Georgia Bulldogs College Football Pregame Quote, 12/28/2023

On deciding to come back to Georgia next year:

The biggest thing for me was coming back, playing with the guys, and the camaraderie that we have in the locker room. That’s a huge part and it’s hard to just leave that. I feel like the chemistry that we have, the standard that we’ve set, a lot of those things really led me to coming back and wanting to do this again with these players around me. (Having unfinished business) is always part of it. I feel like if we hadn’t lost that game maybe things would be different. But obviously that’s the way that things panned out and mentally that definitely had an effect on my decision‚Ķ I think I knew truly a few days after the game in my heart. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and what I was going to do, I just had to talk to people and like make sure that everyone was kind of in agreeance with what exactly I wanted to do.

On having another year to mature at UGA and improve his 2025 Draft stock:

I waited three years didn’t play and then obviously I’ve gotten the opportunity to play this season. It’s fun. It’s a lot more fun to be on the field than not be on the field. So knowing that I get another opportunity and chance to come back and play another year at the University of Georgia that’s been a lot of fun and enjoyable.

On bouncing back from the SEC Championship Game loss:

It was really, really tough – especially right after the game. We haven’t experienced a loss in a long time and I hate losing, probably more than I love winning. We’ve won so much the last couple years and to take a loss and walk off the field and trying to process that is really hard, especially in the big game that was a competitive game where we missed opportunities. There’s a lot of different things that we could have done better, but that’s part of the game. I think the whole team kind of has a chip on our shoulder ever since we lost that game and really came to work. We practiced really, really well for this bowl prep and we’ve really taken it seriously.