Georgia's Kirby Smart Talks Practice And Big Game Against Tennessee Vols

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ATHENS - Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart spoke with the media on Tuesday afternoon and offered the following comments.

On practice today…

“It was a good practice today. I thought yesterday was a lot of dinged up, beat up guys. Probably not as physical a Monday as we'd like, but we had high tempo, good speed out there today. Good looks from the scout teams. I appreciated the way the scout teams worked and looked, but it was good. I thought it was spirited. It was nice and cool out there. They've got a good football team. They're hard to simulate. That's the hardest thing is simulating what they do, especially their offense and their defense, vertical strike, knock back. They're very different in terms of how they play.”

On Gabe Harris, Branson Robinson and Anthony Evans…

 “Gabe's [Harris[ good. Hoping to get some more snaps out of Gabe. I think he started on some special teams. Branson [Robinson] is back out with us, moving around, running, on the bike in pads. I don't want to say he's a week away. I don't honestly know, but he's getting closer. Anthony Evans is hitting some good speeds. He's running, he feels good. But we're being really careful with it. So, it's one of those deals that we hope we can get him back.”

On defensive communication…

 “We do that every week. We have to because it's so loud. I think most teams do because it's frustration that the offense doesn't really want to deal with it in home games. But we go against each other, so we just keep crowd noise pumped in different periods every day because our offense is going to get it, and our defense is going to get it. Communication on defense has changed so much since the advent of all these offenses with motions and shifts, so you can't practice football without communicating on defense. So, we do crank it in.”

On Daniel Harris…

 “He's practiced better. We had a long meeting, and I don't remember what game it was. I can't remember the order of those games. But we had a long meeting with him and told him that we needed to see him practice better, and it was the off week where he really stepped up. He had really good practices, he competed, he gave great effort, he tackled better, he earned it is what he did. So, he's played more because of the way he's practiced.”

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On Smael Mondon Jr.…

“It was good for the confidence of the other guys, and I think the depth of our other guys. We were basically playing three and a half inside backers between Jalon [Walker], C.J.[Allen], Raylen [Wilson], and then Chris Cole was playing some. So now kicking him in allows, number one, Jalon to be fresher and play on the edge a little more. We weren't even sure we were going to get Smael (Mondon) back for that game. He wanted to play. He felt good. He did not practice a lot last week, but the plan was for him to get back practicing this week, and he's done that, and he's embraced the leadership role of that room.”

On Jake Pope…

 “I'll say I should not have called the kid an idiot and that was a mistake by me, but I appreciate Jake. He's a great kid. He works really hard. He's a team player. I think he knows it was an emotional mistake, and he told the team that. So, I appreciate the way he handled it.”

On Tennessee’s quarterback room…

“That's a dilemma because we don't know a lot. I'm talking about his [Nico Iamaleava] injury. We don't really know what's going on there, it's hard to figure. We do have – because they had those games earlier in the year where they beat teams so bad – Gaston got to play quite a bit. Then, we obviously have the game that he played in. But, that kind of happened in the Florida game because I didn't know a lot about the kid that came in in the Florida game. And, in this situation, we don't know, so there is a prep there. Nico's such a high-level athlete and some of the runs he's made - I knew the kid was a great thrower, but I didn't know he was this kind of athlete and hitting the speeds he's hitting GPS-wise. He made a run on Alabama that was really elite, so just recognizing his skill set is a lot. Then, trying to prepare for kind of two guys, because philosophically I don't know how they'll approach it with the other quarterback, Gaston.”

On the difference of night games…

“I don't know that it's the night that makes a huge difference. I know Lane [Kiffin] made the comments he made about wanting our game to be at night. Given the alternative, I would take either one – the 3:30 or the night. But, I think some places it has a great impact. I think back to the year that we had the great home games, there was Arkansas at noon, and it was one of the loudest I've ever been a part of. And then there were some 3:30 games. I think back to the Notre Dame game at night, and I think the last time we played Tennessee at home it was not. It was 3:30, right? So, how can I say that a night game is any better than that 3:30 Tennessee game? You know what I mean? Like I don't – I just think a home game in general in the SEC is hell on the road team. I think it's really hard, man. It's hard. I tell people all the time. I told our offensive line that it's harder in the SEC to play on the road at offensive line, tackle and some of those positions that are timing positions and snap count positions than it is in the NFL until playoff. Because I coached in the NFL. Coach Saban coached in the NFL. We talked about it all the time. The games are not – they're corporate. They're not the same type of noise in the regular season. You get in the playoff, they catch something like that, but it's a big advantage in terms of get off. It basically highlights your run game because if you can run the ball on the road, you protect so many things from happening, bad things from happening.”

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On player leadership this week coming off of a loss…

“No, there's been a – I mean, there was no lack of sense of urgency prior, but there's been a vocal piece of the leaders. They've spoke up in meetings. They visually see it. They called out and said, ‘Hey, we need the greatest scout team work we've ever had.’ They went to the scout team and told them they want to get the best look they've ever had. The leaders are doing the right things. They're handling those things well, and they're also owning up to mistakes they've made or how they've played. If it hasn't been to their standard, they want to improve. So, we have really good kids. It's not about the leadership factor. I think this team's got a lot of really good – it's got kids that have been here for a long time. You talk about Tate [Ratledge] and Naz [Stackhouse] and Carson [Beck] and Truss. These guys have been in this program. Dylan [Fairchild], Jared [Wilson], they've just been here forever.”

On Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson…

“They're stubborn, man. They're physical. He is an elite runner. The runs they run are sometimes nontraditional. They run some runs that other people don't run because of the space in the box. He's very patient. He hits small creases. He's hard to tackle. You don't put up – how many touchdowns has he got in the SEC? 20-something? That's crazy. In the SEC? The SEC is the hardest league in the world to run the ball in on because they've got the most size defensive lineman, and he continues to do it at a crazy pace to me. It seems like he's been there for a while. I know where he's from in Louisiana. They do nothing but have great backs from there. He reminds me so much of, his run skill set of Kamara, of Alvin. He's very smooth and elusive.”

On the effects of the elaborate transitions from the third to fourth quitter...

"It's just part of the entertainment. I don't know anything about it. It did last week. We had a play called and we were worried about that. I mean, we tried to wait. I think Lane (Kiffin) was trying to get them to wait too because he was worried. We didn't want that to impact the game. But it was like nobody in the box could see the field, and we could barely see on the field. It reminded me of like a fog bowl. I don't know much about what goes on in that time. I'm so focused on the game that I don't really care either. I don't want it to affect the vision, but I don't care about what they do and the entertainment value of it and just hope we're competitive with what we do. "

On the home-heavy and road-heavy schedules in the SEC…

“I would like to have a rhythm to it. I'm not also going to sit here and say that they probably didn't think about that. There's not a reason why it has to be that way. I know in our case it's the Georgia-Florida game. It impacts every other year. Every other year it would have been in our backyard. So it makes you have to leave home and go, and that's always been one of the tough things. At the end of the day you're traveling more and you're getting back later, especially these TV times, and that can impact your recovery time and what you do on Sundays. But in a perfect world you wouldn't go that long. I'm sure Auburn feels that way. We felt that way last year. We went a while before we went there and played. But I'm sure if you ask the SEC office they'll have a reason for it.”

On the way the inside linebackers have played without Smael Mondon…

"Considering the age and the experience level of those guys, they've done a good job. It's been by committee because Jalon really is kind of half inside, half outside. He does a lot of everything. CJ and Raylen [Wilson] have really grown up. Raylen missed some time for us where he was out and obviously Smael’s missed time. It just seems like every year we're in this cycle of having to get freshmen ready to play really fast, and I think Schumann does a good job of that because Chris Cole and Justin Williams are going to be really good players. They're bright spots out there at practice each day. Justin is one of the hardest working, most positive kids I've ever been around. He and Chris are both getting better faster. All those guys, they've got a great tight-knit group."

On James Pierce Jr.…

"He's very elite get-off quickness. They do different things with him. They’ve put him on the center before. They’ve put him on guards before. They twist him and stun him. But he's really good on the edge. And I'm sure watching last week's tape, that's probably where they want him, you know, is on the edge and the get-off and the quickness. You've got to count for him every play. But the sad thing is, like, they've got other players. He's not a one-man team. Their inside guys are playing at a high level and rushing great. They've got great quickness and get-off. They have several players from Georgia playing really good. They've got guys playing on the edge really well. And the biggest difference in their team is probably their secondary and their corners. Their corners are playing as good as any set of corners in our conference right now.”

On the offensive line…

"They practice like they do every week. They're giving great effort, great toughness. They're doing it by committee. We've got guys injured left and right out there. So, we're running a drill and there's no guard in there because we're out of guards. And then this guy's got to go in and take reps. This guy's got to bump over here. He's got to move out there. Welcome to the SEC. The one thing about those guys, they're the toughest group on our team. And they are the most committed and want to do right and want to play well. It's tough sledding. It's tough sledding out there, especially when you're throwing the ball that much. It's hard to go block one-on-one and do those things. We have to help them with protection. And we've got to help them in the run game so they can come off the ball and hit people.”