UGA Football Coach Kirby Smart Gives An Injury Update - Talks Georgia Tech

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ATHENS – Georgia Bulldog head coach Kirby Smart met with the media Monday and offered the following comments.

Opening Statement
"All right, Georgia Tech week. A lot of respect for Brent [Key] and their program. He's done a tremendous job there. They're extremely physical. You can tell they're modeled after what he believes in, which is running the ball and stopping the run. The quarterback is playing at an elite level. Just a lot of respect for the way they play the game. We've got a short week, so we've got a quick turn here to get ready for these guys and play in Mercedes Benz on Friday. And with that, I know you guys want to ask about Nyier [Daniels]. I have not had a chance to talk to him or his family, but obviously he'll no longer be with us."

On preparing for Georgia Tech's offense…
"I wouldn't say a sense of comfort. Nothing's comfortable about defending an offense that can hurt you in so many ways. First of all, Buster [Faulkner] does an incredible job. He did here, too. He's a really good football coach. He knows where things are, where all the nuggets are on defenses. He knows how to attack them. He knows the answers for things when you do them. At the end of the day, they got to block, we got to tackle, and somebody's got to do it better. That's a very tough thing when you play them, because they stretch you horizontally, they stretch you vertically, they stretch you with tempo, they stretch you with numbers counts because of their quarterback. Buster does an awesome job, and that's continued this year. There's no level of comfort dealing with it. It's more of a 'how do you inspire your players to play harder?'"

On Georgia Tech QB Haynes King…
"Just look at the numbers, right? Anytime you have a quarterback that has the experience he has, I don't know if he's played five years, six years, I don't know what it is, but he's extremely experienced, extremely tough. How many people understand how fast this guy is? He can run, and he was a great athlete in high school, track guy. The stories are all over his success and of where he's been and the injuries he's been through. You see the hits he takes, he just gets stronger with each hit. He's extremely valuable in terms of what they do and what they ask him to do. He's hard to defend on all levels, throwing the ball. People think, 'well, he doesn't throw the ball,' he throws the ball really well, and he's really efficient. They do a great job with the passing game, Buster does, because it's screen, RPOs, perimeter, and it's vertical."

On playing the game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium…
"No, we don't change our approach, I don't really think about those things."

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On ILB Chris Cole and Justin Williams' play against Charlotte…
"They did a good job. Played against an overmatched team, and they both played with confidence. It was a good thing that they've played as much as they have this year, so it wasn't their first time really being out there. A lot more challenging this week in terms of vision, eye control, keys. There's a lot of stuff going on in the backfield. There's a lot of motion shifts. You've got the extra element of the quarterback run, so fitting things properly, being thick on things, keying things, striking and getting all blockers, no one for ones – they're all things that will be important in this game."

On Georgia Tech's defense…
"I'll be honest with you, I haven't seen enough. I've watched a bunch of their offense. I haven't seen as much of their defense. I watched bits and pieces of our game last year and then the game the other night are the two that I've seen. They had some explosives in there. They've given up. They play really hard on defense. Play with great pad level. A lot of respect for how they play the game and how hard those guys play. They do a good job on perimeter blocks with their DB's. It's something we talk about every week. You can find what a team's like by how they play with their skill players. All linemen are tough by nature, but sometimes skill players aren't and theirs play with great toughness, get off blocks and attack blocks."

On Chauncey Bowens' status…
"It looks good."

On Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key…
"Brent [Key] played at Georgia Tech when I played here, so I didn't know him personally, I knew of him. Then he got into the coaching profession and he worked for a while with Coach [George] O'Leary. I didn't really meet him until he was down at UCF and we had some common, mutual friends in the coaching profession. A couple guys had passed through Alabama that had worked with him, so I met him that way. He does a tremendous job. Guys take on his personality traits in terms of how physical they play. I'm sure they practice physical just like we do because you see it on tape."

On both teams feeding off their quarterbacks' play style…
"I don't like reigning anybody in. If it's beneficial to their play style, in terms of toughness and doing the things you need to do. I don't know what similarities [Gunner Stockton] and Haynes [King] have because I don't know Haynes well enough to know that. I know the play he puts out, and the product he puts out, and the production he has put out has really been incredible for what he has been able to do. The toughness, and the durability he has done that with has been similar for Gunner. He just hasn't done it as long as Haynes has."

On OL Drew Bobo and Earnest Greene, III…
"They both are doing great, and both are completely available."

On evaluating a recruit's toughness…
"Talk to people you trust, whether it's a high school coach, somebody that's been in their lives or somebody that has coached them. Toughness is not talked about. It's earned. You know that usually by who they played for, who they played with, or you just talk to people. The best source of information you can get is talking to somebody."

On DB Kyron Jones…
"We were hopeful to get Kyron [Jones] back last week. He was hurting a little bit and still dealing with some pain in the ankle, so we'll continue to progress him this week."

On taking a harder stance on driving offenses…
"No, I think those would be your words, not my words. My words would be that each situation is a case-by-case basis, and we'll always evaluate things based on the total history of the student athlete, what the actions were and what they entailed."

On a standout player from the Charlotte game…
"It is hard to say. The team was overmatched. We were bigger, stronger and faster at almost every position. It's not fair to evaluate it in terms of who gets more playing time. Our guys get to go out at practice and compete today to get more playing time. They're going to do ones on ones, and they're going to do twos on twos, and we're going to get a better measure of who's growing and who's getting better. That's no disrespect to Charlotte. I am not being disrespectful. There were just some positions that were outmanned."

On the value of playing Charlotte late in the season…
"There was great value. We got great experience for a lot of guys to go out, play and compete. I think if you ask their parents and their families if there was value in it, the answer is absolutely."

On the postgame interaction with Coach Key last season…
"I would agree with you. It was an intense game, and there was a lot of back and forth. I've never been a part of a game where there was a one-play outcome 14 times, and that makes things tough when you're going back and forth. Coaches are human too, and there's a respect level for people that do this business and profession. There's a lot of respect for the toughness they play with."

On Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner…
"He did an incredible job for us, always innovative, always looking at new ideas, good teacher, aggressive, and does a great job. The way he does things, and I've seen that carry over to there. He does a really good job with their offensive unit and utilizes the skill set of the players he has. He looks at things in perspective of touches, who has to get the ball, how do you win, and how do you adjust, but not losing the core values of being able to run the ball and having toughness."

On last season's Georgia Tech game…
"Physicality, it was a physical game both ways."

On LB CJ Allen's status…
"Yeah, he's working his tail off, doing the best he can to be available when he can."

On any intensity carrying over from last season's game…
"The teams are trying to win the game, regardless of what happened last year. I don't know what eight overtimes would make people want to win it more or less this year. I assure you, they want to win the game just as much as we do, regardless of the outcome last year."

On DL Elijah Griffin…
"He's getting more confidence, less pre-game and early game jitters in terms of anxiety. He's comfortable and practicing well. He's doing things for the second and third time instead of the first time, in a lot of cases, and continues to get better. We need him to continue to get better."

On WR CJ Wiley and Landon Roldan…
"Knowledge, experience in the offense. Being able to process information quicker. It's so much more than, can he run a good route and catch the ball? There's just tons more than that. What defense are they in? What check are we making? Are they blitzing? Do we have a side adjust? Do we have a different guy to go block when the coverage shell changes? You can't get those guys enough reps, and they're maturing to the point where they earn the trust. They can go in and execute all things. It requires you to do all things in our offense because they're involved in every play."