Georgia football players are accustomed to how hard it is to play on the road in the SEC. This year they’ve already endured a night atmosphere at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and the insane sound trap that is Neyland Stadium. So, cowbells at Davis Wade Stadium? That’s light work.
“Noise is noise,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I have not been to an SEC venue that it was not hard to play on the road and that’s not going to change with (Mississippi State). They’ve got a really vertical stadium, and I think the noise gets trapped in their stadium. It’s one of the loudest places that I’ve coached, and I’ve coached there a lot. They’ve got a lot of pride.”
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Georgia is headed to Starkville, also known as “Stark Vegas,” this weekend for its final conference road game, and despite the warnings, players don’t seem worried one bit about the second-smallest SEC stadium’s famed tradition: cowbells.
“We only worry about the 11 people on the field,” redshirt junior offensive lineman Earnest Greene III said. “(Cowbells) are an external factor and once you get in the game, you don’t really pay attention to the crowd noise or anything like that anyways.”
“The noise doesn’t really change my job at all,” redshirt senior long snapper Beau Gardner said. “It’s the exact same thing. It’s 8-yards or it’s 15-yards and I’m trying to put it on the money. I’m locked in on my visual cues and don’t try to pay attention to the noise.”
In fact, a good chunk of them have never played in a game where cowbells were involved.
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“I just heard about the cowbells a couple minutes ago,” redshirt freshman defensive lineman Joseph Jonah-Ajonye said with a laugh.
Of course, Smart is known for his tactics at practice. It can be heard well across Five Points, how he preps the guys for what’s to come. It’s even been going viral on TikTok, with an account named ‘sounds of uga’ uploading a video while walking down Lumpkin Street listening to Smart yelling at the boys on Woodruff Field:
“You know what happens in the real world? They fire your f—— a–. You ain’t got no job. You’re fired. You didn’t do your job? You’re fired.”
All this to say, it shouldn’t be anything new if you hear cowbells this week on the westside of Athens.
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“I’m sure coach Smart will have cowbells in practice,” senior wide receiver Noah Thomas said.
“Sometimes you make a bigger deal out of it than it is, and you’ve just gotta go play,” Smart said.
No. 5 Georgia (7-1, 5-1) kicks off against Mississippi State (5-4, 1-4) on Saturday, Nov. 8, at noon on ESPN.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Kirby Smart, players not worried about cowbell tradtion at Davis Wade
