Smart: Texas wanted it more

Texas wanted it more. The fifth-ranked Georgia Bulldogs were heavily favored to beat 15th ranked Texas Longhorns in Tuesday night’s Sugar Bowl game in New Orleans, but it did not turn out that way.

“They played more physical than us, and it showed to me that they wanted it more than we did,” said Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart. “And you’ve got to give them credit for that.”

The emotion and physicality showed up on the first possession for the Longhorns. They took the opening kick-off down the field in a 10-play, 75-yard drive to give Texas a 7-0 lead they would never relinquish. In fact, it got worse. An error by Georgia’s punter and a fumble on the following Georgia possession put Texas in control with a 17-0 first quarter lead. Smart said it was Georgia’s preparation or lack thereof that led to the mistakes.

“Those are things that we controlled,” he said. “We controlled the snap. We controlled Jake’s knee. And we control whether we possess the ball or not because people try to take it from you. But those are all the things you have got to be resilient about and go out and overcome.”

“If you prepare right and you go out there and play your best football game, you don’t have those errors,” continued Smart. “You’ve got to be able to overcome those sometimes. If you think about this year, we didn’t have a start of a game similar to like that really all year. We’ve got to do a better job preparing our players for that and go out and execute,” he said.

On the other side of the field, Texas obviously came prepared, both offensively and defensively. Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger rushed for 76 yards with three touchdowns, plus completed 19 of 27 passes for 169 yards to lead the Longhorns. “I thought their quarterback managed the game well with his quarterback run play,” said Smart. “He really hurt us. We missed tackles and didn’t finish on him defensively. And then we weren’t really able to run the ball like we like to consistently and give Texas credit. They did a good job stopping that.”

Senior defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter added, “We didn’t contain. We didn’t have a level pass rush most of the time. And we didn’t get him on the ground. When you don’t do that, he makes plays.”

While the Georgia defense had trouble stopping Ehlinger on crucial plays, Texas was able to contain Georgia’s rushing attack and pressure Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm. The Bulldogs only managed 108 rushing yards in 30 carries against the Texas defense, with the longest run of the night being 11 yards. Fromm completed 21 of 35 passes for 224 yards and three touchdowns. He was intercepted once, sacked twice, and run out of the pocket several times.

“They were very physical up front,” said Fromm. “That’s one obstacle you have to climb over. And the next thing they were slanting this way and that way, shooting multiple gaps,” he said. “And we just had a tough time trying to figure out which way they’re moving and trying to cut guys out of gaps. It was tough. We just didn’t really do a good job of being physical up front,” Fromm added.

Smart said he didn’t think the distraction of not making the playoffs hurt Georgia’s preparation or motivation. “We prepared for Texas for a long time. That would be an easy excuse to use. I’m not touching that because it has nothing to do with it. We had an opponent to play, a good football team in which our team was focused on ready to play,” said Smart.

I think in the world of social media it’s easy to say things. But 15, 20 years ago you didn’t know what kids were thinking because they didn’t have the ability to tweet it out or show it. Now, their thoughts change every ten seconds,” said Smart. “So just because they tweet something emotional during that time, that doesn’t matter. It gives the other team motivation. But our team was motivated to play Texas,” the coach added. “Texas outplayed us, outcompeted us. They outcoached us. They out physicaled [sic] us. They did a lot of things better than us, and I think you give Tom [Herman] a lot of credit,” he continued.

Georgia fans will be waiting on August 31, 2019, for the new season to open when the Bulldogs will travel to Nashville, Tenn. to play Vanderbilt. Georgia has a better home schedule in 2019 when the Bulldogs will play host to Notre Dame, South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas A&M. Murray State and Arkansas State will also come to Athens in 2019.