Georgia Bulldog Assistant Todd Hartley Brags About His Tight Ends Room

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ATHENS - Georgia Bulldog assistant head coach / tight ends coach Todd Hartley spoke with the media Thursday afternoon as preseason camp continued for the Georgia football team.

On the dynamic of coaching a son…

“Man, just a lot of pride. First off, to have a son that has the ability to play college football and then you get the opportunity to coach him, it's probably a very rare occurrence to be able to coach your son in college, but coach (Bobo) has such pride in Drew and what he's been able to do, and he's done an unbelievable job too. And he coaches him like he's no different than anybody else. He treats him like everybody else, but the sense of pride is there because there will be some highlights he'll make in the offensive unit meeting. He'll highlight that and go, ‘Hey, that's my boy.’ It's pretty cool to see that. And if I ever had the chance to coach my son, I don't think he'd be any different.”

On the source of his energy…

“Well, there's a very high expectation that you bring into it. That comes from the head coach, and so I don't want to disappoint. First off, I do it because the expectation around here is that you've got to be the best coach at your position in the country. If you're not having juice or you're not having fun doing it, how can you be that way? The other thing is I get a chance to coach football at the University of Georgia, my alma mater, coaching tight ends, which I believe is the best position group in the country. Why would I not be excited to come to work and do that? And so, I'm very blessed and very thankful to have that opportunity. And not to say that I'm not moody. My kids get on me too sometimes when I'm not in the best moods, but it's just that excitement to be here. I get to walk in with that G on my chest, and that means something to me. Personally, it has changed my life and my family’s life, so why wouldn't I be excited and why wouldn't I bring that juice every day?”

On Ben Yurosek…

“First off, Ben is an unbelievable kid. Very mature, as you would expect from a graduate coming from Stanford. He has a presence about him that's just calm, poised, in control. Nothing really makes him upset. Not that he's perfect, but he understands. He's mature. If a bad play happens, he's able to put it behind him and move on, and a lot of times younger players can't do that. So, he does have that maturity and that senior leadership that our room might have been lacking because we have a lot of younger players in that room. But he fits right in. He fits our room from a toughness and a physicality standpoint. He's physical at the line of scrimmage. And he fits our room from an athletic standpoint, too. The dude can run and catch. That's one of the main characters you've got to have to play tight end, especially on our offense is the ability to run and catch the football and the ability to do something with it in your hands once you do catch it. And he's shown all those qualities this point in camp.”

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On Oscar Delp…

“I'll say this. The biggest growth I've seen from Oscar is from a maturity standpoint and from a leadership standpoint. He's always been here with Brock (Bowers) and Darnell (Washington), so he's never really had to assume the role of leading the room. And when you've never done that before, you don't know how they'll respond when they're put in that situation. From the time that Brock left, Oscar just naturally stepped into that, into that head of the tight end room and really hasn't looked back. Even having been there, Ben's new and Ben's older and we’ll rely on Ben's senior leadership as well. But Oscar is the unquestioned leader of our room. And so, he's always been very physical. Run game mechanics as far as just footwork and hand placement and pad level, Oscar Delp is probably one of the best ones I've coached in the run game, to be honest with you, so that hasn't changed. Freshman year to now, obviously, he's bigger and stronger, but he's always been really good at the point of attack. We've worked really on concessionally catching the football. He's improved that. But the growth in his leadership ability and the growth in his maturity has been the most pleasant surprise for us. And that's really what we needed in that room and in our offense.”

On Lawson Luckie’s development…

“I think Lawson is competitive, he has high competitive character, similar to Brock. Like, you know, Lawson wants me to always give him more. He's always asking for more roles, for more plays. He's asking for more tape. He has that nature about him where he wants to be the best. And you want all your kids to be that way. And some are more outwardly spoken about wanting to be that way. And so, I think it motivated him even more to be the best tight end in that room. And he doesn't see him as, ‘I've got to compete with this guy for playing time.’ But in reality, he knows that's probably the truth. But we're going to need all three of those guys to play significant roles for us this year in order for us to be good in that room and in our offense. So, his response to having been there is no different than having those two freshmen there. He's going to go do his job the best that he can.”

On believing in having the best tight end room in the country…

“I show belief and confidence in my guys every day that I think they're the best ones in the country. And that's our standard is to be the best tight end in the room, in the country. So, if I'm not believing in them, how can they believe in themselves? I do feel like our room is we have some guys in there that are talented. What have they done yet? I don't know. But I do believe they're going to get there. If I'm not believing them as a coach, then I'm not doing my job, number one. I've had the opportunity to coach some really good players. I've been very, very blessed to do that. My time at Marshall with Gator Hoskins, (Eric) Frohnapfel and (Ryan) Yurachek. And my time at Miami with David Njoku, Christopher Herndon, Brevin Jordan and Will Mallory. And then my time at Georgia, even starting with Charlie Woerner, John FitzPatrick, Tre McKitty, Darnell Washington and Brock Bowers. There's been a long line of some good tight ends that I've had the opportunity just to coach them. I'm very thankful that I've had that chance.”

On having a large tight end group…

“First off, this is a big deal in college football nowadays, the walk-on. We can't operate how we practice without these walk-ons. They serve such a pivotal role in the way we do things at Georgia from a practice standpoint, from a walk-through standpoint. And so, we're very thankful that they are here. And an old coach told me, Jon Fabris used to say, everybody has a role. Embrace your role. One role might be a little bit more valuable than the other, but we all go to the same place in the end. From the top to the bottom, from the starting quarterback to the bottom walk-on. We're all going to the same place in the end. So, everybody has to embrace their role. Joe T. back in the day said, ‘Don't treat that guy any different. He might be the governor of the state one day. I'll always remember that. And so, I don't treat those walk-ons any different than I treat my starters or my scholarship kids. And I think those guys appreciate that. They get a high five and a chest bump when they make a play, and they get a foot up their butt when they don't, just like the starters do. So, I'm very thankful for the guys that I have in that room and the guys that we have on our team that help us out. Specifically at tight end, we have 11 total in that room, as far as numbers. We have five scholarships and six walk-ons. And in camp I have four walk-ons in camp, so that gives me nine total here right now. And that's usually about normal for tight end rooms.”

On recruiting Yurosek…

“The whole portal process, there's no blueprint for it. The one thing that Coach Smart does a great job of is he is very selective about who he brings in. Sometimes it might look like we're not as active in the portal as other people, but I think there's a reason for that. There's a culture and a standard here, and he is very selective about who he brings in because locker room dynamics are important. You have to fit certain criteria, not just how many catches did he have, how many yards did he have? It's not just that. It's usually people that he knows that we're very familiar with. And Ben really didn't fit that other than Ben was older, right? And if you look at our room, if we needed anything, we probably needed a little bit of experience in that room. He's a kid that's played a lot at major-level college football, and he was very productive. A couple injuries here and there, but very productive. And you just know that coming from Stanford, he's going to be able to handle the high academic load that Georgia was going to give him. He's going to be able to handle an NFL-type, pro-style offense. That's what they did there. Those things were already a given, and then you turn the tape on, and he does run well, catch well, and he hits the physical attributes that you look for too. Even though we didn't have as much familiarity with him, he didn't play in our league, we didn't know that much about him, we knew those other things, and they kind of checked the boxes for us.”

On coaching without Brock Bowers…

“​​You know, I haven't approached it any differently. Whether Brock was there or Brock wasn't there. Pre-Brock, post-Brock, okay? You approach it the same way. It's my job to make sure my unit plays, practices, prepares to the best of their ability. And it's also my job to make sure I get every ounce out of them that I can. So obviously, personally, I'm going to miss Brock. I love Brock. Recruited Brock, and anytime you can recruit a kid, sign a kid, see it all the way through and now see him in the NFL and kind of achieve that dream that you told them about during recruiting, that is a fulfilling process. And so, I'm going to miss him, but that doesn't have any effect on our team this year. You know, these guys, we go out and we've got the same plays that we've always had in this offense. It's just a different person doing it. He is a monumental player in the history of Georgia football, and I don't think he'll ever replace that, but guess what? Oscar Delp.

 I'm going to coach Oscar Delp just like I coached Brock Bowers and Lawson Luckie and Ben Yurosek and those two freshmen as well. I'm not going to coach them any differently.”

On outside linebackers giving him fits in practice…

“Well, if you ask Chidera (Uzo-Diribe), he'll probably say, all of them are giving us fits. It's pretty competitive between us and the outside linebackers. He's got a good room. He's got a very talented room. And first, I'll start with Chaz (Chambliss). Chaz has been here so long and he's so strong. He's the savvy veteran of the group, and when we're going against those guys, you got to have a different plan for blocking Chaz. Because, when we go up to the line of scrimmage and we tell the play, Chaz has probably heard that play, I don't know, a thousand times. So, he knows exactly what's coming. So, our guys get so frustrated when Chaz seems to be exactly where he needs to be when he's supposed to be there. And so, you just got to have a different plan for a guy like that. He's played so many snaps and he's so tough and physical and such a core Georgia guy. He just epitomizes what Coach Smart believes that makes his program. And so, Chaz, you can't start talking about the outside linebackers unless you start with Chaz Chambliss first. And then, we've got Damon Wilson has done a great job of showing the ability to flash and pass rush and so he gives us some problems off the edge. And you've got Sam M’Pemba. Sam M’Pemba has always been naturally strong and physical, so it's hard to get movement on Sam at the line of scrimmage because he's so big and he's so strong. And then the freshman, I mean, I've been pleasantly surprised with Q Johnson (Quintavius Johnson, Jr.). He had some tape, high school tape, of him playing quarterback. And one of the things you look at in trying to find a tight end sometimes is, hey, sometimes these high school kids don't always play tight end. You're like, man, this guy, I know Chidera wants him in his room, but I'll take him in my room. He's athletic and, surprisingly, for a freshman, he has not been overwhelmed as much with what our defense is trying to do scheme-wise, schematically, not that I can tell. Chidera might give you a different story on that too. But, very impressed. That's the one thing about being at Georgia, and that's the one thing that we preach in development is, hey, you're going to go against the best in the country every day. And so, when you go against the best in the country every day, you can't help but get better. Iron sharpens iron. Right? Everybody's heard that before. It is no truer than being right here at UGA and going on that practice field and seeing those wars that you have between the O-line and the D-line and the tight ends and the outside linebackers and the receivers and the DBs. It's good on good. It's iron versus iron. And those guys develop and get better because of who they go against. And going against those outside linebackers every day makes us better for sure.”

On the vibe around the program…

“Coach Smart's theme, I think he said it at SEC media days, was ‘assume nothing’. And we've been preaching that daily since we've been in camp. Assume nothing. And it's been almost like a reset button for everybody. Let's start fresh. Let's not assume that the seniors know it, that the juniors know it. Let's coach and teach to the lowest common denominator in every room and build the foundation from the bottom up again. Don't assume that it's already there. Don't assume we're already on third base because we're not. So, it's been a fresh start for the coaches. It's been a fresh start for the players. Just embracing that mantra of assume nothing. I'm going to be honest with you, when you're in it and the way Kirby has built this thing, it's so process oriented. And one thing in this camp is we talked about the process and not the outcomes. And when you're not thinking about the outcomes and you're focusing on the process, you don't even think about the playoff. Like you don't have time to think about 12 teams. You don't have time to think about SEC and away schedule and whatever it is we have. You're thinking about today. I'm thinking about what I have to do at 1 o'clock. It's 12:40 and I'm getting a little nervous because I've got a 1 o'clock meeting. And that's kind of how he's built this thing. It's so segmented. The process is so detailed and so disciplined that you can't look ahead. You can't look behind. You have to look right now, what we have to do to get better today as a team, as an offense, as a unit. And you're not allowed to look ahead. And that, I think, has contributed to our success that Kirby's had and will contribute to our success moving forward.”

On the freshmen tight ends…

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised, actually, to see the growth from spring football to summer to now to fall camp. If there's ever a great example of why kids, the advantage, of graduating midyear and coming in and having 15 spring practices and a winter workout program and a summer workout program and getting a college semester of academic courses under your belt already, you can look at those two freshmen tight ends in Colton Heinrich and Jaden Reddell. Because they were swimming in the deep end in January through May, and then they come back in June, and it's like they've already been here for a year. I'm not saying they're where they need to be to help us contribute right now, and I'm not even saying that we're asking them to do that. Heck, they might. We might need them at some point this season, and we're preparing them like we will. But to see the growth from the spring into right now, I've been pleasantly surprised, and I'm very happy with their progress.”