week against South Carolina and a big opponent, and we’ve got to really hone it in with our physicality and we need to bring it to this game.” 

On the offensive playmakers:

“I mean we’re just so deep on offense with everybody. You can see it: we’ve got so many different people who can do so many different things. That’s an advantage we have that’s going to be huge.”

Junior Defensive Back J.R. Reed 

On the defensive performance:

“We did a good job on defense as far as the first team. We could be a little bit more physical, and we like to play physical: that’s our brand of football. We’ve got to get those young guys coached up so they can play physical just like us, but I’m proud of them for keeping that goose egg up on the scoreboard. 

On what he saw from the younger members of the secondary who started, namely freshman CB Tyson Campbell and sophomore safety Richard LeCounte:

“Just a lot of flying around and relaxing, and then flying to the ball. Just playing football.” 

On improvements for next week’s SEC opener against South Carolina:

“We can improve on our communication as a defense. That will help us out and help us out not making any mistakes. Those guys got to drive off of poor communication.”

Junior Running Back Elijah Holyfield 

On the rotation of the backfield:

“I obviously practice with those guys every day, so I know how electric both of those guys freshman James Cook and junior Brian Herrien are. It was just good to get to see them, especially James get into the game his first game. He did really well.” 

On the quarterback play from both sophomore Jake Fromm and freshman Justin Fields:

“They’re both really good quarterbacks and they’re both playing at a really high level, so we’re happy with both of them.” On offensive improvements for next week…“I would probably say just running the ball and getting more physical on offense, getting back to our identity. We’ll work on that in practice and then hopefully improve in the game next week.”

Austin Peay head coach Will Healy 

Opening Statement:

“First off, to go play at the University of Georgia, this week has been amazing for us. Josh and Kristin’s deal at halftime is what college football is all about. I didn’t feel like we played extremely hard; I didn’t think it was a real competitive football game and that’s frustrating. I think there’s a lot of positives we can take out of it. Obviously, we played a great football team; a team that should have an opportunity to win a National Championship. I think there’s a lot of things we can learn from this too, but I love what Georgia’s doing. Kirby Smart was awesome to me. I loved my conversation with him, they’ve got great guys on the staff.” 

On the Governor offense with JaVaughn versus Jeremiah Oatsvall in at QB:

“JaVaughn probably played a little better today than Jeremiah did. Jeremiah had an uncharacteristic day. Probably a little bit of it, a lot of it, is on me. When you go in front of 93 thousand people on ESPN and that moment’s pretty big, we probably should’ve been a little bit more simple and given those guys a chance to play a little bit more free. We’ve got two really good quarterbacks and two guys that we feel like can lead us to a National Championship and it’s been a great battle during camp.” 

On takeaways from Saturday’s game looking ahead in the season:

“For me it was like, ‘how did we handle adversity?’ We seemed to have a bit of division. Some guys weren’t quite as coachable when some adversity hit. We’ve got to fix the in‐house things much more than we have to fix the schematic things or the ball security things or anything like that. We’ve got to make sure our culture is continuing to have tough minded, family‐type environments where we draw closer to one another during adversity versus splitting apart. That’s something we even worked on from first half to second half. I think we’ve got to make sure we’re putting these guys in the best position offensively and defensively to make plays. The great thing about it is, usually the most improvement you see is from week one to week two, so we expect that for us too.” 

Senior Linebacker Gunnar Scholato

On playing Georgia:

"It's a learning curve. There were a lot of mistakes here and there on the field. We're just going to get in, watch film, correct it, and go on to the next play. Hopefully we'll start with a clean slate this coming week and don't let this loss linger on us.

On the fumble recovery:

Coach Coop preaches turnovers and turnovers win games. We talk about it all the time as a defense so a turnover here was huge and it gave us a little life, a little bit of momentum and it was a good play by Shaun Whittinghill reading that the quarterback was off and Shaun bent down and got the ball. 

On how tonight prepares them for the rest of the season:

I think it's safe to say we're not going to play a tougher opponent than we did tonight so we got that one out of the way but we're not pleased with the result but we're going to work hard and keep our heads down until next week and take it one game at a time. 

Senior offensive lineman Kyle Anderton

On playing Georgia:

We can take away, from a positive prospective, that we have stuff to correct. We didn't play extremely well, you never play as good as you think, you never play as bad as you think that's the main thing to take away. We have to fix things to do what we want to do. That's the biggest takeaway. 

On playing a tough opponent looking ahead:

It really gives you a good measure of where you are. I think we needed this, we needed to face one of the best teams in the country because that's what we want to be. Now we know the best teams in the country don't make mistakes and that they do their assignments. That's what we have to take away from this so it helps us understand how to play like one of the best teams in the country. 

Junior Quarterback JaVaughn Craig

On how he played:

I think I did some good things and I think I did some bad things. Playing against the number three team in the country you have to be on the top of your game and make as little mistakes as possible. I felt like I could have done a lot better, with being a quarterback and leading the team. I also think as a group we have a lot to work on and a lot of improvements to make. 

On settling the offense:

Just calmed it down, we were paying against the number three team in the country and it was a season opener and their home opener. The atmosphere and the moment can get to you. Being calm and collected all the time and bringing it all together it's football. At the end of the day it's football. You play against the University of Georgia once so taking advantage of the moment and going out there, having fun with a smile on your face. This is the opportunity of a lifetime to perform with your brothers next to you, and once we were able to settle down and think about that, just take it a play at a time, I think we did well. 

On playing at Georgia:

When we move the ball we can execute. Georgia had a great defense, flocked to the ball, the pursuit was amazing. They're very disciplined and we're at the top of our A game and they were pretty good as well. Just understanding that we have to minimize mistakes and that we have to get back on Monday, get better, and find a way to keep improving and in owing that not as many defenses are going to be as good as Georgia.