Category: UGA Football

COACH SMART: First of all, I’d like to thank the CFP for taking the time to put this together and having a great original semifinal game there at the Peach Bowl and now headed to the National Championship.

Our kids are really excited ready to head out to Cali we’ll be doing later this week. Looking forward to the opportunity. I’ve got a lot of respect for TCU and their program and Coach Dykes, what a tremendous job he’s done there.

Had the great fortune of seeing him and Max out at the Heisman Trophy ceremony and have so much respect for their program, them as people. And what a great opportunity it is to play in a large setting, in a great setting for a CFP National Championship.

Kirby, you probably know there’s a record number of points scored in those semifinals. With the playoff bracket being expanded, do you see any evidence of guys even at this point just being tired, what’s your reaction to that?
COACH SMART: I don’t know how to pinpoint it. I don’t know. Traditionally the teams that are in these games, they’re pretty good offensively. But you’d like to say they’re also pretty good defensively, but I think the studies and numbers indicate that as the season goes on and especially the semifinal and final games, scoring has to be going up. What that is, I can’t really pinpoint it. I don’t know that I would say it was just being tired because you could say that’s relative to offense as well that you can get tired on offense. You can get tired on defense.
But I certainly think it’s hard to play quality defense any more because I know we try really hard here and I know they do at TCU as well. Joe Gillespie does an unbelievable job, their defensive coordinator. And it seems that tackling becomes worse as the season goes on. And there’s more scoring. But I don’t know why that is.
I’ve been a part of some unique national championships with the LSU/Alabama ones and the rematch that was lower scoring but outside of that I’ve been part of a lot of shootouts.

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ATLANTA — Just when it looked like the Georgia football team was in deep, deep trouble, the Bulldogs found a way to survive.

The No. 1 Georgia football team’s quest for a second straight national championship seemed all but lost in the fourth quarter of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl late Saturday night. Trailing No. 4 Ohio State by 14 points, the Bulldogs made the critical plays in all phases of the game to rally for a 42-41 win in the College Football Playoff semifinals at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

With eight seconds left, and a crowd of 79,330 holding its breath, the Buckeye’s kicker, Noah Ruggles, missed a 50-yard field-goal attempt that would have sent Ohio State (12-1) to the National Championship Game. He missed and the Bulldogs (14-0) were able to survive and advance.

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