Kirby Smart apologizes for sideline incident

Social media was set ablaze on Saturday because of an incident late in the Georgia and Mississippi State game.

While Mississippi State was on offense, freshman quarterback Michael Van Buren ran out of bounds. While he jogged back on the field he made contact with Kirby Smart, and on the video replay it appeared to some that Kirby Smart shoved him.

Kirby Smart shoves Mississippi State QB Michael Van Buren while arguing with official.

(via @SECNetwork)https://t.co/3JH351c7HR pic.twitter.com/zHYpnyClCg

— On3 (@On3sports) October 12, 2024

Smart said over the weekend that he initially never saw him and didn’t know what the media was referencing when it was brought up. However, on Monday he addressed it as his initial press conference ahead of the week.

“After you guys said that in the press conference, I went back and watched it, and didn’t even realize that I had run into him. But I reached out to (Jeff) Lebby that night and talked to him, and he said the kid was great,” Smart said. “And then yesterday, I talked to Mike (Michael) and told him I had no intentions or ill will towards him at all.

“If you’ve ever been on the sideline in a game, it’s pandemonium. It’s really pandemonium when you’re trying to change personnel and you only got three or four seconds to do it,” he added. “We were bad off in a bad personnel grouping against empty that we actually messed up the week before. And so I was trying to get to Schumann to get that changed. But I reached out to the kid, he was great. He’s a really good player, gonna be a good player in this league. And he played better as the game went on against us.”

Georgia plays Texas this Saturday in one of the most anticipated matchups of the season.