Kirby Smart frustrated with Georgia’s negative plays vs. Alabama: ‘We’re shooting ourselves in the foot’
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Georgia trails Alabama 9-6 at halftime of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The Bulldogs offense has struggled to get much going. Stetson Bennett was 11-of-17 for 127 yards and connected with George Pickens on a nice 52-yard play, but the only points of the half for the Dawgs came from a pair of Jack Podlesny field goals. Georgia also managed just 26 rushing yards in the 1st half.
Kirby Smart’s main source of frustration came from his team’s self-inflicted errors. The Dawgs committed 7 penalties for 49 yards in the opening 2 quarters, including a hold that wiped out a nice Kenny McIntosh kickoff return and a fair catch interference that gave the Crimson Tide good starting field position.
“We’ve got to settle down,” Smart told ESPN’s Molly McGrath at halftime. “We haven’t had, probably, 1 drive that we didn’t have negative plays starting on where we started back up…
”We’re shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re 1st-and-15, 2nd-and-20. You’re not going to have a good football team when you do that. We’ve got to get some good things together on offense.”
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
