Kirby Smart knows Georgia faces an Alabama problem following Saturday night’s 24-21 loss to the Crimson Tide. It represents Smart’s seventh in eight tries against the fellow elite. He lost regular-season games, three SEC title games and a College Football Playoff national championship to one of Georgia’s rivals during his tenure.
“I mean, what’s everybody else’s record against them? You’ve got it? I don’t [have it] either. I don’t lose sleep over that because those games have been, like, championship-caliber games, right,” Smart said, according to 247Sports. “And even when we play in the regular season, they’ve been — I just saw 25 scouts out there. They’re all there to watch these teams play. That’s not gonna affect me. I’m gonna be happy, and just go-lucky if our team comes back and plays well.
“That’s what I worry about. But that, it’s just, we’ve got to get better. Next year won’t have anything to do with this year. Thank you guys.”
Alabama jumped on Georgia early with a pair of Ty Simpson touchdown passes that punctuated lengthy scoring drives that included a perfect 8-for-8 showing on third down.
Slow starts are becoming a thing for the Bulldogs, who trailed 21-7 at Tennessee after the first quarter this season and struggled to put away Austin Peay early prior to that.
“I don’t have an explanation for it. I mean, not starting well on defense,” Smart said. “I can’t say that, it’s not really both sides of the ball. The kicking game, we made some plays. Offensively, we made plays. Defensively, two games we did, the two better opponents we played, we did not execute well in the first.
“It’s really frustrating because we show we can in the second half. We showed we can in the second and third quarter with Tennessee. And with this game, it was more second half.”
Smart made adjustments to Georgia’s defense and corrected issues after intermission, holding Alabama without a point in the second half. Much of the damage was already done, however, after Simpson finished with 276 yards passing, Alabama won time of possession and finished the matchup without a turnover.
Georgia’s loss shifts the balance of power and alters the playoff outlook for both teams, at least for a week. Alabama plays five more games against ranked teams, while Georgia only face Ole Miss and Texas during SEC play.
“I mean, the key is with the locker room, do you take the team in the right direction, the leadership, and say, okay, we know what we’ve got to work on, let’s get better at it,” Smart said. “We’ve got some wideouts that can make some plays, and we’ve got to be able to allow them to make those plays. Because with the run game we have, I love where we’re going as a running team, but we’ve got to be able to make some shots, and make some plays down the field passing, and you need to complement that.”
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