Coach Smart knows the Dawgs Can't Afford to Get Comfortable
Georgia put themselves in a position to win the SEC East with a huge victory over the Florida Gators. This would mean the Dawgs reaching the conference championship in three of coach Kirby Smart's first four seasons in Athens. Making it three consecutive Division titles for Smart, after missing out in his first season.
The Bulldogs are riding high, but they must guard against overconfidence. The Dawgs are one of the most talented teams in the country, but they are very young. One danger of having a plethora of young players is they have a tendency to be volatile, as opposed to upperclassmen being more consistent and even keel. The young UGA underclassmen need to stay humble and realize that even though they are ultra-talented, that talent won't allow them to just walk onto the field and win football games, particularly in the SEC. Coach Kirby Smart understands this as evidenced by his remarks at a press conference this week.
"We don't look past the gauntlet of Missouri because our team respects them and knows what they got. It's a single-minded focus on one thing. We can't look past that."
Watch the entire press conference below:
The Georgia Bulldogs are a much better football team than the Missouri Tigers on paper. However, the Tigers can not be overlooked. Particularly if starting quarterback Kelly Bryant is able to play. He is expected to play but has stated he expects to be "about 75%" today. Bryant's ability to run the football means UGA defenders much keep outside contain, particularly on the backside. If the backside defensive end crashes down too early and Bryant keeps the ball, he could very well be off to the races for a big play.
QB, Kelly Bryant hands off to Larry Rountree III
Bryant's ability to stretch the opposing defense creates open running lanes for a plethora of explosive ball carriers. The trio of Larry Rountree III, Tyler Badie, and Dawson Downing have taken full advantage of the extra room to run, combining to rush for 1,189 yards and 11 touchdowns. Roundtree is the leader of that pack, accounting for 644 yards and eight touchdowns.
Defensively the Missouri Tigers are a formidable foe. They are middle of the road against the run, rank number seven in the conference. Yet they are number one against the pass. The Tigers' defense is tied for fifth in the conference in creating turnovers, forcing 1.8 per game. The impressive thing about the Missouri pass defense is that they have been able to limit opponents without getting a lot of pressure on rival quarterbacks. The Tigers rank just 12th out of 14 teams with only 13.0 sacks on the 2019 campaign so far.
Despite the lack of sacks, Missouri must be respected. The Dawgs must keep a one-track mind and focus on their opponent Missouri, just as coach Smart said.
Besides Kirby Smart keeping his young Georgia Football team focused, the job also falls on upperclassmen leadership. Prominent players such as J.R. Reed, Monty Rice, Tyler Clark, Jake Fromm, D'Andre Swift, and Andrew Thomas, all have the experience and leadership skills to impart wisdom to their teammates. Most importantly they all possess the ability to back up their words, with strong play on the field.
The Georgia Bulldogs must maintain focus and find a way to win their final three games of the season. Should that happen all of their season goals are still within reach. Another Loss would mean that the Dawgs championship hopes are done. UGA will assuredly be underdogs against either LSU or Alabama if they make it to Atlanta. However, when two teams are laden with talent anything can happen on a given Saturday. As the old cliche goes, a team has to take it one game at a time. The first step of the process starts with taking the Missouri Tigers seriously.
