Georgia players speak on the difference in this year’s Sugar Bowl: ‘Complete opposite’

NEW ORLEANS — Georgia finds itself in the same spot it did a season ago.

The team had a long layoff before playing in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, last playing against Alabama on Dec. 6.

The team arrived for Thursday’s game against the Ole Miss Rebels. Yet last year’s game, a loss, has been on the front of players’ minds this week.

“I just feel as though we didn’t take our bowl prep as seriously as we should’ve, we didn’t take great advantage of it,” tight end Lawson Luckie said. “I think that’s the complete opposite of what we did this year. I’m not convinced any team in the country has had better preparation than us going into it.

“I love what we’ve done going into it and I don’t think we could be any more prepared.”

Georgia saw its season, one in which it won the SEC championship, come to an end with a 23-10 loss to Notre Dame.

With less than a minute before halftime, Georgia found itself trailing only 6-3. The Bulldogs were a Trevor Etienne fumble away from possibly having the lead.

But Smart elected to be aggressive, pushing for points with the 39 seconds remaining in the half. That backfired when Monroe Freeling got beaten in pass protection, leading to a Gunner Stockton fumble.

Notre Dame scored on the next play, with Daylen Everette in coverage for the touchdown.

After halftime, the Fighting Irish returned the kickoff for a touchdown, and Georgia suddenly found themselves trailing 20-3 with a quarterback making his first career start.

“We didn’t get the outcome that we wanted,” Everette said. “So it was just everyone that was in that game that’s gonna be in this game this year, we all remember how that felt. And we’ve just been trying to emphasize that to the other people that really didn’t have that opportunity.”

Georgia will quickly tell you that this season’s team is different. For starters, Stockton is much more experienced as he leads the Bulldogs.

Georgia has also added Zachariah Branch, who is Georgia’s leading receiver on this team. Nate Frazier is now the leading rusher for the Bulldogs.

“There’s some things that we might’ve done last year and players might’ve done and kind of distracted ourselves,” tight end Oscar Delp said. “And I think (Kirby Smart is) just going to help us kind of stay away from that and just, you know, we trust him and everything that he’s got for us planned.”

Though the team hasn’t shown how, they have made changes to the way they’ve prepped for this game. Georgia is well aware that teams that had byes last year went 0-4.

Georgia is familiar with this year’s opponent, having beaten Ole Miss on Oct. 18.

The Bulldogs don’t expect that game to be a carbon copy of what takes place on Saturday.