How Kirby Smart's passionate halftime speech predicted Georgia's win vs. South Carolina

Three games into his eighth season as Georgia’s football coach, Kirby Smart hasn’t lost his motivational touch.

With the No. 1 Bulldogs trailing South Carolina 14-3 at halftime on Saturday — in a game they were favored to win by 27.5 points — Smart passionately addressed his team at a surprisingly crucial point in its young season.

“This is what we train for,” Smart told his players, as documented by SEC Network cameras for the channel’s show ‘SEC Inside.’ “This is what we work for. This is who we are. We sat right here and we had an identity game against Missouri on the road. You know what? It was very similar to this. It was very similar to this. It was sloppy. It was nasty. It wasn’t pretty and then we came out and we found a way. We always said it would not be pretty.”

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As he continued, Smart turned his attention to the remaining 30 minutes against the Gamecocks.

“Here’s the goal for the second half — we’re going to get about six possessions on offense,” he said. “Six possessions, y’all got me? Including the first one. We’re gonna score on four of them, OK? They might score once more on defense, but that’s it, you understand?

“We’re going to win the game and we’re going to come back in here and have a good time and figure out how we’re going to get better. This is what I need. Everybody listening? We going to win one moment at a time. What’s the first moment? Kickoff return. What’s the next moment? The first play on offense. Not the drive – the first play. We’re going to win one moment at a time because we’re not outcome related. We’re not worried about the outcome of that play. We’re worried about winning a moment. Can I win one moment?”

What Georgia did vs. South Carolina after Kirby Smart's halftime speech

As Georgia rolled to a 24-14 victory, the second half followed Smart’s script remarkably closely.

The Bulldogs had six offensive possessions, not including an abbreviated final drive that consisted only of one Carson Beck kneel down to bleed the few seconds left in regulation. They scored on three of those drives, each of which ended with a touchdown run. They were a missed 43-yard field goal from Peyton Woodring away from scoring on a fourth possession.

As Georgia racked up those points, South Carolina was held scoreless and gained only 98 yards across its six drives in the second half.

Given the scene inside the locker room, it’s not particularly surprising.

Bulldogs players looked extraordinarily calm and delivered hopeful, reassuring messages to one another. As Smart had noted, many of them had been through similar situations before. Their road to a 15-0 record and College Football Playoff championship last season wasn’t always so easy, like during the aforementioned 26-22 win at Missouri on Oct. 1, 2022, when Georgia rallied from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to pull out the victory.

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Kirby Smart's recent history of locker room speeches

In his time as a head coach, Smart had developed a reputation for rousing pre-game and halftime speeches. Most famously, audio leaked early this year of Smart addressing his team, purportedly before its 65-7 demolition of TCU in the College Football Playoff championship game, and telling players repeatedly to go out and "f--- up" the Horned Frogs.

In a podcast interview a few days later with TNT's Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley, Smart said that was not his speech from before the TCU matchup, but rather another game.

“Somebody asked me what game and I said, 'I don't even remember because they all sound like that,’” Smart said on the podcast.

Before he finished talking to the Bulldogs last Saturday, Smart had one final message, tying back to the speech’s central theme.

“One more moment and we’re going to kick their a-- by how we play,” he said before leading Georgia out of the locker room.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kirby Smart's halftime speech predicted Georgia's win vs. South Carolina