UGA Football Coach Kirby Smart Details Practice and Prepping For Vandy
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ATHENS, Ga. — University of Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart met with the media on Tuesday evening after practice and offered the following comments.
On how practice has been this week...
"It's been good. We practiced good yesterday, and I thought we had a good practice today. Some highs and lows and some ups and downs. Like I always say, it's like a broken record, if it's cool outside we tend to practice better and if it's hot outside, we tend to struggle. It was cool today and we had good spirits and thought we had good prep."
On the team's weekend gameday schedule with a noon kickoff...
"Exactly like we do everything. It'll be 8 o'clock pregame meal eastern time, 7 o'clock their time. Steak and eggs, get ready to go play. We've done it before and we got do it again. We'll do some biorhythm prep the day before and try to get them up early on consecutive days and get them used to it. They're young and they can handle it."
On Daylen Everette's confidence this season...
"Well, I think if you don't have confidence, you will never be a corner in this league. You better have some confidence, whether you play well or not, you better have it because they're going to keep coming at you, they're going to challenge you. There's great catchers and throwers. Throwers and catches in this league are elite so you're going to have some plays that you won't win, but you've got to believe that you're going to win them all. I think he has a very quiet confidence about him. He's a very intelligent young man and he works really hard. You know, he's in a tough competition too because Julian Humphrey has played well and done a good job. I mean every day out of practice. I thought Julian had a really good practice today, so we'll continue to get those guys better and let them compete."
On how the secondary has played through six games this season...
"I think some more depth. Disguise better, tackle better, punch out more balls."
On Roderick Robinson's condition...
"He is getting closer. Dry land running, weight bearing, running, but doubtful for this game. He is closer. He's out there running around, but he's not practicing with us."
On Mark Stoops' comments about Georgia...
"No reaction. Much to do about nothing really. I think Mark is trying to garner interest in money from his fan base for his collective and we're all trying to do the same in terms of trying to get money for our collective. Mark and I talked about NIL pregame, and we talked about it in our meeting. I'm not biting on that."
On if running backs getting healthier will affect Dillon Bell's game...
"It's just a matter of where we are at back. We do have Kendall [Milton] back and he seems much more healthy. Daijun [Edwards] is back, but Dillon gives us a lot of versatility to do other things. He's gotten better at his protections, picking things up, IDing things, understanding jet protections, understanding slide protections. He's getting better at those things. We want to continue to grow his arsenal of plays and continue to use him as a wideout so that's probably not going to stop regardless of who is there."
On where he wants to see Carson Beck improve at quarterback...
"Mobility, getting in and out the pocket, decisions when to tuck it down and run versus stand in and throw. Some designed runs probably wouldn't hurt him and running red area things that he can do. He's a good athlete. The one or two plays a game that he puts us at risk, removing that is the most critical thing in his decision making."
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On the disconcerting signals penalty…
“They probably got it right, but there’s been ones that we got right too and they weren’t called, so it’s a matter of doing it the way you’re supposed to be doing it. And, that’s what our kids are coached to do, to do it the way you’re supposed to do it and sometimes the kids overdo it and that draws a penalty. But, I don’t know, I saw a few LSU Missouri plays that weren’t clapping, so I don’t know if that’s exactly right in terms of clapping. Clapping is the most often way it happens, but they don’t get that either because Auburn clapped five or six times and they didn’t get it. So, it’s one of the hardest things to officiate in all of sports is that. And that sometimes is subjective, so it’s complicated.
On what he has seen in Rara Thomas' development...
“He’s gotten better every week. He probably struggled a lot in the spring. He grew up a lot during camp. He went through some hamstring issues. He learned how to work his way through our practices and how many reps and be physical and the way we go about things. He’s learning how to play special teams. I mean, it’s like all this world of stuff coming at him, and that’s what he said he wanted when he came here. He wanted to learn to be a complete wideout and play special teams and learn in a pro-style system, so he’s doing that step by step. To the kid’s credit, he’s getting better every week.”
On depth throughout the team…
“We have more depth at some positions than others. We’re thin at some positions. We’re thin at some positions because of injuries and we’re thin at some positions because of not recruiting enough guys or enough guys that are playing winning football, so that varies for different reasons. I wish we had more depth at every position but some are better than others.”
On the lack of fumbles the defense has forced thus far…
“I don’t know. I don’t know if we have less snaps. I would love for that to be my excuse, that we get off the field on third down so we don’t get as many opportunities but we still have a lot of snaps that we get an opportunity. We forced one, we didn’t get it. David Daniel [-Sisavanh] punched it out and we didn’t recover it. We give rewards in points, the kids compete each week for points, and we give points for strip attempts so since we’ve started going up on those point awards, they all compete to have the highest points. The strip attempts have gone up but the fumbles haven’t, so we continue to chop wood. Usually those things come in bunches and if you keep doing it and doing it right, it’s kinda like our offense you know. You keep working, you keep improving, you keep doing it and they come when you need them.”
On the parental approach if a child wants to participate in football…
“It depends on the age. If we’re talking about a six-year-old, I don’t know that we’re going to get there at that age. If we’re talking about a 14-year-old, he better be well into it and like contact and like the toughness it requires to play the sport, so I think there’s stages in development and there’s a lot of places in the state of Georgia that have unbelievable youth football programs. That’s usually a good sign for us because they develop talent and kids choose to stay in football when they have good coaches. Kids choose to leave football when they have bad coaches, so I think the biggest thing is who are the coaches developing your child.”
On the importance of younger players getting reps later in games…
“They get confidence. I think they get a reward for what they work on in practice. I think so many young players, in my experience of being the places I’ve been, especially at the higher end, there’s a misconception that, ‘I’m gonna walk in and take over the world because everybody’s told me how good I am.” We’ve signed, at Alabama and here and everywhere I’ve been, FSU, LSU, there’s been unbelievable players that we’ve signed, and very few, very few have instant success, so they have to go through that process of failure. Failure is good for these kids because it’s going to be hard in life and it’s going to be hard what they do. I’m proud of a lot of the freshmen getting some opportunities in these games we’ve had leads in, but they got a long way to go to be ready to contribute like a starter. It starts in the meeting room, not taking notes or taking notes, at walk through they don’t walk through like the other guys. I showed ten minutes of tape today that was look at this guy walkthrough and look at this guy walkthrough. They’re doing the exact same play but one’s a senior and one’s a freshman. Look at this guy’s intentional way he walks through and he shows his eyes and puts his hands on people, and then you got a guy that’s a freshman that’s just casual and just like it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t think he’s going to play. Well, the difference in that is just stunning. So, I think learning how to be a good player is part of the process.”
On Marvin Jones' rep count against Kentucky...
"He's doing great. Marvin was dealing with an ankle injury. He sprained his ankle on Tuesday - maybe it was Wednesday. On Tuesday or Wednesday he sprained his ankle. Him and Brock [Bowers] collided and stepped on and rolled his ankle. He couldn't practice. He couldn't practice Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. He felt like he could go Saturday. We took him out for warm-ups, and he thought he could go. He was able to go a little bit. He played some, and he really pushed through the pain really well. Just didn't get a lot of reps in terms of it and probably wasn't quite 100-percent. He played more in the previous games, but he's had a run of tough luck with two games almost missed with different things. He's done a great job in practice, and he's got a really bright future. He's a very talented player. He's very smart. He's one of the guys that we say, 'He knows the defense inside and out.' He can go out there and execute at a high level."
On how Vanderbilt's stadium renovations may affect Georgia's gameday routine...
"We got some different things that they have handled with our ops people in terms of where we arrive, where we go, where we change, where we go to at halftime. All that stuff has changed. We went and site-visited over the summer. Other teams have done it already, and they've told us about it. We're well aware of it, and we've told the players."
On if Jalon Walker will take more reps on first and second down...
"No, that's not his position. That's not quite how the game works. You got 235, 240 pounds. He can be an outside backer and play outside backer, but we're developing him as an inside backer because we have outside backers. There are certain plays where the tackle is 6'6, 340 pounds, and you don't ask a guy that is 240 pounds to play on that game. If they are going to pass it every play, that's a great idea. But they don't do that in our league."