Kirby Smart states he ‘never mentioned’ Georgia being heavily picked against vs. Texas
While Kirby Smart noticed ESPN College GameDay crew’s unanimous picks for Texas to defeat Georgia, he never brought it up to his players. During an appearance on Dukes & Bell, Smart pulled back the curtain on his decision not to mention the outside doubters to his team.
“I honestly never mentioned that. You can ask any player on our team,” Smart said. “No. 1, I don’t have time to bring that up because from the time they made those decisions and those pundits said a lot of those things, we didn’t meet as a team.
“We get prepared for the game. We do walk-throughs and then we go be ready to play. You’re not going to ever hear me talking about that… I don’t think that’s good to use that as motivation. I mean, hell, for a matter of fact, it might scare your team if you tell everybody picked against them. So I’m not interested.”
Whether or not Smart mentioned the College GameDay crew’s picks to his team, the Bulldogs played with a chip on their shoulder. In the 30-15 win, Georgia held Texas to 259 total yards of offense and squeezed a season-high four turnovers out of the Longhorns.
The Bulldogs never stopped attacking Texas’ backfield, finishing the night with seven sacks and 10 tackles for loss. On 27 carries, Texas only recorded 29 yards, averaging 1.1 yards per rushing attempt. Moreover, the Longhorns converted just 2-of-their-15 third-down attempts.
Kirby Smart was admittedly happy to prove the ESPN College GameDay panel wrong but he isn’t holding any grudges.
“I don’t think it’s so much that they doubted. We’re on the road, playing the No. 1 team in the country. Who are you picking?” Smart said. “It’s not that they doubt Georgia as much as they had conviction in Texas. I don’t think any one of those guys up there doesn’t think we have a good football team.”
If they had any doubts before, they certainly don’t anymore. Georgia has won three straight games and ascended to No. 2 in the AP Top 25 Poll this week. Although Smart didn’t blame analysts around the country for picking Texas to win, he didn’t hesitate to call them out after the game, either.
“Our whole program was being doubted,” Smart said after the game. “Did you watch the show this morning? I didn’t because I was in meetings, but I got 8,000 texts about it. Somebody was doubting us. Maybe it wasn’t y’all, but there’s a lot of people doubting our kids and the ability to go on the road and win.”
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