Why one Texas player called Kirby Smart a maniac
The Longhorns have much to be confident about. Texas is returning a wealth of talent and advanced to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff last season before falling to the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes.
Texas missed out on one of its goals: to win the SEC championship. The Georgia Bulldogs beat Texas in Austin with a dominant defensive performance and then toppled Texas in overtime in the SEC championship game.
Taaffe and Texas will try to beat Georgia again in 2025, but this time it will be on the road. At SEC media days, Taaffe was asked what will be the difference this year to give Texas a huge SEC win.
"Coach (Kirby) Smart is one of the most competitive coaches I have ever been against in my life," said Taaffe. "Like, physically hearing him on the sideline when I'm playing defense. I'm like who is this maniac?"
"And it is their head coach trying to, you know, get a call or get something in and I think the team is embodied by the head coach. And he does a great job of embodying what their team is all about and to be honest, I think they out-physicaled us in that first game, so we gotta come with a physical nature and a sense of pride and knowing that if we want to get to where we want to go in December, then we gotta beat those guys," Taaffe said.
Georgia and Texas will meet in Sanford Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 15. The Georgia-Texas game will be UGA's final SEC game of the regular season and it could be a preview of the 2025 SEC championship.
Georgia and Texas' rivalry grew significantly on the same day Georgia and Texas took the stage at SEC media days. Texas beat out Georgia for five-star linebacker Tyler Atkinson and then flipped five-star Georgia defensive line commitment James Johnson.
The Dawgs and Longhorns have a budding rivalry and are vying to be the best in the SEC.
This article originally appeared on UGA Wire: Star Texas safety calls Georgia coach Kirby Smart a maniac
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