Kirby Smart responds to Ole Miss fans throwing trash on the field

OXFORD, Miss. — More than anything, Kirby Smart was annoyed by the delay caused by the Ole Miss fans.

After the Rebels were flagged for a pass interference penalty in the second quarter, fans began chucking objects onto the field. A few water bottles. A handful of glow-up wristbands.

Smart saw it all from the sideline, just as he did when Georgia faced Texas back in 2024.

“I saw some little small — looked like ice, like little small, I don’t know what they were,” Smart said. “But I didn’t see bottles. They didn’t seem like Texas to me. I thought they could have kept playing. But that’s what it is. I mean, people want to do that, not very smart. But it’s interrupting a good game.”

Georgia was unfazed by the interruption, as the Bulldogs scored a touchdown after the delay to go up 28-0. Georgia ultimately won 42-7, moving to 8-1 on the season.

Smart had plenty to say about Georgia’s best performance of the season. Below, you can see the full transcript for Smart’s remarks.

Kirby Smart recaps Georgia football win over Ole Miss

Opening statement:

“Yeah, I thought it was a total team effort tonight. Our guys clearly came in focused. We talked about being on the hunt and being the aggressor, and I thought the game started that way from the start. The defensive coaches had a great plan, offensive coaches did a great job staying aggressive. Wanted to own the line of scrimmage. I thought we did that.

“And it’s on to the next one now ‘cause they just get bigger from here. But to say that wasn’t a big win — it’s a tough place to play against a quarterback that I have a tremendous respect for. And (Ole Miss) coach Pete (Golding) is a great coach. So tonight wasn’t their night, it was ours, and our guys played really hard. I was proud of them.”

On the defensive game plan and trusting the secondary when bringing pressure:

“Yeah, I was really proud of the whole defensive staff. You know, (defensive coordinator) Glenn (Schumann) does a great job. You know, we played him twice last year. Felt like we left a lot of plays out there. And there’s really only one way to play this guy. You either give him a lot of time, and he gets you, or you give him less time, and you try to get him — and he still may get you.

“So he did a good job calling the game, and our kids stuck to the plan. The plan was to possess the ball offensively, own the line of scrimmage. They did that in the first half and then stayed aggressive on defense. The kids bought into that. There’s a lot of things that went into that game, between walks, disguises, a lot of things that we spent a lot of time on.”

On the offensive line opening up opportunities in the run game:

“Yeah, I mean, that makes the game what it is, right? If you can run the ball, it makes a lot of the play-action easier. Physicality is our brand of football. It allows Gunner to take shots and do the things he does well as a quarterback.

“So the combination of that really helps. We couldn’t do it without a really good offensive line and some good backs and a great staff. Look: Our offensive staff, they still believe in the hat-on-a-hat and running things with rules where a lot of people don’t do that. We scheme people up pretty good in the run game, and it showed to help tonight, both physical and scheming.”

On safety Khalil Barnes and how important he was for how Georgia wanted to play:

“Well, it wasn’t just him. It was a combination of everybody. You know, rush works with coverage. And he did a great job, but he was the free guy a couple times. Like, you gotta designate who your free guy might be against special quarterbacks because even if they’re free, it doesn’t mean that it’s a great play. Because he’s made people miss and it can really hurt you if you miss it. You know, we tried to rush him (Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss) a certain way. We studied his scramble moves. And it paid off tonight to try to make him go vertical and not north and south.”

On WR Talyn Taylor’s 3 TDs:

“Shoot, I’m happy for him. I’m trying to think of the three — the scramble, the bomb.”

After a reporter noted he had one in the first quarter:

“I’m missing the one in the first, I guess. He works his tail off. He was open again a couple times on some plays that we had designed. He was wide-open, but it doesn’t always work out that way. It was very similar to last week.

“He’s one of the hardest workers in practice I’ve been around, and he runs the same speed all the time. And people don’t give him enough credit, but he’s stepped up as a gunner and he’s done some things with KJ (Bolden) being out, which has been tremendous. So Talyn’s a worker, he loves football. We love coaching him. Like, (offensive coordinator Mike) Bobo works with him. He and (WR coach James) Coley work with him every day because he’s a special talent at getting open.”

On the fast start and silencing the crowd:

“Yeah, it was a big factor because the last time we were here, they were in it the whole game, and it was impactful last time. We had more procedural penalties, more struggles, but we felt like we could take them out of the game if we could run the ball well. And people are gonna load the box and stop our run, and we’ve gotta be multidimensional, and I thought we were tonight.”

On what has worked well for Georgia the last two games:

“We’re a good team. I mean, we’re a good team. We’re a good team that’s a week away from humility. We sat on the road last time and beat a team (Alabama) at night that’s a really good team, too, and didn’t take care of business the next week (against Auburn). So, you know, how you handle success says a lot about you. Our guys are starting to kind of believe in each other and believe in the plan. So, I don’t think it’s about who we played or any of that. I think it’s about the culture on our team and kind of the leadership that they go about their work week with. It’s not going to be any different next week. You know what I mean? Like, we’ve got a good team coming to Athens next week, and we’ve got to go get ready for it. We’re beat up and banged up, and so is everybody else in the league. So, it’s on to the next.”

On if he has an injury update on DB Ellis Robinson IV:

“I don’t. It’s a thigh, hip. I don’t know.”

On his reaction to trash being thrown on the field:

“No reaction. I mean, I didn’t — I saw some little, small — looked like ice, like little small, I don’t know what they were. But I didn’t see bottles. They didn’t seem like Texas to me. I thought they could have kept playing. But that’s what it is. I mean, people want to do that, not very smart. But it’s interrupting a good game.”

On if anything has led to increased defensive havoc since the bye week:

“Yeah, I think speeding people’s process up, you know, making them uncomfortable. We’re rushing better. We’re covering better. When you do that, you know, sacks are usually fumbles. I think we had a fumble off of a sack, and that’s a big part of the game, getting turnovers. When you force sacks, you force turnovers.”

On what he’s learned about the depth on this team:

“Yeah, we don’t have enough depth. I mean, I’m looking on the sideline for all the guys that are back home. I want to put them in the game and let them play. We only got, you know, 74, five or six specialists, four quarterbacks. It just seems like we don’t have enough depth. So I can’t imagine how other teams feel because I don’t feel like we have enough.”

On how the team kept their edge with a big lead:

“Yeah, the score has no bearing on what we do. We’re trying to physically stomp people out, and that score has nothing to do with that. Now, I can’t say that we have done that consistently because at halftime, I talked about games we’ve had leads on, and we came out and didn’t play real well. I was a little disappointed. There was a little lull in there that we didn’t, you know, we didn’t play real well, and it got sloppy, but they fought through it. That was kind of the talk at halftime was, you know, can you play with consistency regardless of the score? Human nature is to relax and say, ‘We’re up, we got a lead, we’re good.’ I was a little frustrated with that at half because we didn’t manage the turnover well at the half in terms of getting points out of it. I don’t mean that from an offensive standpoint. I mean that from me and the players.”

On the importance of scoring touchdowns in the red zone:

“Yeah, it’s huge. I mean, that’s one thing that we have been pretty good at. Defensively, we don’t have many trips down there, but our numbers are awful. But we have, like, the fewest trips, but we don’t have a lot of success. So, it’s one of those things that we work really hard in the red area. We had gone two games, I think, against Ole Miss back-to-back without one stop in the red area. I think we got one tonight. But, like, they’ve been really hard. They were number one in the country in red zone offense. And so, I think our offense kind of owned up to that matchup and did a great job.”

On what WR Craig Dandridge was dealing with:

“He’s dealing with a little bit of a lower hamstring around his knee, but he’s had it for two, three weeks, and it bothers him from time to time. It’s one of those things that I don’t think it’s getting better until he shuts down or he gets out of the season. So, he’s having to deal with it. Dwight (Phillips Jr. is) dealing with it. Ellis (Robinson IV) is banged up. Elyiss (Williams) is banged up. We’ve got a lot of guys. It felt like going into this game, we were getting some back, and then going out of it, we got some out. But nobody’s going to feel sorry for us. I can promise you that.”

On the tight ends’ performance:

“Yeah, they’re weapons. They block well, and when they block, they get open in the passing game. So I think (Bobo) can do a great job at using them. Jaden (Reddell), Ethan (Barbour), Lawson (Luckie), those guys are really good weapons, and they’re so unselfish. But that room is not about ego. Because any one of them could go somewhere and get a ton more catches, but they love it. They love (tight ends coach Todd) Hartley. They wanna win. They wanna play these atmospheres. They wanna play for Georgia. That’s what I love about our kids, man. They don’t, there’s a lot ... there’s a lot of kids happy for the other kids.”

On RB Nate Frazier:

“Yeah, he seems fresh, and he seemed like he’s pouring up it up in there. I was really proud for him on the touchdown pass. He had a big pass play pick up, which was big for him. He was getting confidence in the passing game, and blocking people. And people are going to pressure us because they feel like that’s the way to stop us. He ran the ball well, made pretty good decisions. He had one really poor decision, but he did a good job.”

On third-down defense:

“Yeah, it was their key to the game. And we felt like in the playoff game (against Ole Miss), we struggled to get off the field on third down. We did well early, and then we lost a bunch of third downs. And it helps when you got (Chambliss) in third and long. It felt like we had him in some third and longs tonight, because he’s just elite at scrambling and making throws in that medium range. And when you get him longer, you can speed things up on him.”

On him talking to Nate Frazier late in the first quarter:

“He just made a poor decision, but he played well. I’m happy for him. I’m fired up at a lot of players, so he’s not getting any partiality.”

On the job the scout team QBs did to prep Georgia:

“I don’t know, Buddha (Hezekiah Millender) did a great job, but so did Ryan Montgomery and (Bryson) Beaver and those guys. They all share in that load. We don’t give Buddha all the reps, because he’s probably the most like Trinidad. But it was really a collective effort. I thought that the way Schumann decided to practice really helped us. He did things a little different this week, because we knew so much about (Ole Miss) and we practiced kind of a different way. And it helped calling the game and messing with their tempo and messing with the quarterback.”

On what the team did differently in practice:

“I can’t divulge that, because then everybody’s gonna leave that advantage. So I’m not sharing that we practiced differently. I don’t have to explain why. I can’t give you everything.”

On LB Khamari Brooks:

“Khamari’s done great. He also missed a touchdown play, the tackle that you can’t forget. So it’s like, one good thing comes with another. He’s gotta learn to get his hat across. He should have made that play, the back ran it in for a touchdown. So it’s a great learning experience for him. But he’s very wise beyond his year. He’s very mature. One of the most composed, savvy, intelligent freshmen I’ve been around. And I love that, because he’s sharp. He’s really smart.”

On what Khalil Barnes brings to the defense:

“Experience, great value. He’s a competitor. He’s very instinctive. I just think about the plays he’s made, and tackles, and the sack. He does exactly what he’s coached to do.

And he’s a tremendous kid that we’re dumba---- for not taking him out of high school. So I’m just glad he’s here with us now."

On what he learned about his team:

“Just another road in the journey that we can go play in tough places. We can go play tough teams. I mean, you can’t read too much into it. Because everybody will say, ‘They went to Ole Miss. Ole Miss has won how many games in a row.’ But Ole Miss has had bad games, too. They’ve had really good games. They’ve had really bad games. They’ve had a little bit of both. I think everybody in the SEC can look and say, ‘OK, where’s the consistency?’ Nobody’s 100% consistent. I don’t even know a lot of the other scores, but we’ve had our inconsistencies. So who is gonna finish November with the most consistency? Who’s gonna continue to get better? So I’ve learned that our team is player-led; (they) care about each other. And it meant something to them coming into this place tonight.”