Post Game Quotes

UGA Sports Communications

Coach Kirby Smart

Opening statement…

“I want to open up with thoughts and prayers going out to Chamberlaine Smith, the young lady that works on staff, got hit over on the sideline, a really scary moment. I know Brian Herrien felt really sick about it. It’s a tough deal. But hopefully she’s going to be OK, and I think she is. I want to thank our fans for sticking with us. I thought that they really pushed us through, and what an incredible atmosphere for us to play in. Good teams never quit, and we’ve got to do a good job of putting people away when we have an opportunity to. We have a lot of respect for Gus and this program, their staff. A lot of friends on their staff. Their kids played really hard. Our kids were very resilient to come into this place, lose momentum, obviously lose momentum, and be able to go back out and get it shows some fortitude and the ability to handle adversity. I’m really proud of our guys. With all of that said, it’s on to the next one. Texas A&M has a great team, a great program and we’ve got to get better. We’re not where we need to be, but I give Auburn a lot of credit for that as well.”

On what Auburn was able to do differently in the fourth quarter…

“They just got hot, got on a rhythm. It’s not like we went conservative. We didn’t call different calls. We were ‘bend-but-don’t-break.’ They hit some plays. They went tempo. I thought Bo Nix got a little more confident. We had a couple of busts and when you combine those things, guys get hot. It wasn’t like they didn’t move it earlier, because they moved it earlier, we just had some really big stops. We didn’t have really big stops on the later drives. We didn’t get behind the sticks. They did a good job of personelling, Gus did a good job of searching till he found something. We didn’t have enough answers to what they were doing. Earlier in the game, we did and we kind of didn’t have enough answers when we needed it most. But I’ll say this, they went out there the last time and came up with some big stops.”

On last two drives…

“One of them, I don’t know if we stopped them, they stopped themselves. That was the fourth down, right? The guy just missed the ball, it looked like to me. He was wide open. I can’t say that we stopped them. We got them to fourth down and they gave us a gift. So, we didn’t play the way we were capable of the whole game defensively. I was proud of the way they played earlier. The last drive was more of, they had to throw. They had no timeouts, they had to burn those. We were able to be aggressive and play the pass. It’s hard to do that when they have the run on those earlier drives.”

Jake Fromm, Junior, Quarterback

On the game as a whole…

“It was a tough football game, really physical. Anytime you come in here and play this football team, you know you’re going to get their best shot. They did a really good job defensively, and our defense did a great job of stopping them on offense. We’re really thankful to come out of here with a win and clinch the SEC East.”

On what worked for the team tonight…

“I think we made some really key plays when we needed them. I think our perimeter runs were good, just because there is so much weight and mass inside that box. That makes it tough running sometimes, but we pulled through.”

On emphasis of playing four complete quarters...

“We put huge emphasis on it. We pride ourselves in wanting to be the best four-quarter team in the country. Offensively, we need to do a lot better job of finishing, sustaining drives with first downs, bleeding the clock and helping our defense out. But our defense secured it and finished it out for us tonight.”

On clinching the SEC East…

“It feels special. Praise God to come out and do that three years in a row. It’s special and speaks a lot about this football program, our head coach and about our team in the locker room – guys who are willing to come in and do whatever it takes.”

J.R. Reed, Senior, Defensive Back

Thoughts on a big victory on the road…

“It feels good. This is a great Auburn team. We had to come in here, and we had to fight for this win. It wasn’t given to us.”

On if this was the most complete game of the season for the team…

“Definitely not. We were way off from the most complete-game win of the season. There were definitely some areas where we could have played cleaner than we did.”

On the team’s mentality during Auburn’s late push…

“We were just trying to make adjustments and make good plays. We did our jobs as a defense, along with our defensive coaches, to keep it simple and get our job done.”

On the final play and what it says about the defense…

“It was just a great play, and I’m proud our guys went out and executed.

On what the final play looked like to him…

“I was in the back-half covering my guys. The guys up front got pressure and back to the quarterback. Our young guys are good enough, and they went out there and made a huge play.”

On mentality as a team when Auburn scored 14 unanswered in the fourth quarter…

“We knew we were going to face adversity. It didn’t hit in the first three quarters, but it hit in the fourth. We just had to handle that, and we handled it very well.”

On whether the team will allow themselves to take time to celebrate the win…

“Most definitely. This is a good win for the program. We’ll take 24 hours to celebrate, but then we have to move on, correct our mistakes and prepare for the next team.”

Monty Rice, Senior, Linebacker

On how the score effected Georgia’s team mood…

“We just keep chopping. We just keep doing what we [have] been doing. We were built for games like that, fourth-quarter ball game and every SEC game – especially when you come over [to] this side of the bracket. It’s good to get a win on the road.”

D’Andre Swift, Junior, Running Back

On if it felt different this year winning the division…

“It felt good beating a great team like Auburn. Hats off to them. They’ve got a great defense, great offense and they played us down the stretch. We’re just hoping the defense would make a play, and they did.”

On how tough it was to move the ball against Auburn…

“They real good upfront, got great linebackers, good back-end guys, so we just had to focus on what we had to focus on and tried to move the ball when we could. We found a way to win tonight no matter how ugly it may have look.”

On what was going through his head at the end of the game…
“Just to see a ball on the ground. The defense make a stop, so we won - had to win.”

Andrew Thomas, Junior, Offensive Lineman

On winning three SEC East titles in his three years at UGA…

“It is pretty amazing. It’s the biggest blessing that I could ask for to be here.”

On how Auburn’s defensive front compares to expectations… 

“They’re tough. In my opinion, Auburn’s defensive front is the best defensive front in the entire country.”

Auburn Head Coach Gus Malzahn

Opening statement…

“First of all, I’m extremely proud of our guys’ fight. I’m really appreciative of our fans. We were down 21-0 and it didn’t look good, and we fought back and really had some chances. We had some very inopportune things happen that went against us that were really tough. You look at the first half, we drove down and we missed a field goal. The offense was backed up, Georgia really had the field position. We did get in their territory one time, but we fumbled, and I think that led to a touchdown. I think our defense played well all night. Then in the fourth quarter, we got some momentum. We ended up scoring twice, got the ball down to the 23-yard line and got a play overturned. We got the ball back one more time but couldn’t do anything with it. Our guys fought their guts out, they fought their guts out for Auburn, and we’ve got some hurt guys in that locker room. Give Georgia credit, they have a very talented team and we knew that coming in. We’re just not feeling that great right now, it was a tough loss.”

On Seth Williams’ performance…

“Seth is a fine receiver, he’s a go-to guy. They know that. I thought he battled, I thought he competed, and he wasn’t 100% after the injury.”

On the defense creating momentum in the fourth quarter…

“They stuffed them in the fourth quarter. We had the momentum and the crowd was in it. Like I said, we got the ball down to the 22-yard line and we thought we had a completion. They overturned it and it looked like an NFL catch to me. That was a tough one, a real tough one.”

On field position being a factor tonight…

“Field position in a game like this with two great defenses, we knew it would be a big factor. In the first half, we didn’t win the field position and in the second half, we were a lot better. That was really a key factor. Field position and third downs would be a big factor. We had one turnover and they didn’t have any. When two good teams are playing, the little things matter and that was what some of the stuff came down to.”