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ATHENS - Georgia Bulldog head coach Kirby Smart spoke with reporters to talk about the latest injury report and how his team is feeling after securing a BYE and a spot in the Sugar Bowl.
Q. Hey, Kirby, congratulations. It will be several weeks before you guys have a game. What will be the schedule for you guys and the hunger for your team now that they've won an SEC championship? And a lot of people are picking Georgia to do well in this bracket.
COACH SMART: Yeah, I don't know what people are picking and don't particularly care. I'm a lot more worried about our schedule and how we use this time. And I don't think I need to rush to judgment on that. We just finished less than 24 hours ago, and we're going to look into it, keep talking to people. We have got a couple scenarios, a win scenario last night and a lose scenario last night of schedules, but doesn't mean we have to follow it.
So, we're going to listen to the bodies of the players. We're going to come in and meet as a staff and talk about areas we need to grow in. Right now, let the kids finish final exams. That's probably the most important thing. There's no set schedule yet per se for us.
Q. How is Colbie Young? Is there a chance he'll be able to play in this game coming up?
COACH SMART: I don't know. We went over some injuries today and his namecame up. I think it would be a stretch, and we're so far off. I was not thinking of being able to get him back when the injury occurred in the initial timeline. There has been some optimism with his rehab and his recovery; but it was more after the initial game, if we were able to advance. But, again, I don't know. I think we'll find out. Over the next 20-something days, we'll find a lot more out.
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Q. Gunner [Stockton] is the only quarterback who started a College Football Playoff game last year that will be doing so again this year. How valuable was that experience a year ago for him in his development.
COACH SMART: Yeah, I think it was huge for him. I think it was really huge for the game at Tennessee, the game at home. I mean, all the games he played this year, he created value through those experiences, even the second half of the SEC championship. I mean, he played against -- Number one, those are huge moments, those are huge atmospheres. But those were really good defenses, at Texas and Notre Dame, those two games, the game in the SEC championship and the game at the Sugar Bowl. So they certainly created confidence for him. How much that transitions to this year, I think it's way more about the games he's played in this year already.
Q. Today ten years ago you were officially introduced at Georgia. What comes to mind when you think about that day, and just what have these ten years meant to you?
COACH SMART: What comes to mind thinking about that day? Nerves. Just overwhelmed. I felt like I was just -- you know, I was trying to prepare for a national championship, or I guess a playoff game at the time, and also take on running a program, which I had not done. Just overwhelmed with who am I going to hire, what am I going to do. Just a lot of nerves. In terms of the memories, they're just incredible. It's just hard to believe it's ten years. All these pictures of my kids are popping up on the timeline and the aging of myself with the gray hair, I mean, it's just crazy how fast it goes, but yet how slow it goes. Some of it hit last night pre-game; and I get five, six Alabama players that are on their staff or get to see C.J. Mosley who -- I had a great bond with C.J. Probably haven't kept in good enough touch with him. Last night, it got pretty emotional for me before the game. He comes over and gives me a big hug. We were really close. He was the guy that kind of won that game against Georgia, and see Ha Ha Clinton-Dix on their staff. So many guys. And then the guys coming back on our team, Richard LeCounte. It's the memories and relationships in coaching. It's not the victories. That hits home for me the older I get.
Q. I'm sure we asked you something similar last year, but how do you go about scouting and advanced scouting two separate opponents, not knowing the outcome of that football game? Did you learn anything from last year's process? I know you said you were texting with a lot of coaches about those round-one losses last year after a bye.
COACH SMART: Yeah, we took an approach last year that we were going to prepare for both teams in our advanced scout. We'll do the same thing. We'll treat those teams as equals. We'll have coaches assigned to them. Coordinators will look at both. But we'll split our staff in half, look hard at both teams, dive into their seasons. We'll do a lot of research into ourselves and study other teams in the country that were maybe top in their areas -- red area, third down, two minutes, everything. Just try to steal the inches and try to get better ourselves. So that's the way we'll approach that. As far as the practice schedule and how we go about it, I'm not sure on that yet. We're going to work hard on ourselves, but the coaches will work on the opponent. But I don't know how much opponent work we'll do ourselves until we know who it is.
Q. You mentioned last night there were some naysayers earlier in the year about your defense. Can you talk about what you saw and the progress? And it really appeared to gain momentum as the season progressed.
COACH SMART: Yeah, I watched a defensive staff that had a lot of confidence in the players, and I get to sit in meetings with offense and defense. And I listen to the defensive coaches explain to the defensive players that we're going to be really good when we get this right, and you need to trust and believe in the process that we have, and get better. And they got better. There weren't just naysayers at the beginning of the season; there were naysayers throughout the season, and probably with good
reason.
We had a couple of defensive games mid-season and later that we didn't play up to our standard, and a lot of that had to do with the team we were playing. But I do think we're getting better, but we have to continue that. Like, the last thing you can do is think you've arrived on defense or offense and not grow. That's the key point in this window of opportunity, who actually separates themselves and does get better.
Q. You talked about it a little bit, but talking with the other coaches who have had a layoff, what specifically did you learn last year about that time off?
COACH SMART: I don't know that I can provide the layoff with any excuse. I think that's what the general public and the people on the outside world want to say that the layoff had to do with it. I think it had something to do with the good football team we played against. I think they played really hard, they played really physical. Everything we thought about that team held to be true. There's not a lot that I would say the layoff had to do with that. We were young in some areas, inexperienced in some areas. Broke down on special teams. Lost the middle eight. Those didn't happen because of the layoff. We didn't give up a touchdown and then another touchdown and a kickoff return for a touchdown right after the second half -- start of the second half because of the layoff.
So I have a lot of confidence in the history of what we do in these windows. But at the end of the day, we've got to execute in the game.
Q. What are the chances -- I know you're going to have the next couple weeks off -- of getting maybe a Drew Bobo back, a Colbie Young, or any of the other guys that are injured in time for this playoff run?
COACH SMART: Yeah, they'll all be on an individual basis. The hope is to get guys that are injured back and get those guys back available, and we'll see how that goes and where their injuries are.
Q. Just because you mentioned a couple times this year that playing in the SEC, how you guys play has been like a playoff game every week. What do you take from those experiences to be able to play in a playoff-type situation, and how much did that prepare your team mentally to be able to handle some of the situations that come up in these tight playoff games?
COACH SMART: Well, we've certainly been in tight ball games this year. I think there's been years that I've gone to the four-team, two-game playoff and didn't have a lot of tight games. And you worried about how your team would respond and how those experiences would affect your team in the heat of a moment. That's not the case anymore. We've been in them.
But so have most of the teams in the playoff. There's not a team in the playoff that you can say has just not been in a tight game or blown everybody out. I just don't think that's there. Most teams have a loss. Teams that don't have a loss, they've been in some tight ball games. So I think that everybody's pretty even in regards to that.
Q. Looking at all this time you guys have off, you were talking about trying to get better. Is there a specific area or areas that you're looking at, besides getting healthy, that you guys want to focus on?
COACH SMART: I wouldn't say specifically, no. I mean, I want to look at the whole picture, right? And we're going to do a deep dive. Self-scout because we've got a lot of time. When I say "self-scout," we're looking at ourselves; but we're going to look at outside teams and see what might complement us, what might give us an edge in some area. But I can't tell you what that is right now because I haven't even looked at ourselves.
Q. Just wanted to ask, I know you've had a lot on your mind the last 24 hours. But going back to a bowl game where there was a lot that happened on the field, a lot that happened outside of football last year, just how much have you been able to reflect here today and in the recent days about going back to New Orleans given what happened last year?
COACH SMART: Yeah. I think we knew that would be the option if we won the game. If we lost, we weren't. I've been to New Orleans a lot of times in my career. That's a blessing. Sugar Bowl is an incredible event. I've had the great fortune of playing there more than I ever thought I would. I spent two years in the ACC at FSU, and one of those two was in the Sugar Bowl. So I have found my way into this game going to New Orleans a lot. A lot of respect for how much passion there is in this game. This game is not about me or the experiences I had in New Orleans. It's about this team and these players, and this team and these players have done an incredible job of buying in to what we're pushing on them as coaches, things we've asked them to do different than last year, and they've done all of those things.
So I'm looking forward to this team going down there, this Georgia Bulldog team, and having an opportunity to play, whoever that opponent is, regardless of the circumstances of last year with a lot of stuff going on outside of football.
Q. Kirby, you talked a lot about the messaging for the season being stopping the run and running the football. And, obviously, this team has taken to that and done a great job with it. When did you know that this was going to be a team that could do both of those things, especially at an improved rate over what you guys were doing last year?
COACH SMART: I don't know -- I guess the order of the season. Sometime after Tennessee. We didn't really get tested until the road game at Tennessee. And then as the season evolved and we're playing high-level opponents, we were stopping the run pretty well, and we were running the ball. We were running the ball pretty well. So those two games -- the SEC schedule is kind of what allowed me to realize we were going to be better. I don't know that I would say we hit our standard, or those two national championship years standard; but we improved in that area, and we needed to improve in that area. And it was big for our team.
Q. It looked like Chauncey [Bowens] got banged up at the end of that game yesterday, Kirby. Just wanted to see how he's doing.
COACH SMART: Yeah, he landed on his back on that run he broke out on, and he was fine after the game. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but he landed on his back and he was in a great deal of pain. And happened a couple other games in the season when he fell there and landed on it, but he seems to be fine.
