What Brian Kelly said about Georgia after loss to Bulldogs
Brian Kelly’s Notre Dame Irish lost to Georgia Saturday night 23-17 in front of a loud and disruptive crowd at Sanford Stadium.
Notre Dame committed a Kelly era-high 12 penalties, and the crowd was clearly a major factor.
It was one of the most physical games Kelly’s ever coached, he said after the game. The Irish had a chance to win the game on the last drive, but Georgia’s defense broke up the pass.
Kelly spoke to the media following the Irish’s loss to the Bulldogs, and here’s everything he said about Georgia:
Kelly’s thoughts on the game
“Disappointed locker room, Certainly, you don’t come down here to play these games and feel good after a physical game like that, when you come up short. Congratulations to Georgia. They’re good football team, obviously. It was a physical game, both sides of the ball. You could hear it out there. The physicality was was real. Probably one of the most physical games that I’ve coached against any team that I’ve had compete. That’s a lot of games that I’ve coached. The physicality was real. Georgia made a couple more plays than we did. I know, these are some like cliches, but when you break it down, our guys fought to the very end, they made a couple more plays. We got a coach a little bit better. We’ve got to make a couple more plays. That was really the difference.”
Sanford Stadium’s environment
“We practiced in a louder environment. We’re very disappointed that we didn’t handle it better. It was more of coaching. I think we needed to do a better job of silent cadence longer. They handled it so quickly and so easily, but the repetition on the clap, which is our cadence, was so ingrained that when we went to silent cadence, they had forgotten and went back to the class, and so I should have taken that into consideration and just forced them to be in it longer. I’ll take responsibility for that.”
On Georgia’s depth
“They came back in waves. I think where they struggled a little bit was all of the injuries in the back end of their defense. Upfront, we’re trying to match and trying to figure out what’s going to come onto the field and it’s three down, it’s four down, it’s different personnel groupings, it’s more depth than we’ve seen in a long time.”
On Jake Fromm’s performance
“The arm is is a lot liver than it was when we saw him a couple years ago and the decision making, it’s outstanding. He doesn’t put the ball in a position where it’s going to be turned over. His back shoulder throws were very difficult for Troy Pride Jr. to defend and we stayed on the back hip of the defender. He put it low back shoulder. They had to make some great catches and they did. Give Georgia credit. They made great catches on those. They weren’t in stride, running, back shoulder catches. They had to go down on the ground and make great catches and Troy’s a pretty good defender and he didn’t have much of a chance, so that’s that’s really good quarterback play.”
You can watch Kelly’s full press conference below:
This is a VERY good football team. I’ll admit I thought they were over-rated, but I’m a believer now. They played UGA harder than most SEC teams have the last couple of years. Wish ‘em the best the rest of the year. SOS counts ;-)
I guess time will tell on that. I do know that they are a veteran team that had been hearing all week how they were going to get beat by more than 2 touchdowns, and I think they left it all on the field. UGA missed a couple of scoring opportunities, and gifted them a TD with the muffed punt. I do think we took their best shot for sure.
And they took your best shot. Pretty close overall.
Much respect to Notre Dame. They played much better than most everyone thought and probably are better than what most everyone thought. This is a great win and it’s pointless to be disappointed about not blowing them out based on the opinions of people who didn’t play nor coach in the game. I’m very glad our kids didn’t buy into the hype. Other than Texas vs. LSU, what other top 5 teams have played a competitive opponent? The Dawgs, ND, Texas, and LSU know more about their teams than any other top 5 program. Great win, go Dawgs!
UGA didn’t blow them out, because they couldn’t blow them out. This wasn’t about Georgia underperforming or not executing. It’s more about them being a bit better than a very good ND team
When UGA doesn’t play a team:
They’re weak! Overrated! Fraud! Have no business in the title picture! (12-1 Notre Dame in 2018 and 2012)
When UGA does play a team:
They’re one of the best teams in the country!
(10-3 Notre Dame 2017 and the current edition with no tailbacks or Y or Z receivers 2019)
Can you try to be a LITTLE less transparent?
Can you stop extrapolating individual comments you’ve read as being representative of all UGA fans?
You’re right… Vandy was going to be the second best team in the east when UGA beat them…
ND was overrated till UGA struggled with them…
Shut up and go do your homework
Sigh… Bama has to wait until 11/9 to play someone relevant not named Duke. Whoever gets the first defensive stop between Bama and LSU will win the game since the offenses are elite and both defenses are sub par this year.
ND is the best tackling team I have seen this far this season. Those guys are like glue once they make contact.
I agree. ND was excellent with the fundamentals. Those 12 penalties and the lost yardage from false starts were killer for them. I am not a ND fan, but they deserve more respect and played hard-nosed ball.
they did ok. I think if we hadn’t gifted them with that redzone fumbled punt return and subsequent TD – it would have been a different game.
That is assuming our offense eventually got started like it did in the second half… We need to figure that out and make sure we don’t start so slow against any decent SEC teams…
What makes you think you “started so slow”? Have you considered that perhaps ND’s defense was that good.
Seems to be a number of people out there who are trying to rationalize why there wasn’t a bigger margin in this game. I view the score was a pretty accurate measure of the differential between the two teams.
Was the Syracuse game last year an accurate reflection of how much better Clemson was than them? Nope. It’s a game early in the season where they gave us our best shot and we left a lot to be desired which hopefully gets corrected. Think what you want about our team. You might just get to see us in the playoff.