Kirby Smart’s postgame celebrations are approaching legendary status. The one he had in the immediate aftermath Saturday at Auburn almost got him killed.
That’s only a slight exaggeration. After Travon Walker sacked quarterback Bo Nix at Auburn’s 22-yard line with 99 seconds remaining, the 210-pound Smart left the Georgia sideline and leaped in the air to chest bump the 300-pound defensive lineman. Then physics did what physics does and Smart ended up bouncing backward and landing on his back on the Jordan-Hare Stadium turf.
Asked afterward if he regretted the spontaneous decision to chest bump the massive lineman, Smart laughed defiantly.
“Hell no,” he said. “I’d chest bump Travon all day. I thought I might lose an ACL, but I was committed to it.”
Indeed, Smart was limping noticeably as he left the postgame press conference.
Smart's soaring leap, his unbridled dance moves with the team in the locker room and some choice words to end his news conference were all counter-intuitive to the narrative he was trying to sell after the Bulldogs' 21-14 victory.
That was that winning a third consecutive SEC East championship and playing in the conference title game a third straight year was no big deal, that Georgia had bigger fish to fry.
When asked what kind of accomplishment it was to win three straight division titles for the first time since Florida did it five times in the 1990s, Smart scowled, “Yeah, we’ve gotta get ready for Texas A&M.”
Indeed they do. The No. 24-ranked Aggies (7-3, 4-2 SEC) visit Sanford Stadium for the first time since 1980 on Saturday for yet another nationally-televised game on CBS (3:30 p.m.). A&M is coming off a 30-6 win over the South Carolina team that saddled the Bulldogs (9-1, 6-1) with their only defeat this season (20-17 OT).
A loss to the Aggies won’t knock Georgia out of the SEC Championship Game, but it would make it nearly impossible to reach the College Football Playoff, even with a win over No. 1 LSU (10-0, 6-0), which clinched the West’s berth with a 58-37 win over Ole Miss on Saturday.
“There's significance in coming here and beating a ranked team in their place in an unbelievable environment. There’s a lot of significance to that and the East. But we’re worried about Texas A&M,” Smart repeated.
As for Walker, his sack of Nix on fourth-and-10 demonstrated again that the 5-star signee out of Thomaston needs to be playing more. As it was, he was in the game as a pass-rush specialist, which has been the only situation that gets him on the field this season.
Lining up at the nose guard position, head-up on the center, Walker ran a “loop stunt” around the right tackle and reached Nix as he was also being pressured from the left side. That ended a furious fourth-quarter rally that had seen the Tigers outgain the Bulldogs 158 yards to two in the final stanza.
Afterward, Smart essentially issued a mandate to Georgia’s defensive coaches to play Walker more.
“It’s what I’ve been saying to our guys: We’ve got to find more ways to play the guy,” Smart said. “He’s probably one of our better overall football players. He’s playing on third down, he plays quite a bit, but we’ve got to find ways to use the kid. He’s talented, and we’ve got to do a better job as coaches of finding avenues to help us, because he’s extremely athletic.”
Walker’s teammates agree.
“The guy’s a beast, very special man,” said junior safety Richard LeCounte. “I can’t wait to see how he does in these years coming up.”
Said linebacker Monty Rice: “He’s only a freshman but that was clutch. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.”
It’s enough to send a coach a-leaping.
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