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CHICK-FIL-A KICKOFF GAME

September 3, 2016

Larry Fedora

Atlanta, Georgia

Georgia - 33, North Carolina - 24

LARRY FEDORA: First thing is I want to give Kirby Smart and his staff and that team all the credit. Those guys did a heck of a job tonight. They came out, they played well, and they won a football game tonight. I was proud of the way our team performed as far as their effort. We just made too many mistakes, and you can't do that against a good opponent. You can't do that nowadays against anybody and have success. But you've got to give those guys credit because they did a nice job.

Q. Would you just talk about that period of the game where everybody seemed to come unglued. You got the call against you, the safety occurred. What happened there? What did you say and what really went down?
LARRY FEDORA: Well, we got the penalty on the lineman downfield, and I was questioning the call. The guy didn't like what I said so he threw a flag on me, which that's nobody's fault but mine. It's my fault. That's the first time that's ever happened in my life. Pretty disappointing. And then we're backed up on the 2- or 3-yard line and they get the safety. So that's all on me, nobody but me.

Q. You talk about the mistakes; are you talking primarily about penalties or a grand kind of --
LARRY FEDORA: We had 13 penalties, and we don't need to go that way. We had penalties everywhere. It always goes in these early games, we talked about it, it's going to be special teams, it's going to be turnovers and penalties. That's it. That's going to determine these early games, and there's so much unknown in a game like this. I mean, we can't overcome those kind of things, or we couldn't overcome them. Maybe we'll eventually evolve to a team that can, but we couldn't tonight.

Q. Mitch's performance tonight, what did you see, and the deep balls in the first half, looked like you had some guys open, he just couldn't get it there?
LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, I'd have to go back and look at the film. I mean, I was pleased with his poise. The first thing we had asked him to do was to take care of the football, and I don't ever remember him throwing the ball into any coverage or anything like that, so I thought he did a nice job of that.

I think he got a little antsy a couple of times and had some time that he didn't realize he had, but I think he'll be fine going forward. I really do.

We didn't throw the ball near as well as we needed to tonight to be successful, and probably would have loved to have run it more, but we were so inconsistent offensively, we weren't moving the chains, and so that makes you start guessing on all your play calls, when you're trying to hit some big plays to get something going, and we just didn't make them.

Q. What's the challenge with trying to defend Nick Chubb and that rushing attack?
LARRY FEDORA: He's pretty good. You know, there's no doubt, he's really good. What Chaney does with him is good. He's got a good scheme, and their offensive line is doing a nice job of -- it doesn't take much for that guy. He's pretty special. There's no doubt he's one of the best ones in the country, and they're going to keep feeding it to him.

Q. Late in the first half, you guys get down to the 5 and Elijah's on the field, three straight pass plays. What was the thinking there?
LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, we thought we had what we wanted to throw the ball in. They outnumbered us in the box. They were going cover zero. All those were run checks with passes tagged to them, and because it was cover zero and they were bringing blitzes, that was the plan.

Q. You mentioned that you would have liked to have run it more; why did you guys not run it more?
LARRY FEDORA: You know, because we were so inconsistent, I mean, in everything we were doing. There was never a time -- or I shouldn't say never. There were a couple series we felt like we were doing things the right way, but you can't be 2nd and long on every series and think you're going to be able to run the ball effectively.

I thought 1st down was tough on us. We didn't -- we weren't effective on 1st down enough, and that caused us to get behind the chains, and then it makes it tough to run.

Q. Given the amount of experience you have on this team, were you a little surprised by that inconsistency?
LARRY FEDORA: Yeah. Yeah, I was surprised. But you're going to have to give those guys credit now. We weren't out there going against air. There were some good players on that other side of the ball, and they did a nice job. Kirby knows how to defend people.

I think part of it was just trying to adjust to the things that we didn't know we were going to see, and that's just part of the game. It was the way it happened.

Q. (No microphone.)
LARRY FEDORA: It's a game, but we'll see what happens, and how we get that corrected and how our guys play. I think some of it was just guys trying to play extra hard and making stupid penalties. There were some things that we did that were not characteristic of us, and hopefully we can get that going back in the right direction.

Q. You're very careful about not creating that all-the-eggs-in-one-basket feeling with this team, even though a lot of fans might feel that way. What did you say to them after this about all the goals still remaining?
LARRY FEDORA: I didn't talk to them about our goals. I think they all know that our goals still are all intact. We knew whether we won this game or lost it, it really wasn't going to have a huge impact on our goals for the season. It's all going to be about now what do we learn from this game and how do we react to what happened in this game. For a lot of guys, because even though I didn't put all our eggs in this basket, there are a lot of guys on our team that are in there hurting because they wanted to win this football game and they expected to win it. So we've got to get them to bounce back. Sunday we've got to have a really good practice. They know what's expected, and I think our seniors and our leaders on the team will do a good job of that.

Q. Can you share your thoughts about opening the game here at Chick-Fil-a?
LARRY FEDORA: Well, first of all, Chick-Fil-a, they do a great job with this game. I will tell you for our players, our fans, everybody, they have such a great setup here, and hopefully some day we'll be able to come back and do it again because it was a lot of fun. It really was. It was a great matchup, and unfortunately we just came out on the short side.

Q. What was the breakdown on that 55-yard run by Chubb that kind of broke the game open?
LARRY FEDORA: We were in an all-out blitz situation there, and we just didn't fit it well. They got us outnumbered on a gap, and we didn't fit it well, so that kind of broke it open right there. I think we had a couple guys that had opportunities to make a tackle on him, but we won't be the only ones that don't make a tackle on that guy. He's pretty good.

Q. Can you just talk about your prep for Lambert and Eason coming in, which quarterback you'd face, and then once it became Eason, just what you saw of him?
LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, we prepared the same way for either one because we didn't know which one was going to play. There was no way of knowing.

Well, you saw them open it up a little bit more when Eason was in the game, and it gave us some issues, also. Both quarterbacks did a nice job. I mean, I don't know that -- again, I didn't evaluate either one of them, but both of them are quality guys. Both of them did what they need to do to win a football game, and that was all that mattered.

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