Coach Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldog football team finished spring practice with the weekend’s G-Day football game in Sanford Stadium. It’s a game that marked the debut of the Bulldogs new Uga mascot. Uga 11—Boom—replaces the now retired Uga 10, who was known as Que. We are today 138 days away from the Dogs regular season opener, September 2 at home against the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks.
From Tray Littlefield, UGA Sports Communications…
First off like always, I’d like to thank the fans for turning out. It turned out to be a warm day. A lot warmer than it was for our scrimmages. We had one scrimmage where it rained and one scrimmage where it was nice and cool. That was warm. We needed that for all the other scrimmages we’ve had, to kind of push through. You find out a lot about guys’ physical and mental toughness when you have heat. How you respond? A lot of guys had to play more snaps than they are used to. I was really pleased with the effort. I thought it was a tale of two halves. We had a first half where we lit it up on offense and didn’t think we could stop anything defensively. Then flip that over in the second half. We couldn’t score any points. Obviously, we have to improve in both of those areas, but there were some positive things that came out of today, too. Some guys played well. I thought we did some good things on both sides of the ball. We have to continue to do that to get better. I thought we got out relatively healthy. That was big for today. Some guys have been injured coming into today, but we didn’t really lose anybody today, which is big when you play tackle football.”
On what he learned about this football team over the Spring…
“I have always said, we are built to sustain here…We are not trying to be a one hit wonder. I want to put a really good football team out there each year, and we are well on our way to doing that at this time. We probably have the most cohesive unit we’ve had at this time in terms of the guys love being with each other, they like practicing hard. We had 14 of the 15 days where I really thought we had good practices. That includes today. I was really pleased with their work ethic. They like practicing. They like football. When people come to your practices, and they’ve been to seven other schools and say ‘Man, y’all get after it. Man, your guys prate hard. Man, your guys buy in and have fun’ it makes me feel better that our kids enjoy it.”
On the quarterbacks…
“It’s hard because I’ve got to go back and watch the tape as always. I thought both of them had good composure, good pocket presence. I thought Brock used his legs several times to break out of there and take off running. Brock unfortunately had some guys that dropped the ball on him. I thought the balls were really well thrown and should’ve been caught. He did a nice job in the pocket of making those throws and then Gunner did some really good things. I was really pleased with all three quarterbacks and what you saw today was some of what we’ve seen all spring. We have three good quarterbacks who can make the throws and do a really good job, I was pleased with those guys.”
Postgame Quotes – Georgia Players
2023 Georgia G-Day Game
April 15, 2023 | Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium
#96 Zion Logue | Sr. | DL
On how his role as a leader has changed…
“It’s been an amazing thing just to see guys looking up to me and looking for my wisdom and my answers. That’s the biggest thing for me is just being there when guys need me.”
On what the defensive line improved on most this spring…
“Trusting each other and leaning on each other. I’ve seen, as the camp went on, we are all closer, and I like that.”
#32 Chaz Chambliss | Jr. | OLB
On the freshmen today…
“They had great effort. They may not always know what to do on every play, but they showed great effort and great ability.”
On what he can overcome with playing hard…
“Just playing hard you can be places that you were supposed to be but you weren’t. You can make plays on the field when you’re coming down; you can make plays in the pass game.”
On how he felt about the game as a whole…
“Overall, as a team, we played our hearts out today. Defense started out a little slow, but we made adjustments and got better in the second half.”
#19 Brock Bowers | Jr. | TE
On the quarterbacks …
“They both come out every day just ready to work. One of them has a good day and one of them has a bad day sometimes. They always just bounce back and keep grinding. They’re making each other better just competing in that room.”
On playing for new offensive coordinator Mike Bobo…
“It’s a lot of the same stuff like a lot of the same terminology with just a little twist here and there. It was an easy transition and everyone loves playing for him out here. So it’s been fun.”
#11 Arian Smith | Jr. | WR
On what keeps the team motivated after winning two national championships…
“I feel like everybody has different reasons that keep them motivated. Everybody has their own ‘why’ and has their own specific reason. But I feel like we just want to win. Nobody likes to lose. We just want to win.”
On what it means for the Red Team to win G-Day…
“It feels good. I’m eating good Monday!”
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