Coaches Poll Top 25 sees Georgia football move into top 5 in Week 9 rankings after beating Ole Miss

ATHENS — Georgia coach Kirby Smart took a somber tone when speaking to reporters on Saturday.

His team had just won a thrilling 43-35 win. You could tell the game took a lot out of the Georgia coach.

It took nearly everything the program had to win the game.

“I just told the guys, that’s a culture win,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said.“ “You don’t win that game if you’re not physically tough, mentally tough. We call it hard to kill. The one thing we are, we’re hard to kill. We won’t go away.”

The win, over a previously higher-ranked Ole Miss team, sees Georgia move up to the No. 5 spot in the Coaches Poll Top 25 Week 9 rankings.

After a chaotic weekend in the SEC, Georgia is now the third-highest-ranked team in the league behind Texas A&M and Alabama.

Georgia heads into an off week after going shot-for-shot against Ole Miss. While the Georgia offense has much to be proud of, the defense knows it has a lot to fix coming out of a game where it did not force a punt until the fourth quarter.

“The way we played defensively, you’re probably going to lose games,” Smart said. “But, look, as bad as we played on defense, I can sit here and tell you without watching the tape, that’s a really good offense. When you go up against them, they have really good weapons, they’ve got a good plan, and the quarterback run element right now for them makes it really hard to defend.”

Waiting on the other side of the off week are the Florida Gators. The question is who will be coaching Florida, as rumors continue to surround the job status of Billy Napier. Florida won on Saturday, but a 23-21 win over Mississippi State may not be enough to keep Napier employed. He is 22-23 in his four seasons at Florida.

Georgia is now in the second half of its schedule with a 6-1 record and a 4-1 mark in SEC play. Alabama and Texas A&M are the only two unbeaten teams in conference play thus far.

But with plenty of marquee games still on the schedule, there will be plenty of twists and turns over the final stretch of the season.

Georgia’s next game comes on Nov. 1 against Florida. The game is set for a 3:30 p.m. ET start on ABC.

Coaches Poll Top 25 for Week 9

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