Although Kirby Smart <\/a>and company addressed the media Tuesday in Tampa, Florida, Georgia was part of the conversation all week.<\/p>\nFrom new faces, such as Florida\u2019s Jon Sumrall and Arkansas\u2019 Ryan Silverfield, to old foes, such as Texas\u2019 Steve Sarkisian and South Carolina\u2019s Shane Beamer, SEC coaches sounded off on the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
Georgia opens the season Sept. 5 when it hosts Tennessee State. The Bulldogs\u2019 first SEC game of the season is Sept. 19 against Arkansas. <\/p>\n
Here are some of the comments made by opposing head coaches at SEC media days. <\/p>\n
Sumrall on the Georgia-Florida rivalry: \u201cI think it\u2019s one of the best rivalries in college football. A lot of respect for Kirby and the job he\u2019s done over the years. Been very consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even off the field there is a rivalry, as evidenced during the Steve Spurrier Awards. \u201cThat was a fun event,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think it was a night we were all able to let our guard down and have a little fun. Kirby and I caught up before the event. Look, it was all good natured. What would you expect at the coach Spurrier award show, other than a lot of jabs being thrown? Right? Like it wouldn\u2019t be his award show if it wasn\u2019t a lot of jabs. No, fun event and really respect what they\u2019ve done, Kirby and his staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarkisian on chasing Georgia: \u201cYou know, there\u2019s a lot of sayings and quotes in the sports world, in particular, but this one probably is the most fitting: \u2018If you want to be the champion, you got to beat the champion.\u2019 It\u2019s no more fitting for us. We\u2019ve played Georgia three times. They\u2019ve beaten us. All the credit in the world to Kirby, their team. They\u2019re tough. They\u2019re good. If we want to be a champion, I\u2019m guessing we\u2019ll probably have to beat the champion to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beamer on playing Georgia: \u201cWhen you talk about geographically, right across the river, it\u2019s a big deal in Augusta, Georgia. I know a lot of Gamecocks in the state of Georgia. I know a lot of Bulldogs in the state of South Carolina. And I love being able to play. It\u2019ll be fun. Every year that I\u2019ve played them, it\u2019s always been early in the season when we\u2019ve played them since I\u2019ve been the head coach. So, it\u2019ll be neat to play them later in the year in Columbia in November. I know it\u2019ll be rocking in Williams-Brice that night. And I know just like \u201921 and \u201922 and \u201923 when we played them, I know it\u2019ll be a big, big, big challenge for us, too, because of the players on that team and how well coached they are.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables on facing Georgia: \u201cYou\u2019re not going to sneak up on anybody in Ann Arbor or going to Athens, Georgia. I think they\u2019ve lost maybe once in five or six years at home. Georgia has been the gold standard in my opinion for college football for quite some time now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverfield on reaching out to Kirby Smart after Silverfield\u2019s previous comments<\/a> about the Georgia program: \u201cWhen it happened, listen, I\u2019ve got the deep, most respect for Kirby Smart and the Georgia athletic department and everything that he\u2019s about. Obviously, he\u2019s done it at a high level, so certainly a lot of respect for him. When it occurred, I reached out to him. He\u2019s always been great to me. Even at my time at Memphis. He allowed us to come be a part of the camps. I think he knew that it was no ill will. Listen, I\u2019ve got a lot or respect for him and what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Georgia football program was a popular topic among coaches this week at SEC media days. The Bulldogs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,6606,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-786606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-georgia-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}