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The Georgia Bulldogs' hopes for a run at the national championship took a massive hit on Saturday, as they lost to the South Carolina Gamecocks 35-7 in Columbia. It was the second straight game where the Dawgs' once-vaunted defense gave up more than 35 points. Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham spoke to the media after the game was over, and obviously wasn't happy.
On the success of South Carolina quarterback Connor Shaw vs. the UGA defense:
"Those were deep balls. We had a chance to (pick off) one of them. We should be able to play that. So we've gotta look at it and see why it happened to make sure it doesn't happen again because we'll see it as we move forward in the course of the season. But if you're gonna be hard to score on and be a good defense you can't give up explosive plays and have that happen. So obviously it's gonne be something we address as we move forward in the off week, this bye week."
On how important the game was to the Bulldogs' season:
"It's one loss. Anytime you lose it's not good, but it's one loss, and we just gotta continue to work hard and improve ourselves as individuals and take a team approach, and then we'll be better."
On the schematic difficulties Shaw presented:
"We were in zone. So your zone players oughta be able to come up and handle that. We had the ability to spy him. We did it on an occasion but you can't do it on every snap. But when you're in zone your zone players can come up and help on that. So give (Shaw) credit, he did a good job."
The loss is made even worse because next up, the team will have a bye week to stew over what went wrong. However, the Bulldogs have an opportunity to get their confidence back when they travel up to Lexington to take on Kentucky on Oct. 20.