UGA Football Coach Kirby Smart Talks Michigan, Injury Report, And More
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ATHENS - 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 good. It's a little slow with the warm fuzzies we call them yesterday. It was nearly gone. Three days, I guess Friday, Saturday, Sunday without the pads popping so it was a little slow to get going yesterday, but I thought they were better today. They've had good, good energy, good spirits. I think they really respect this rivalry, and you know, we've got quite a few kids from the state of Florida. They take a lot of pride in going back down to Jacksonville to play and they seem excited. So they had good energy."
On Florida's development under head coach Billy Napier...
"I think they've recruited well, and we recruit against them. They recruited well and they recruit hard. They have good schemes. They have good coaches. They have great facilities and a great organization. When you have that recipe, it's just a matter of time. You build it through hard work and discipline, and you can see that in his players. You can see those guys playing with toughness and discipline. Their brand of football is very respectable. They play a lot of the same similar schemes, defensively and offensively to what we do and the things you believe in. So I got a lot of respect for Billy and the job he's done and I have no doubt that he's going to do a great job."
On Julian Humphrey's confidence and development...
"Yeah, he's gotten a lot of work. Like I said in the last three to four weeks of practices, he's gotten a tremendous amount. Probably 60 to 70% of his reps have come with the ones and he gets a lot of work in there with those guys, and he gets better. He used to go against better competition doing that. I think that's great for his development. He's a talented football player. He's got really good speed, good football instincts and plays the ball well in the air."
On previous experiences with Austin Armstrong, Russ Callaway and other current Florida staff members...
"Yeah, I worked with a lot of those guys on their staff. I think they're really good coaches. They have a great pedigree, and they work really hard at what they do. I have a lot of respect for Russ and his family. Coach Callaway was here when I first got hired, and Russ is a tremendous coach who knows football inside and out and he was a great husband and father as well. Then Austin was here with us, and he was a really good idea guy. Always looking for a better way to do things. He didn't feel limited by his role. He wasn't afraid to speak up and have good ideas, which I think makes a good young coach when you when you think that way."
On Xavier Truss and Amarius Mims' workloads this week...
"Both guys have been able to take some reps and work. Xavier probably ahead of Mims, which is what we expected, but I was really pleased with Mims. He pushed really hard today and got out there, got some work in and Truss has been out there both days."
On how to adjust defensively against Florida's pistol formation...
"Well, it depends on a lot of things. The call number one, the rest of the formation because the pistol part of it doesn't necessarily set the strength. The formation does a lot of times, and they change the strength motion a lot. They shift a lot and have a lot of window dressing on plays and set plays up with that. We don't worry about the setting of the strength based on the back as much as we do other things."
On what he's seen from Kamari Lassiter this season...
"Leadership. He's a kid that's been committed to excellence his whole life. He comes from a great family background and a really tough, hardworking family. He kind of came up through the mud man. He didn't get anything given to him, was not a super highly recruited guy, and he's made himself into a really good player through work ethic. Like he just won't be outworked, he won't be outcompeted, and you love that about a football player."
On what he's seen from Marvin Jones Jr. and Damon Wilson Jr. during the bye week...
"Well, I think they are in two different spots. Like Marvin is a year into the system so he understands it really well. He can play Sam, Jack, could probably play off the ball back or two if he had too. He's got very good instincts and has gotten physically stronger and tougher. He's had two weird deals where he has missed games due to injuries. Other than that, he's been really consistent. Damon is younger and has shown great promise. I mean, he's a player that has ascended in the last two to three weeks in our eyes because he's worked so hard. I mean, he's down there on the scout team and they're coming in every day being like 'Damon is playing so hard down there.' He's given so much effort and he's given us a great look that you know, we rewarded him and played him more against Vandy because of the work that he did. He continued that into the off week and this week, so he's doing a good job."
On his opinion with stealing signs in game...
"Are you referencing the going to people's games? Or are you talking about within our games? I've never heard of anybody going to the games to watch and film and do all the stuff that's going on that everybody is talking about. I don't know anybody that's ever done that, or I've never been asked to do that as a young coach or known anybody to do that. I've never heard of that. In high school football, you know, I grew up with my dad and we would go watch other teams play. That was part of what you did. You didn't watch your team play. You sat out there with four other coaches and you drew up their plays while they were doing it. You know, that was pre-cell phone and probably pre-signals because they were sending people in with them. The coach would send them in for signals but that was a long time ago. As far as in game? I think people try to do that. It tries to go on. As a signal caller, when I had call defenses, it confused me. If I had to sit there and try to wait on somebody to tell me what they thought they got and I'm trying to think about what the best call for the situation is. You're relying on misinformation or something that's not very reliable, so I don't know. There are times that people have said they've had our signals in game, and you know, they knew this or that. You talk to the team that you played last and sometimes when you're not going to play that team again, they share what they might have had on you and things like that. I've heard of it in game, but a lot of times you can know the signal still not do it right. It's kind of the joke we have, you know what plays come in and you mess it up. I've laughed with coaches about that before."
On if he was aware if Michigan had done any scouting on Georgia's play call signals...
"No, I didn't notice anything or know anything. Nobody we talked to warned us or any of that. I think everybody we play they say, 'They steal your signals.' We play somebody and they are always like, 'They are good at stealing your signals.' But what they're referencing is different from stealing them. They're coming, they're talking about people coming to film them. That's completely different. We've tried to hide the signals, hold the calls, put signs up, do all that. There's nothing I remember about the Michigan game that makes me think that."
On Arian Smith's development this season...
"You know Arian probably had more opportunities earlier in the year as we were down on wide outs for a couple of games. We had a guy in, a guy out, a guy injured. Ladd's been injured. He's played a lot of the same spots as Ladd, and for whatever reason, he probably hasn't had as many opportunities lately. He's had some opportunities where he didn't capitalize on it, and he'd be the first to tell you that. I'm really proud of him and the role he's played on our team in terms of leadership. He's taken ownership in some special teams units. He's been elite at gunner, and he's part of the reason that we have not given up many return yards. He's been a big, major factor in that. He's worked really hard after practice on developing as a wide out."
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On Darris Smith...
"Yeah, it's the same as we have talked about before. He's not with us right now."
On the idea of a challenge system rather than a play review system...
"What would be the advantage of a challenge system? Now, it's on me. So, you are going to criticize me, and I got to make the call. You can't criticize now because they review every play. It's more accurate. 100-percent it slows it down, it slows down the game. That argument is correct. The flip side of that for the coaches is you want me to decide. You want me to decide when I do it, and you want me to burn one of my timeouts. And I don't have the same information that you have. They have the information up there. They have the ability to review every play. Now, should they review every play? A one-yard spot in the first quarter for five minutes. They give us the number. It's 53-second average review time. Is it worth that for one yard? Probably not. But, if you're telling me I have to go throw the flag or not, like the NFL does it every time, I don't know. It would definitely speed the game up to not review, but you would have a lot of controversy after the game, is what you would have. Theirs get reviewed for the critical plays - inside two minutes, scoring plays, all those things. Once you add all those things in, every turnover, it's kind of like they're reviewing the ones anyways. Then it gets off a challenge flag. It just keeps us from having to review, I don't want to say things that aren't relevant, but things that might not affect the outcome of the game."
On what Florida's offense does well...
"They run the ball really well. They have great backs. They have a quarterback who is extremely hot and accurate. He knows exactly what he is doing in the system, and he knows how to do it. They've got their tight ends involved in the last couple weeks, and they've done a great job with that. They block physical on the perimeter. They take shots down the field that are set up through their play action, and they spread you out and do a really nice job. So, it's a complete offense. It's not like, 'Oh, if we take this away, they are one-dimensional.' They have good wide outs. They have a really big offensive line. They got a quarterback that really understands that if this is not there, I'm doing this. And he can run. So, they're a really complete offense, and they're very methodical. It's not like they are sitting out there on 100 miles per hour. They go in there, and they execute it."
On if having a consistent bye week every year provides consistency for the program...
"I don't see how it can provide an advantage because you know when your bye is. I think everybody kind of knows when their bye is. You know, the years I was at Alabama, it was before LSU. It's not an advantage. You might argue it's in advantage if you have a bye and someone you are playing doesn't. I've had that strategy before, but you could also say you lose rhythm. You worry about your guys getting out of shape because they are taking a break over that weekend. You get your legs back, but you also have maybe six guys coming in overweight. That can be detriment to the rhythm of your team. I don't put a lot of thought into where the bye falls because I don't have a lot of control over it."
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