CFP SEMIFINAL CHICK-FIL-A PEACH BOWL: GEORGIA VS OHIO STATE

December 26, 2022

Kamari Lassiter

Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Georgia Bulldogs

Press Conference

MATT GARVEY: Next we'll go to Kamari Lassiter.

Q. Obviously when you watch Ohio State on film, those quarterbacks and wide receivers just jump out. We know what happened in the second half against LSU. Just your take on that. Have you guys tightened up? Did you need to tighten up? How do you feel about that matchup being a big part of it?

KAMARI LASSITER: Ohio State definitely has a lot of great receivers, great quarterback, and we've got a lot of respect for them. I say during the LSU game, not trying to backtrack too far, but we did have some lapses during that game in the second half. We just really needed to recenter and refocus after that win and during this time off and just get back to the basics of Georgia football.

Q. Specifically watching film study for this game, what strikes you about Marvin Harrison Jr., and what he's done so well to be successful?

KAMARI LASSITER: He's a really good player. I've got a lot of respect for him. He's very physical. He's a big long guy with a pretty big catch radius.

He just seems like he pays attention. He has a lot of attention to detail during the game, and I think that's what makes him a pretty good player.

Q. Kamari, Coach Smart talks about you guys living to play the next snap if and when you get beat all the time. As a young player, first year starter, was there any moment in the season where you had a learning curve as opposed to like how to get over things faster, how to really live the next snap as opposed to maybe dwelling on getting beat on the previous?

KAMARI LASSITER: I would say definitely at the beginning of the season you want to make every play. Whenever you can't do that sometimes, it's kind of hard not to harp on it. With the pace of the game, you have a whole 10 or 11 other guys counting on you, and then you've got a whole team counting on you to do your job for the next play.

It's a part of the game. You get beat every once in a while, but the main thing is how you respond, and the response is what's most important.

Q. I know you're getting ready for the Ohio State receivers. I wanted to ask you about Dominic Lovett from Missouri or Rara Thomas from Mississippi State coming to Georgia as transfers. Do you remember going up against them and watching them on film? What do you remember individually about them from what you remember?

KAMARI LASSITER: Both of those guys are pretty good players. Both explosive with big catch radiuses. They'll be pretty good additions to our team next year. But right now I'm focused on what's important now.

Q. Wanted to ask you about Malaki Starks and how you've seen him improve over the course of this season. Obviously makes the big play in the first game against Oregon, but obviously a lot more comes with playing safety than just intercepting passes.

KAMARI LASSITER: I would say Malaki, he just gets better every week. He's a young guy, but he's very talented. He's like a sponge. He wants to soak up everything that he can learn to become a better player. I say that each week he tries to get better, and you can see it on film. You can see it at practice and in the film room as well.

Q. When you guys are preparing for Ohio State offense, do they remind you of anybody you've played during the regular season, or are they very different from teams you've played so far?

KAMARI LASSITER: I'd say they're pretty unique in themselves. They do a lot of things that are different, and they're very good at what they do. They've got a very dynamic quarterback and really good guys outside in the backfield as well. They're pretty unique just with what they do and how well they do it.

Q. Kirby's got a pretty strong record when he's got more than one week to prepare. Can you talk about what you guys do with that extra time and just how dialled in you're able to get when you've got that extra time versus maybe from one week to the next?

KAMARI LASSITER: It's pretty much, like I said earlier, we like to recenter and refocus. Focus on Georgia football at first, fix the things that we need to fix as a team. Then we have a really good coaching staff and players who are ready to buy in.

After that, we go into our game planning, and we dissect what we need to dissect and attack whatever we need to attack.

Q. You mentioned sort of the refocusing and recentering. What have these last few weeks been like for you guys in the secondary coming off that LSU game?

KAMARI LASSITER: In the secondary, we've just been harping on technique and working on our base coverages, working on day one things and just mainly technique and gaining more confidence and stuff like that.

MATT GARVEY: Kamari, thank you very much. We appreciate your time.