Post Game Quotes

Coach Kirby Smart 

Opening Statement 

“First, I want to thank our fans. It sure felt like more than 20,524, it felt like a lot of fans out there. I thought the crowd noise was helpful. The temperature was certainly helpful. I know that it was much cooler than last week. The atmosphere was a lot better. I thought we showed improvement. We left a lot of plays out there. I thought we played really hard defensively but sloppy on third down. I thought offensively, when we play clean, meaning we don’t have a busted assignment, a penalty, or somebody doesn’t know what they’re doing, we do well; but we can go backwards as quickly as we can forwards offensively, and we probably left more out there. 

I thought it hurt both defenses not having the signal caller, leader in the backend with them losing Smoke Monday and us losing Richard LeCounte. It affected both of us, but I did think we both played really physical tonight. I think when you play Auburn, that’s where it starts, is the line of scrimmage and the physicality. … I was really proud of Stetson Bennett and the way he handled things, very composed. He probably had some balls he wishes he could have back, but he’ll only get better from here, and he gives us some continuity and we’ll continue to develop the other guys as well.” 

On whether Stetson Bennett has surprised him… 

“Stetson’s not surprising me, no. You know, it’s a tough situation where I can recall the day we decided to offer him to take him back and we had to fight, scratch, and claw to get him to come back, and I’m certainly glad we did. It was an interesting decision because we had an interesting dynamic on our team, and we felt like what we knew of Stetson he would be a productive player and a good player. Stetson’s never lacked confidence in himself, you know. I’m happy for him. I want to temper that enthusiasm that he knows he’s got to get better. People around him played well and that’s important for Stetson. He did a good job of understanding what we wanted to do in the game plan, and he executed that really well, so I was very proud of him, he studied really hard this week.” 

Stetson Bennett, Junior, Quarterback

On the game tempo... 

"Yeah, I think Coach Todd Monken does a great job knowing when we need to go fast and knowing when we need to go slow. We know what we're going to do. We know we will be able to go fast. We are hopefully in better shape than everyone else. So, whenever the time comes that we need to go fast we can execute." 

On if he thought this moment would ever come... 

"It is not really my job to worry about that. If you think of things that broadly, you think about I was starting my first game, a game day, a top-10 matchup, then yeah it is going to be like ‘oh my goodness.’ But, no, I just go out every day and play football." 

On if he knew he would start... 

"I had an idea that I was going to start. Being able to be comfortable in the offense is easy because I am surrounded by such great players, and the offensive line gives me time. Coach Monken gives us great calls every time. So, the week helped because I was able to get reps with those guys. It is pretty easy to feel comfortable with those guys." 

Monty Rice, Senior, Inside Linebacker

On keeping Auburn out of the end zone tonight… 

“This game has been played for 130 years. It’s easy to be motivated for it. They have a lot of people over there that are from here or wanted to go here—deciding between the two. It’s always good to not let somebody run it in, and if they want to score they have to throw it because I feel like it’s easier than just running on somebody and scoring. North and south is a quick way to the end zone. That just goes to show how our practice is paying off and the things that we work on each and every day, Monday to Thursday.” 

Kearis Jackson, Redshirt Sophomore, Wide Receiver

On the type of player Stetson Bennett is... 

"Stetson has always stood out, ever since I've been here. He's the starting quarterback now and has a major role. He's doing a great job and is confident, it's part of our job to help him do that."

Head Coach Gus Malzahn 

Opening statement … 

“First of all, give Georgia credit. A very good football team. They won the line of scrimmage. We really got whipped on all three phases, we got out coached. You look at first downs, they averaged seven yards, I think we had two third down conversions. Once again, we just had trouble getting off the field. The big stat to me is the rushing yards. We only rushed 31 yards and then we got in a situation, got behind and had to throw it a lot. Had trouble protecting. Give them credit. Our guys competed in the second half, but we didn’t get it done. 

This will be a learning experience for our team. I will say this -- we will continue to get better. We’ll learn from this. We got eight SEC games left. I think we have the potential to have a lot of improvement. We will improve. I just told our team it is what it is. Give them credit. They got after us, we didn’t play good, they played good. We have to learn from it and have to do a better job next week and that is what we’ll do.” 

On what was different from last week’s game from the offensive line… 

“You have to give them credit, they got after us up front. They averaged seven yards on first down and we averaged two. Like I said, the rushing yards. We have to do a better job in that area too. That was part of the reason.” On how Georgia’s quarterback played… “I thought he played well. They had the running game, and when you have the running game going, the play action follows. We had trouble getting pressure on him. He did a good job directing his offense throwing the ball down the field.” 

Bo Nix, Sophomore, Quarterback

On how tough it was to get momentum... 

"Any time you find yourself down 21 points that quickly in a game is not a good way to start. We just tried to come out in the second half and throw all our bullets at them. We threw the ball around a little bit. We had some successful drives and then we just stalled." 

On how difficult it was to execute on offense... 

"I mean it is tough. Georgia is a really good team. We knew they were going to be a good team coming into the game. We knew we were going to have to play really well. Georgia played just as good as they could play. We played as bad as we could have played. It showed on the field. We just got beat." 

Jamien Sherwood, Junior, Defensive Back

On playing shorthanded in the secondary for the game... 

"Coming here, we knew we were short on cornerbacks, so it was next man up at that point. We could have made the adjustments that we needed to but then when Smoke Monday goes down, who is my right hand man out there, and we lose him when we are down already, that really hurts us. We always play with a nextman up, but losing Smoke really hurt." 

On halftime adjustments... 

"In the first half they hit us with some pass concepts, so our halftime adjustments were focused on working on those concepts. I would say that we played the pass pretty well, they hit a few big plays, but I just think they did a great job running the ball. They played a great game."