After Georgia trounced TCU in the national championship game, a speech supposedly delivered by Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart began to make the rounds on social media. The expletive-heavy lecture was quite the apparent precursor to Georgia’s 65–7 rout of the Horned Frogs, but as it turns out the speech didn’t take place, at least not before the title game.
Smart revealed this week that he had heard about the leaked audio, but that he was certain that his pregame talk had come from a game earlier in the year.
“That was leaked from a previous game,” Smart said on The Steam Room podcast with NBA on TNT’s Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley. “Somebody asked which game and I honestly don’t even remember because they all sound like that. The players were all laughing when it came out. A bunch of my guys texted me and said ‘they ain’t even heard the best one’.”
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Whether it was before the national championship game or the team’s 55–0 blowout victory over Vanderbilt, Smart’s speech certainly achieved its intended goal. Though full of profanity, the speech would have had just about every player in the Georgia locker room ready to run through a wall for the head coach.
“You go out there with energy and enthusiasm,” Smart said. “Ain’t nobody in this room should be cautious. Ain’t nobody in this room should be nervous about s---. Go out here, and f— their a– up! Don’t think about scoreboard. Don’t think about s---. You think about knocking the s— out of them. ...
“Punish their a– on offense, and kick their a– on special teams, guys,” Smart continued. “It’s about who the f— we are. I believe in you.”
Georgia capped off an undefeated, 15–0 season with a second straight national championship victory. Now, Smart and the Bulldogs will eye a historic three-peat in 2023, beginning next fall.
