Kirby Smart says ‘y’all don’t know how special’ Dwight Phillips Jr. is

For the first time since 2007, No. 2 Georgia defeated No. 6 Alabama in the regular season, winning 20-17.

It was a game that featured just about everything you could ask for, and a big reason was the game-commanding performance of running back Dwight “Peanut” Phillips Jr.

With Chauncey Bowens ruled out earlier this week and Nate Frazier being ruled out before kickoff, Phillips became Georgia’s top ball carrier.

He did not let this opportunity go to waste, becoming Georgia’s biggest game changer on offense. His shiftiness and explosive speed gave Alabama fits all night.

Phillips finished the night with a career-high 17 carries for 120 yards and gave Georgia enough on the ground to help complement quarterback Gunner Stockton’s performance through the air.

Phillips’ biggest run came on Georgia’s final scoring drive, where he busted loose for a 22-yard pickup that helped get UGA going. Five plays later, Georgia hit a go-ahead 23-yard field goal to take a 20-17 lead.

After the game, UGA coach Kirby Smart talked about the win, Phillips’ performance and the overall resiliency of his team.

Here’s everything Smart said after the win over Alabama.

Opening statement:

“Yeah, what a great college football game, great atmosphere. I’ve been in a bunch of those with them, and they all seem similar, you know? Just, physical game, back and forth, critical calls, critical situations. You can go back and look at hundreds of them on there. At the end of the day, our quarterback played well enough for us to win. We scored enough points to win, but it was a really extreme physical football game.

“And I have a lot of respect for Alabama, I have a lot of respect for coach (Kalen) DeBoer. A lot of respect for their team and how they play. And another week in the SEC because humility is a week away, as you saw today. So it’s gonna be physical, it’s gonna be tough.”

On if he could have asked for anything more from Dwight Phillips Jr. and Bo Walker:

“What a great kid, man. This Dwight Phillips, man, y’all don’t know how special this kid is. He ain’t complained one time since being here, and he’s so tough for his size. And (offensive coordinator Mike) Bobo came to me before the game and said, ‘Nate don’t look like he can go.’ I said, ‘We’ve got to give it to Peanut.’ I said, ‘You remember that game when we were in Georgia and they gave a ball to Torin Kirtsey, who weighed about 175. I don’t know how many times Torin carried it, maybe 30. I said, ‘If we gotta give it to Dwight that many times, he can do it.’

“And he and Bo stepped up big, even the young kid (Nick Peal). You know, this kid was in high school six months ago, Peal, and he’s a really good football player. And he’s gonna get better. But we’re a beat-up football team right now, guys. We’ve got guys out left and right. To have both those backs out, and Isiah (Canion) out at receiver, tough deal, but we responded.”

On how his team responded to adversity:

“I mean, yeah, adversity is what you make it. So I’m proud of them. Absolutely I’m proud of them, but it’s just the way of the world in our league. When you go on the road in our league, it’s really hard, and Alabama’s got a really good football team. I gotta feeling they’re going to keep getting better and grow up.”

On the big runs by Phillips and Walker on Georgia’s penultimate drive:

“It says we’ve got a really good offensive coordinator that all y’all like to criticize because he called those plays. He designed them, and then his staff put them together. And then ‘coach’ Gunner (Stockton), who makes checks to the line, puts us in the right play.

“You know, we’ve got a physical football team. And I think they were 10th in the country in rush defense, and I think if you take sacks and a fumbled snap out, we ran the ball pretty good tonight, guys. And I’m happy for Mike because he does a tremendous job. You know, the call on third down, backed up, won the game. Who makes that call? He did. And who executes it? Gunner did. So I think both those guys deserve a lot of credit.”

On Stockton’s performance:

“Yeah, it’s a deal that you get better with experience. So he had a couple plays that, hey, they didn’t work out. He didn’t let them affect him. You know, he had the pick, which was kind of batted. And then he had a boot that we thought could have been a big play that he underthrew. He doesn’t let things fester and affect him. And when he’s gotta stand in there and throw a bullet and make a play, he was able to do it tonight in really critical situations.

“The one conversion to Craig (Dandridge) over on our sideline, on their best corner, he threw a hitch over there and we just got it up for a first. And then the big conversion on third-and-whatever-it-was — 7 or 8. I told Mike, ‘Be aggressive. We’re not planning to run it and punt. We’re gonna try to win the game right now.’”

On containing Alabama QB Keelon Russell:

“Yeah, there’s no such thing as containing Russell. Like, when a guy runs 10.4 (seconds in the) 100 meters, you don’t have a 260-pound end that can contain him. You’re better off getting out of there and then go get him and maybe cover half the field. Because there’s no containing Russell. That kid’s an elite athlete, an elite player. Hopefully, we affected him some tonight, and he didn’t have some of the numbers he’s had. But he’s a really good football player … .”

On the defense late in the game:

“I told (defensive coordinator Glenn) Schumann to be aggressive. If we’re aggressive, then we lose swinging and we get the ball back and we got a chance to win. Like, we didn’t come here to play to lose. I didn’t come here to play to go to overtime. I came here to win. And he called up a timely blitz that knocked them out of field-goal (range).

“I knew when they punted our offense had, you know, started to take the anaconda effect and it was wearing them down and we had a chance to run it out, and that happened.”

On the level of calm he has with Stockton as his QB:

“Yeah, I’m not calm ever with any quarterback running the offense. I was talking to my mom earlier today. I got perspective on things now, that win or lose this game tonight, guys, I’m gonna be judged on my kids, my wife, my parents — my mom. Like, what kind of man am I? And I look at that a lot more than I look at what somebody’s gonna say about a record against Alabama, or a record against the SEC, or national championships. That’s just not my motivation anymore. I’d rather make memories with my kids, and my family, and my team, and my coaching staff, and we made great memories today. Regardless of whether we wanna lose this game, we gotta go win the next one.”

On Blake Stewart recovering the muffed punt:

“Yeah, opportunistic. Probably not the best decision (by Sacovie White-Helton), but you know, Sacovie, some of that’s my fault because I told Sacovie a couple times that we can’t keep getting backed up and we gotta make a decision to catch it and get it and get out of there. When he went to do it, I thought, ‘This is a good, fortuitous bounce,’ and he just didn’t have good control over it. Nobody works harder at catching punts than Sacovie, so I have a lot of confidence in him. I believe in him, and great play by Blake Stewart.”

On the first win in Tuscaloosa since 2007:

“We haven’t played here much, you know? I mean, 2007, I was here on the other side. So I don’t get into all the whole ‘first win in a long time here.’ I mean, I don’t know how many we’ve played here since then, three? I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, so we’re 1-2. What is everybody else? I mean, it’s a hard place to play.

“I don’t judge my happiness or success on how we play Bama. I’ve got a lot of respect for this place. Nick (Saban) taught me a lot. Watching that show (the ‘Saban’ docuseries) the other night, the first opening one, it just, I have so much respect for him. I think we run our program a lot like that. So I tell those kids, ‘Y’all need to tune in and watch the shows. The stuff going on in that show’s in Athens right now. It’s going on over there all the time.’ And it’s physical, and it’s tough, and it’s accountability. That’s what he taught me, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

On the offensive line:

“Tough. They love it. You know, we had two kids out there that were committed to Alabama, (Zykie Helton and Dontrell Glover), right? And it was important to them that they knew who they were by the end of it.”

On what’s impressed him the most about the team through six games:

“I don’t know. Ask me next week. Humility’s a week away, guys.”

On what was going through his mind celebrating with his wife and players:

“It was the sacrifices they all make. It wasn’t about Alabama. It was about an SEC road win, Top 10 team. And that, to me, is what we work for. I mean, our guys grind. Our guys work hard. We practiced hard last week. We didn’t take the pads off Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. And they bought into that. They wanted to do that. They felt it was important to do that.

“So I, like, to celebrate that, celebrate it with Mary Beth (Smart’s wife) because she sacrifices a ton for our family and deals with my frustrated ass all the time. And she deserves a kiss every now and then.”

On the offense staying resilient after penalties:

“I just want to know how many we overcame. It seemed like we overcame a lot of them. I’m just, like, it usually goes both ways and it really didn’t. And I thought a couple of them — I guess I’m not allowed to comment, but some of them were legit. I mean, we had a bad deal there with one of Dwight’s runs. We can’t reach out and grab the guy outside the framework.

“But I study those calls every week, watch every one of them, to try to get the level of consistency. You know, tough deal. And we did overcome them, and that gives a lot of credit to Mike and Gunner. I mean, they’re second-and-forever, and they fight back in the down and distance to get back in it.

“You know, we got them back by, it felt like, by sacks or by knock-backs. And then they got us back by penalties. But, you know, both offenses came in, and kind of the defenses were being disrespected. And I thought most defenses played well.”

On the response in the third quarter after Alabama scored to end the first half:

“Oh, great opening drive, great opening drive. And, look, we gotta solve all kinds of issues and problems, but one of the worst things we do is two-minute-before-the-half defense. We’ve been porous, like, not just this year, but forever. And we gotta do a better job. Either gotta be more aggressive, we gotta eat time, we gotta not give them the ball back there because, you know, I wanted to eat the clock out, and we couldn’t. We got a penalty or something on offense, and having to punt it to them and here we go again. You know, give up one play, and it’s like catastrophe syndrome.

“Now, I am proud of them, because as I said, ‘They’re gonna run it here. They’re gonna run the ball, 100%. We gotta knock them back and not let them run it in.’ And we knocked them back, but it bounced out.”

On when he knew something was up with Frazier’s injury and if it changed the game plan:

“No, I mean, it’s a bad situation because we thought all week he was gonna play, and he didn’t feel like he could go. He was in pain. It continues to be painful for him, and not a lot we can do. I mean, like I said, we’re a beat-up football team and we’re down three backs, really.”

On if the motivation is not about winning championships now:

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m motivated with championships. That’s not true.”

On what about his perspective has changed:

“Nothing. I mean, my perspective was always that. You don’t think I wanted to be a good husband, father, and man before I wanted to be a good football coach? I mean, I worked for Mark Richt, I worked for Bobby Bowden, and it was never about the wins and losses. It was about the young men that you’re affecting and growing and raising.

“Do I wanna win championships? … I wanna win championships, but I’m not — I have perspective now to know that there’s a lot more important things in life than just that. That they’re important, but there’s a lot more important things.”

On the team taking this win in stride ahead of Auburn:

“Getting to work. I mean, (Auburn) is sitting at home right now, watching our game with a week off. I mean, that’s tough. We’re not gonna get back to probably 5 a.m. And got a quick turnaround, so. But it’s life in the SEC. You can ask any coach. They’ll text tonight and say ‘Humility’s a week away.’”

On if he feels like Gunner Stockton is the most underrated QB in the SEC:

“I have no idea because I don’t know what they’re rated. I mean, go ask (my son) Andrew. He’ll tell you ‘cause they got 54 ratings of these kids. Like, the SEC’s full of really good quarterbacks, so why do we rate them? Why don’t we rate them by rings? I think he rated them pretty good then. I mean, alright, what about winning? What about complimentary football? What about ability to be an NFL quarterback and check something and run something here or there? I mean, it’s all about what makes it important to you, and we play complementary football.

“But I’m just happy for Gunner, because it means so much to him and Drew (Bobo). And they’re the old guys on the team.”