Kirby Smart Gives Update on Status of UGA Football's Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey
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MIAMI - Kirby Smart gave an update Tuesday night on UGA football tight end Brock Bowers and WR Ladd McConkey.
Kirby’s Opening Statement:
“We're excited to get down here. We got a Monday practice in Christmas Day, and then we got a Tuesday practice this morning. We wanted to get down here so we could get used to the weather a little bit tomorrow. And hopefully avoid rain Thursday, says that we may have Thursday rain, but our guys have been great. We've had really good practices the last two days. Practices have been a lot better since we came back and got a lot of mid-years here and excited to see these guys go play.”
On what Kirby is looking forward to the most
“I think the kids getting away from our campus and getting sunshine and getting out there and competing. I’m ready to see them play. I want to see the guys play. There’s a lot of guys that have working their butts off moving up and down the depth chart. We’re probably healthier than we’ve been for the last four or five games of the year. It’s great to see these guys go out and play. I’m really proud of the guys that are dying to go play. Everybody thinks like guys are going to play. Our guys are going to play. Our guys want to play. Our guys are excited to play.”
If there has been any drop off in practice
"Absolutely not. I don't know that the practices leading up to Christmas break were what I would love. Since we have been back, the two we've had have been really good."
On potential opt outs
“Right now we’ve got our guys that are healthy playing, guys who are healthy and have been cleared to play have said they are going to play. They've been practicing, doing everything. We do have guys who are dinged up and injured trying to fight their way back, we’ll see if they can go or not in the game."
On UGA getting ready to play FSU
"We've taken the approach of: 'It's not about them, it's about us.'
We don't really know, but it doesn't matter to us. We're trying to play to our standard, and we're always trying to play to our standard. We've had a lot more good on good in practice. It's probably been the best bowl practice in terms of not going against the scout team and going against each other. When you don't know what you're going to see, you are better off going against really good people. We've done a lot of 1s on 2s, 2s on 2s - a lot more 3s on 3s than we ever have with the good depth from the nine, ten, eleven midyears that are there now. We've been able to get a lot of depth."
On if transfers, mid-year players can be with the team
"It depends on if they're admitted to school. If they're admitted to school - I don't know if you're talking about midyears (early enrollees) or transfer midyears. London (Humphreys) is here but not all the guys. Just the guys that are admitted to school."
On Christmas
"Some good food and good fellowship. No gifts or anything that I can think of."
On the balance between fun and football
"We want them to enjoy it. They've earned this opportunity. That's what bowls are. They're meant to be fun. I think our senior class of guys, they really want to finish on top. They want to get to 50 wins for the senior class, we're at 49. It's really important to them that they hit that number and do something special. They want to walk off the field winners. Sedrick Van Pran, all these seniors, they want to finish on top."
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On Brock Bowers playing in the Orange Bowl
"That's up to Brock. Brock's been with us the whole time and he's been doing all the things he's got to do. It's more important though that he's 100%. The guy probably played earlier than he should have, came out there and competed his butt off. He's done everything he can for Georgia. He's not 100% so it makes it a little harder to do."
On Ladd McConkey
"Ladd's been great. Ladd's been practicing with us, working out. Ladd wants to play. Ladd's missed some games and hasn't been able to play in some games. He's still coming off of an injury in the SEC Championship Game that he's still not 100% from. But he's out there every day, taking reps, catching punts, he's doing a lot of good things. He's doing a lot of good things. He's practicing, hitting good miles per hour. Ladd should be good to go."
About athletes opting out on FSU and the mindset of his athletes
“I mean, it's not about them, it's about us. And we don't really know. It doesn't matter to us, because we're trying to play to our standard, we're always trying to play our standard, we've had a lot more good on good practices, it's probably been the best bowl practices in terms of not going against a scout team and going against each other. Because when you don't know 100% what you're going to see you're better off going against really good people. So we've done a lot of ones on ones, two on twos and probably have gotten more three on threes than we ever have because we’ve got good depth with the 9, 10, 11, I don’t know how many fifth years that are there now. So we've been able to get a lot of depth.”
What he is looking forward to most
“The kids getting away from our campus and getting the sunshine and getting out here to compete. Now I'm ready to play. I want to see these guys go play. A lot of guys have been working their butts off moving up and down the depth chart. We're probably healthier than we've been for last four or five games of the year. And it's great to see these guys go out and play. I mean, I'm really proud of the guys that are dying to go play, our guys want to play, they’re excited to go play so our guys are excited.”
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