{"id":842673,"date":"2026-09-10T07:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T07:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842673\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T07:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T07:32:12","slug":"kirby-smart-makes-it-clear-what-he-wants-to-see-from-georgias-defense-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842673\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirby Smart makes it clear what he wants to see from Georgia\u2019s defense this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATHENS \u2014 Georgia had a nearly flawless showing in its season-opening win over Tennessee State. <\/p>\n

But there was one area that Georgia coach Kirby Smart wants to see improvement. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to create some turnovers on defense. We were not able to do that,\u201d Smart said in a radio appearance on 680 The Fan on Wednesday. <\/a>\u201cWe dropped a pick. We got a fumble out, but it was late. The whistle had blown,\u201d Smart said. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to be a good football team. We got to turn people over.\u201d<\/p>\n

For as well as the Georgia defense played, it did not force a turnover. Georgia held Tennessee State to just 109 total yards of offense and finished with 3.0 sacks. <\/p>\n

The Bulldogs didn\u2019t give up their first first down of the game until Tennessee State\u2019s sixth drive of the game. By that point, Georgia was already up 35-0. <\/p>\n

Georgia\u2019s pass rush had been another area of concern coming into the season. <\/p>\n

The Bulldogs finished the game with 3 sacks<\/a>, but Smart wasn\u2019t ready to say that issue was totally resolved. <\/p>\n

\u201cHard to evaluate it based on those guys they were going against \u2014 no disrespect to them,\u201d Smart said. <\/a>\u201cBut there was not a long time for the quarterback to be able to throw, and the quarterback got it out really quick as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Georgia takes on a Western Kentucky team that got rocked by Nevada to open the season, 49-14. <\/p>\n

But the Hilltoppers have seen SEC teams before, having played LSU a season ago. Brian Kelly had been fired by that point in the season, but Western Kentucky played the Tigers to a 13-10 loss. <\/p>\n

Smart mentioned earlier this week that he has a healthy amount of respect for Western Kentucky and their coach, Tyson Helton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Tyson Helton, have a lot of respect for him as a coach and the program, they\u2019ve done a tremendous job with their program over years \u2014 a lot of years,\u201d Smart said. \u201cAnd they\u2019ve got several members from our staff that are working up there and got close connections. Their coaches come down and work our camps in the summer, and they\u2019ve got a lot of Georgia kids on their program.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs are once again a healthy favorite this week, as they will be expected to win with ease. <\/p>\n

Smart pointed out, though, that the Bulldogs aren\u2019t guaranteed to automatically get better this week. <\/a><\/p>\n

They\u2019ll have to go out and earn it on the field, much like they did a week ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be a great opportunity for us to continue to get better,\u201d Smart said. \u201cAnd we have a saying around here, \u2018You don\u2019t have to be sick to get better.\u2019 And that\u2019s been the motto of last weekend this week.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATHENS \u2014 Georgia had a nearly flawless showing in its season-opening win over Tennessee State. But there was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1976,399,398,396,397,7702,99],"class_list":["post-842673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sec","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842673","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=842673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}