Revamped Offense, Quarterbacks and COVID-19: The Latest From Kirby Smart
ATHENS, Ga. — It’s been months since Kirby Smart has talked directly with the media. With so much changing in football since the last time he spoke, the fifth-year head coach had a load to talk about. Here’s what he had to say:
Opening comments …
“Welcome back. It is good to see everybody. I know we are super excited to be back and be here working at the office. What a crazy time it has been the last five months. First, I want to tell our administration here how much they have supported us, how much they have meant to us, how much they have meant to the players. President [Jere W.] Morehead, Greg McGarity — Ron Courson and his staff have been incredible. I have never spent as much time with a staff as I have Ron. We have almost moved in together between the number of meetings we have had together down in his office and also up in my office. We have spent a lot of time together, and I feel very blessed to have someone like Ron that the players trust, the parents trust — they have an open line of communication. It just goes to show you how important it is to have a good athletic trainer who is present during recruiting, because a lot of the relationships that are developed with our players starts with Ron Courson and our staff members. That has been a big part of our support and our process.
“I am going to open it up with updates on some injuries, and I am sure you guys have a million questions about everything going on. I do not want to hinder your questions, but I do want to kind of update some guys on some people. I’ll start with Dom [Dominck Blaylock]. He is not completely cleared to practice or play. He is going to have a black shirt on. He is working out. He is coming off his ACL that occurred in the SEC Championship game, so he is not completely cleared yet, but he has worked really hard. He has been able to do some straight-line running and some workout stuff.
“The next guy we will talk about is DJ Daniel. He has missed some time due to an ankle injury. He is almost back, but this small summer access window we have had where we were able to have a little more time than we normally do — he was not able to do much during that time. So, I would not say he is behind, because he is a kid who played a lot of snaps last year, but he will be back with us kind of full time starting tomorrow.
“JT Daniels is not cleared yet. JT Daniels is coming off an ACL surgery as well. He has been able to take some reps, he has been able to throw the ball and do some things, but he is not completely cleared from the knee yet. He will still be in a brace for that. Broderick Jones had an injury — non-football injury — he has recovered from that and he’s back out taking snaps, taking reps, and has been with us working. Jamie Newman had a mid-foot sprain and was out for a little bit of our summer access period, we are calling it a mini-camp, whatever OTAs, whatever you want to reference it as. He missed probably half of that, not able to work out and do some things, but he was mentally there and able to do a lot of things with the team. He is back now and able to do everything.
“Monty [Rice] has been out a little bit with a little foot injury, but he has taken a lot of reps and played a bunch. Darnell Washington had a small scope in his knee. It was from an injury in high school that he is back out there and recovered from and practicing, doing everything. Rian Davis had a small torn meniscus. He should be back soon, but he is not able to practice right now. Kelee Ringo, as a lot of you were aware, he had an old injury from high school that we were trying to see if he could go with. The injury did not occur here, but he’s had a shoulder repair, and he is going to be out for a while. Then, Arian Smith had a meniscus repair and should be back sometime during the season but not sure exactly what date yet.
“So, if there is somebody else I am missing, feel free to ask. With that, I will open it up for questions from you guys.”
On where he is with the 85 scholarships and if any players have opted out …
“As far as 85 goes, I never talk about the 85. The 85 traditionally takes care of itself. We will have some guys with the opportunity to possibly go on scholarships or come off scholarships with things that transpire over the next couple of weeks and days, so we are looking forward to that.
“As far as opting out — no, we have not had anybody come forward to talk about that or really present that option just yet. Our guys have been very open and transparent. We have had a lot of meetings and talks to make sure they are comfortable with the information they are receiving.”
On his reaction to other conferences not having their seasons…
“I don’t get emotionally tied to the decisions of other conferences. I put faith, trust, and confidence in Greg Sankey, who has done a tremendous job. The first thing that Sankey did was form a medical committee and a medical group to represent our 14 universities. They started dealing with a lot of these issues that you guys as media are just coming to even know about, and they were dealing with them on April 1st. They have talked about a lot of these issues. They have a plan for these issues. They’ve had a plan for everything that’s come up and they’ve done a really good job of being able to adjust on the run. There is not a call that I don’t get an update from one of these meetings from Ron [Courson], or a concern of a parent about something out there. They do a great job of addressing these things. They’re the experts. My faith, trust, and confidence goes into those medical groups, goes into cardiologists, goes into doctors. We gather the information, I know that I’ve become a lot more educated on a lot of this stuff than I ever have been and our job has been to relay those messages to our players so they feel comfortable with the information we have out there.”
On if he’s upset with the uncertainty of the start of the season and how he deals with that…
“I’m definitely not upset with the uncertainty. That’s the day and age that we live in. Adaptability is going to be one of the most important factors of this team, and the teams that handle it best will probably be at an advantage. We always talk about our camp being about mental and physical toughness. One of the most important things about this team is how they are going to be able to mentally handle change — and fast change — because we’ve seen in the last five months things change, especially when you are dealing with COVID. We’ve seen updates that were one way one day and the next day they were another and they’ve changed. The kids have really had to have a change in way of life, outside of our building and inside of our building, both. I think I’m very comfortable with the fact that it’s not going to go perfect as planned. Who can handle those adjustments? Whose team cannot get lost in worrying and concerning themselves with things they can’t control and really worrying about things they can. Like, do I wash my hands enough, do I wear my mask enough, do I social distance when I have an opportunity to? Those are the things that are going to determine the outcome of our team and of our guys’ ability to play. It’s not going to be when is the first game, because inevitably we feel like we’re going to have a game, so whenever that is, we’re comfortable with it.”
On where the offense is at and how it comes to fruition…
“We are much closer now to being able to have a vision and understanding. You know, without spring practice that’s really hard to sit here and say what it’s going to look like because you have nothing to base it on. Not only that, but you don’t have a lot of your freshmen that are going to make up some of that offense. We had some guys that probably would have missed parts of spring with injury that were able to get healthy during this time, and who can help us. The time we had in mini-camp, which really all we were allowed to do is walk-through, at least we were able to see formations. Guys go out and do some position work, meaning they can go out and work with their position coach and do conditioning by position. Those things have been good for us. We have been able to teach and learn and do things in walk-through and go against a defense that picked things up. I’m excited about that. We haven’t put a pad on. We haven’t put a helmet on. To not do those things and find out really who we are, I think, we’re going to find that out from an offensive perspective. I’m excited about what the guys have been able to pick up on and do. Talking to our offensive staff, those guys have given me good updates, and I’ve been able to see it first-hand when you go out on the field and see some good, young, talented players that have been able to go out and pick things up. That’s going to be the key to us. Who is the quarterback, who is able to lead the team, and what gives us the best chance to get the ball to the playmakers out in space.”
On how the team has responded regarding how to go about life away from the facility during the pandemic and the impact of students returning to campus…
“They’ve responded well so far. We have instances where we get a report on a guy not wearing a mask or not doing what he’s supposed to be doing away from our place and we address it. We confront him and we let the leadership, the older players, the guys that the season might mean a little more to, like a junior or senior than maybe a true freshman. Sometimes they need to hear that from a junior or senior, and that message is much better delivered from one of those kids than just from a coach. We have done a lot of peer intervention and try to encourage them that way. We’re not perfect either. We have guys that probably don’t respect it as well as they should and that’s our job as coaches to get that point across.
“With students coming back, obviously whenever you have a large group of people coming back to campus you’re concerned about a spike. What we control is what we do outside of our building, outside of our bubble. We’ve told our guys that regardless of what the student population does, and by all means, I want you to understand, we are encouraging our student population to do everything the right way — space, social distance, wear a mask. Whether they do or not, that does not control what you do as one of our players. You can make decisions to not go in the environments that are risky and wear a mask to protect yourself. That’s what we’re driving home.”
On his impressions of Scott Cochran and Todd Monken…
“They haven’t had much chance [to be around the team]. It’s tough. We’ve had walkthroughs, we’ve got to remember, we haven’t had an opportunity to do much more than the walkthrough tempo stuff. You can see when guys get individual drill and an opportunity to go do something, get to be around their players. Scott’s energy has certainly come through. He’s an energetic, very demanding coach, and has done a very good job in front of the team and the units. I think he’s very comfortable doing that because he was always in front of the team in his past jobs being a strength coach. He’s done a good job with that and the players respect him and a lot of them know him through recruiting.
“Todd has brought a lot of energy on the offensive side of the ball. He’s very demanding, he has an expectation of what it should look like in his job, and what he loves doing is trying to do each individual job better than the next guy. Can we do one thing, can we run a curl better than the other team can run a curl? Can we run a dig route better than the other team can run a dig route? Can we coach those things better than the other team? If we can do that, then we’ll have success.”
On finding a “better way” to navigate the pandemic from a team standpoint…
“I don’t know that we’ve found better ways to do them because I don’t think a lot of the situations we’re in are better, for example, we don’t go into a team meeting room environment with a 110 or 85 or 130 players. Our team meeting room doesn’t allow that, so there’s not finding a better way to do that, there’s finding a possible way to do it because you have a choice whether you want to do it by Zoom or do you want to go in [Stegeman] Coliseum, or do you want to go in the indoor and have a hundred seats and space everybody out. So that’s just an example of you have to find other ways to do things that are not necessarily better because I do think it’s better when you have the ability to deliver a message face-to-face just like I would rather be face-to-face with [media], but this is the alternative method you have to use and you certainly get comfortable being uncomfortable because there’s a lot of parts to this I’m not comfortable with. I’m not comfortable not having control over what’s next — the regular schedule, a normal camp schedule. This is just so much different, but we’re constantly looking and talking to other people. I talked to five or six other schools in the country as well as other NFL organizations to say ‘How are you doing this? What is the best way to do this and get your point across during this COVID era?’ It’s been unique, and I think a lot of them will carry over because I don’t think there’s a best way of doing it, they’re the social distancing way to do things.”
On responding to critics of the decision to play …
“First of all, that would never be the case for me because I’ve got an 8-year old son that’s playing tackle football, and he’s playing it every day and he’s out there performing it. I wouldn’t want him out there if it wasn’t safe. Economically, that has not come into the realm of decision, nor all the meetings I’ve been in or the medical group has that been imparted as part of the decision-making process. You opened up with “a lot of the [conference] medical advisory boards not agreeing there’s not been sharing of information between those medical advisory groups. The one that was formed in the SEC is the only one I can speak to because Ron’s been part of every meeting and been privy to it. They’ve been very consistent with their messaging, very consistent with their plan, they’ve been right on top of everything that’s come up, and they’ve had a really good plan and they’ve had a protocol for everything that’s been implemented. I think they’ve done a tremendous job of that. It’s really all been about the health and safety the players, not about the economics, I can assure you of that.”
On having 40 days in this year’s preseason camp…
“Well, it will be unique because what you’re not accounting for in that is that we have less days without school, so it’s give-and-take. It is more spread out, and the medical group advised us on spreading those days out; and I think there’s going to be a lot of benefit because when you track concussions, and healthcare, and the injury rate, soft tissue injuries, head injuries, [they] typically happen in camp because it’s the first time kids have gone back to having contact. So, spreading it out over a number of days, you’re giving guys more time for recovery—it’s not as intense with repeated practices. There’s some benefit there. The loss of benefit is that there’s a lot of programming that goes into these camps prior to school starting when you have speakers come in that speak on a lot of different subjects that don’t involve football, they involve life. These life skills, those kids have missed them because we’ll be transitioning to school pretty quick here this week.”
On being able to be aggressive in practices…
“There’s nothing that’s talking about the aggressiveness of our practices. They’ve not dialed back the type of practices or the number of practices, and COVID’s not based on the aggressiveness of your practices. It’s making sure that you have a safe number of student-athletes out there, that you’re controlling the transmissions of COVID to each player, and making sure that doesn’t happen. We’re trying to keep that outside, and we’re doing a lot of testing to keep that away. That’s the most important thing. It’s not how the practices go or the work the kids do—if anything, they’re going to have more time off between days with the thing David just mentioned with off days and what ends up being 20, 25 practices. There’s going to be ample time to get the work done to get ready.”
On the safety of a spring season…
“First thing, it’s not my place to determine that because I refer everything to the medical people. I would certainly think, as a football coach, knowing what contact and the reason you have an offseason, is to not have as much contact. We have 15 days of practice in the spring, in which three of those is in shorts and a helmet. So, you really have 12 days of contact in the spring. You’re looking at a spring season and the potential of a fall season back-to-back. I wouldn’t be speculating to say it’s not completely realistic that you would have those two back-to-back, and plus, you’re going to be dealing with kids who aren’t playing. They’re going to be getting ready for the NFL and all kinds of other issues. I’m not saying it isn’t possible. I certainly think it is possible, but I don’t think it’s optimistic.”
On the current quarterback situation…
“We’re excited about all five of those guys, to be honest with you. Those guys have done a good job in their Zoom meetings, paying attention. With Jamie [Newman] missing with the foot issue, we’re talking about walkthroughs. It’s not like we’re out there…there’s a misnomer that we’ve been able to practice. They haven’t been able to practice. We’ve been able to walk through. He does a really good job of standing behind the huddle, standing behind the play, imaginary taking the snap, getting the mental reps, but until you get out there and do it, it’s not as easy. He was able to do that around the 9th or 10th, he was able to go out there and do some things with us. D’Wan [Mathis] was doing a great job. Carson Beck is doing a great job. Stetson [Bennett] is doing a great job. All of those guys are really competing, as well as JT [Daniels]. I think each one has come in—they all have individual strengths. It’s going to be important that we find out what each one of those individual strengths are, and weaknesses, and what we can improve over the next four or five weeks to figure out who the best guy for the job is.”
On the transfer of JT Daniels…
“We didn’t actively recruit him coming out. I can’t say we didn’t have—I didn’t have active contact with him, but sometimes the position coach is recruiting a greater pool than I am, and he committed pretty quick to USC and didn’t go through the recruiting process as long. We didn’t have a deep relationship there of any kind. When he became available, he went in the portal and we reached out, and he returned the favor and said he would be interested. We communicated for a while, for a long time, not knowing which direction we were headed. Once COVID started, we didn’t know what was going on. So, it’s one of those deals where we didn’t know what we would have in our quarterback room. We didn’t know if we would have two guys remain and be here, or if somebody was going to leave. I’m a big believer in getting the best people on the team you can get, and have competition, and iron sharpens iron. But that room is going to be very competitive, and we’re excited to see where it goes.”
On the importance of depth this season…
“I would certainly say it could rear its head faster this year than years past, based on what we’re seeing in other sports, and the unknown that we don’t know. Depth is going to be key. We’ve preached that to our coaches. Every practice, every walkthrough, everything we’re doing, we’re doing coaching for four groups of people. Now, is our fourth team as good as our first team, absolutely not. But we’re trying to coach like we’re going to have to play a game against an SEC rival with possibly our third or fourth guy. You’ve got to approach it that way and build depth on your team and coach the young guys on your roster. When you go to the NFL or you go out of college football, you don’t get developed. You either make the team or you don’t, there’s no development in the NFL. We have an opportunity to develop our roster and get players better. That’s what we try to do, we try to improve players and get them better all throughout, and that’s what we’ll continue to do. If it shows up this season in our depth, maybe guys have been quarantined, hopefully, we’ll be ready.”
On the effect of new offensive coordinator Todd Monken…
“I believe in doing whatever you have to do to win. I’m going to let you define it how you feel comfortable defining it, and then I’m going to define it the way that gives us the best chance of success. We want to get the best football players we can on the field. We want to be able to score points. We think it takes that to win games. That’s never been any issue with me. I’ve never got on an offensive coordinator’s headphones and said, ‘Please run the ball here. Please run the ball right here.’ That’s never been the case. Unfortunately, some people might believe that, but my goal is to score points and I’ve never said, ‘Please don’t score more points. Please don’t score.’ I’ve never done that, so we’re going to do all that we can to score points. I think the reason Monken was hired is that he’s a really good football coach, and we’re going to use his experiences and his strengths, and the players’ strengths, which is much more important, and we’re going to put those at the forefront and hopefully have more success.”
On having multiple quarterbacks in the room…
“I think it’s the same way you do all positions. Look, guys, this is a competitive room. Those guys, each one of them, has been in a competitive room before. Jamie [Newman] competed at Wake Forest. JT [Daniels] had to compete where he was. Carson [Beck] is going to be in one of the most competitive rooms he’s ever been in before. D’Wan [Mathis] was in the room last year. Stetson [Bennett] has been a part of that. Competition is part of the process. But for a quarterback more than anything, you want to be coached the right way, and you want to be developed. Part of development is taking reps, making practice. Fortunately, we have really good depth at the University of Georgia. We’re able to practice in a way that I think you guys think there’s only one quarterback and there’s only one guy that gets to throw the ball. Those guys are going to be judged and evaluated every day on how they command the huddle, how do they respond to an interception, what do they do when they make a bust. Are they making the right check? Are they making the right decisions? Can they use their feet to extend plays? All of those things are going to be used to judge and to make the best decision for who gives us the best chance to win. That hasn’t changed since any time we’ve had to make quarterback decisions. I’m excited to go see those guys compete, and I’m glad we have the guys we have in the room so we can pick the best one and let them go out and play.”