What Kirby Smart said about OC James Coley, offense after Kentucky struggles
By Andrew Olson
Published:
It wasn’t pretty, but Georgia moved to 6-1 on the season with a 21-0 win over Kentucky on Saturday. The win keeps everything intact for a UGA squad that controls its own destiny in the SEC East. Considering the SEC champion has made the College Football Playoff every season, it’s fair to say that every goal is still on the table for the Bulldogs.
While defeating UK was an important win (as far as staying on track in the division), some Dawgs fans weren’t happy with how Kirby Smart’s squad won. The game, obviously affected by all the rain from Tropical Storm Nestor, was tied 0-0 at the half with Georgia having not crossed the 50-yard line on offense. QB Jake Fromm finished the day 9-of-12 passing for just 35 yards. The Bulldogs finished with 270 yards of total offense thanks to the ground game. Some fans were unhappy with the offense and booed during the game. It led to questions from the media about the Georgia offense and play-caller James Coley in Smart’s postgame press conference.
While Coley isn’t very popular with fans, Smart says he’s pleased with the first-year play-caller.
“Very pleased today, I thought we were extremely patient on offense and in tough conditions,” Smart said. “And, we’ve got more explosive plays than we did last year at this time, with three wide receivers that are in the NFL.”
Smart isn’t worried about how Fromm and the offense look heading into the final month of the regular season.
“I’m not concerned,” Smart said. “I feel really good about what our offense does. I feel good about Jake. To judge it based on that game is just not very smart. It’s hard to judge anything in that game. You can’t evaluate that. What you’ve got to evaluate is what is your heart, what is your courage, what is your love of the game. Think about those wideouts in that game. That’s for the love of the game is what’s that for. George Pickens, Kearis Jackson, those guys going out there and block. That’s for the love of the game.
“You evaluate things based on what’s going on around them. What’s going on around them is a tough environment. I could have told you two days ago we weren’t going to go out there and throw it for 200 yards in those conditions. We had to put a plan together to give us the best chance to be successful. I thought we did a good job.”
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
