Georgia football gets the rare opportunity to play the same team for a second time this season when they face Texas in the SEC Championship game this weekend. Everyone knows how dominant Georgia was in the first meeting against the Longhorns, but all of that no longer matters as the rematch approaches this weekend.

The old saying goes that it is tough to beat a team twice in the same season, so Kirby Smart and Georgia are going to have to work extra hard in their preparations if they want to prove that statement wrong. And Smart knows how difficult it is to prepare for the same team again, and he spoke about those challenges during his press conference on Sunday,

“Don’t overthink it. You know, don’t overthink the entire process,” Smart said via 247sports.com. “You know, you have to do what you do well and you’ve got to stop what they do well. Offensive coordinators, defense coordinators, they want to want to make it about the scheme. They want to make it about changes. They want to make it about how can we execute at a higher level? But at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to those guys on the field and the strain they play with and probably who executes better. So, you know, the more things you do differently, sometimes the more you mess things up. You’ve got to go out and execute.”

Georgia needs to focus on themselves

While most people would likely think that Georgia needs to make a lot of adjustments compared to the first meeting, Smart actually has a different perspective. Smart believes that changing too much for this rematch will actually hurt Georgia more than it would help them, because at that point Georgia might be moving too far away from who they are as a team.

And that is the worst thing Georgia could do. There is a reason Georgia was able to make the SEC Championship game, and that is because they are a really good team. So why would Georgia change their identity for one game?

Now that doesn’t mean Georgia shouldn’t make any adjustments, but they shouldn’t stray too far from who they are at the same time. The current version of Georgia is clearly good enough to beat Texas, so hopefully that will be the case on Saturday and UGA will be crowned SEC champions.