Opening statement …
“I would open with what a tremendous night. The weather held off for the honoring of the first five black football players to play at the University of Georgia. They came over and spoke to our team on Thursday, I thought they did a tremendous job. What a tremendous honor to have them and host them. Courtney (Gay) did an unbelievable job hosting them and she has done an incredible job with our diversity, equity, and inclusion. So, I’m really proud of what they were able to do and what we got as part of our stadium for a long time. I would also like to thank David Pollack, he got honored for the College Football Hall of Fame, what a tremendous honor for him. Then our fanbase, our fanbase came out loud and proud, they didn’t take a week off. I think our student section has become very impactful for pre-game warmups all the way through the game. Thought the guys played really hard. So many guys played a big role in this game, seemed like the wealth was spread around defensively and offensively. I thought JT (Daniels) played with a high level of confidence, believed in what our guys could do, and got the ball to our playmakers – did a great job doing that. Pod (Podlesny), he’s a great kicker, it was great to get him back on track there late in the second half, and just proud of the hard work our guys have put in. We just have to get better and we’re not where we need to be. We didn’t play as well defensively tonight as we have in the past and we’ll continue to improve.”
On the end of the first half …
“Situational football is critical, and we’ve run through those exact same situations every Thursday. I was really proud of the execution. Number one, they stopped us, which can’t happen. We can’t not have an opportunity, and he took the timeout, which told me that he was going to try to use the clock and let it run out. Ameer Speed and Jake Camarda started that whole thing with downing the ball inside the one which is just elite. We practice that really hard all camp, so Ameer made a huge play, Jake made a huge play, and then the defense made a huge play. Then we were able to save our timeouts, and it was really big to get those pass plays to set up the field goal. I just thought that was a really good sequence to steal five points.”
On the passing game compared to the run game … “It’s not that they’re taking what they give us, I just think we’re better right now at timing, throwing the ball, spacing and routes. I actually thought we ran the ball better tonight. We rushed for 184, it didn’t seem like a struggle running as much as it did. Statistically, I was proud at our ability to run the ball. I thought our backs made some people miss. So I’m not down on the run game tonight, we improved there. I do think the timing and passing game makes our guys being pretty good passers, but if you’re going to be an elite team you’ve got to be pretty good at both. There’s a few teams, LSU didn’t have to run it two years ago. I felt like they threw it a lot, they didn’t have to run it. We’ve got to continue to improve and keep guys healthy.”