Early Monday afternoon, Charlie Woerner fielded questions during an interview at the Butts-Mehre Heritage hall and discussed the loss to South Carolina as well as the team putting that loss behind them and focusing on their next game versus Kentucky on Saturday.

The senior tight end commented on whether or not he felt the offense could be doing more to get a jump on teams earlier and to finish stronger. Woerner stated that it really came down to the players just executing the play that is called in properly and not messing up the “little things.”

“I don’t think that inexperience has anything to do with it, because we’ve got a really talented group of freshmen this year. We’ve got a lot of talented receivers. I think it comes down to execution and the little things that we all know how to do,” said Woerner. “It’s those little things we’ve got to continue to work on.”

Woerner added, “That’s what I kind of was talking about earlier. It’s more just comes down to little things of execution and not stopping ourselves on drives with penalties or little things, messing up the little things. We’ll have really good drives and one thing will put us in third and long. That can really mess up and hurt your drive. Kind of just comes down to execution. I think Coach (James) Coley is doing a great job; so, it just comes down to the little things.”

Regarding James Coley, who has drawn the angst of Dawg fans for the lackluster performance of the UGA offense versus the Gamecocks and some of the perceived slow starts in games this season, Kirby Smart was asked what his assessment of his offensive coordinator and the play calling.

“Yeah, we’re definitely looking forward to Kentucky right now. That’s the biggest concern we’ve got, and we’re going to focus on that.”

“I think the most important part of an offense is scoring points. Now, how do I get to those points? Do I get to them through explosive plays? Do I get them through long, methodical drives, which has so far been our M.O.? That’s been the identity we have,” added Smart. “The long methodical drives and we’ve had some good, long methodical drives. At the end of the day we’re all judged by, number one, how do I score points, how do I protect the ball and how explosive can I be? That’s what we’re focused on.”

Junior running back D’Andre Swift also talked about points in his Monday interview and stated that the most frustrating thing about the loss to South Carolina was not scoring points.

“Just not putting points on the board,” said Swift. “I mean, the defense did a hell of a job. You can’t ask the defense to do. I think they held them to 10 points, I think, something like that. Offensively, we can’t score, we can’t win.”

Georgia outgained South Carolina 468 yards to 297, but they were unable to produce more than 17 points and did not do a good job of protecting the ball turning it over four times without generating any turnovers on defense. It’s the first thing that Kirby mentioned in the post-South Carolina game press conference.

“Four turnovers. You can’t beat anybody when you lose the turnover margin four to zero…”

And again in Monday’s noon-time press conference.

“And if you look at the game’s outlook overall, probably the toughest thing for us is number one, turnovers,” said Kirby. “In the SEC, do a study, four and 0 in turnover margin, you’re not going to win, period. I mean it doesn’t happen. So let’s start with that.”

“…I mean, you turn the ball over four times, and you get zero, which is just as big of a concern as turning it over four times. is getting zero. You gotta find a way to get tips and overthrows when the ball is in the air. You gotta find a way to knock a ball off somebody, to get a strip-sack fumble,” added Kirby. “You know what I mean? You gotta get some turnovers, and we learn from those lessons each and every time we have them. I feel very confident in the leadership of this team, that they’ll respond the right way. They did that in the locker room the other day. And they’ll handle that the right way.”

Charlie Woerner is one of those leaders on the team and he shared what his role as a senior and leader is in helping the Bulldogs move on from the loss and get ready for Kentucky.

“I’m trying to help the team have a positive mindset. You can really come out of a loss a better team, regroup to come out of a pit a whole lot stronger than before. My role is to keep the guys positive because every goal that we had before the season started is still there,” said Woerner. “It’s not like the ship is wrecked. We’re still standing, we just hit a wave but still going.”

And Georgia will look to right that ship when they kick-off to Kentucky at 6:00 p.m. EST on ESPN this Saturday on October 19th.