Everything Kirby Smart Said Before the Georgia Bulldogs' Game With Western Kentucky

ATHENS - Here is everything UGA Football coach Kirby Smart said after leading up to the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs' game with the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers Between the Hedges in Sanford Stadium.

KIRBY: Should be a great opportunity, for us to, to continue to get betterWe have a saying around here: "You don't have to be sick to get better," and that's been the motto of last week and this week in the summer.

On the offensive line

KIRBY: Well, they practice next to different guys every day - very minor deal.  played hard, played well against an overmatched opponent size and speed-wise, so tough evaluation, to be honest.

On the outside linebackers

KIRBY: Feel good about those guys. Those guys have kind of been that way for a while in terms of getting reps, growing. Q (Quintavius Johnson) does a good job leading that group, helping them out. Amaris (Williams) is doing it from the meeting room, and, Chase has been in there with them as well, done most of camp, and all those guys are getting better, Kamari, PJ, and,  and Darren.

Saw even Duncan Carpenter got to jump in there and get some reps Saturday and did a nice job. 

On Chris Cole

KIRBY: He's probably similar more similar than different. He's probably a little, faster and, and has a little more length than them. Probably doesn't have the density and size that they have, but he's sideline-to-sideline faster. He's really good on the edge like Jalen was - probably hasn't played as much inside backer as Quay has.

But you know, we don't really do many comparisons around here. We kind of keep it to he's his own person and, he's a tremendous leader and he's one of the hardest workers, practice guys we've had. 

On the SEC going 16-0 in week one: 

KIRBY: Hard to comment on 'cause I, you know, I, I can't sit here and say, you know, what I saw and didn't see, 'cause I didn't see much.  don't get to watch the totality of what, I guess 15 games if...outside of ours that, that were non SEC versus SEC opponents. So, I mean, I'd rather not comment because it's too early. 

On Kyron Jones

KIRBY: Yeah it's not what he's done in the last five or six weeks. It's what he's done since he's been here. He's high character. He's tough. He's fast. He was more of an offensive player coming out of high school that we thought could transition to defense. I mean, when you look for defensive players, you look for size and speed.

He has good size, good bulk, and he has good speed. He had to work a lot when he got here on instincts and playing that position. It's not a position that you can just go play and you haven't played a lot in your history, and he got better with that. He’s one of the toughest kids I've been around.

He he practices hard. He's dealt with a lot of injuries, and he's overcome them and, he sets his mind to something, and he does it. 

On the pass rush and the return of Case Linton

KIRBY: Hard to evaluate it based on those guys they were going against. No disrespect to them, but there was not a long time for the quarterback to be able to throw, and the quarterback got it out really quick as well. 

Chase is week to week.  

On Drew Bobo

KIRBY: I thought he did a good job. I mean, did what was asked of him. He makes good checks. He commands the, the huddle. He's a high effort guy. He didn't play a ton of snaps. So he did a good job. 

On Jamir Lee

KIRBY: He should be fine.

On staff evaluation of players playing different positions in high school than in college

KIRBY: What's his temperament? Is he gonna be able to deal with failure? Can he push through hard times when it's not going right for him? And there's gonna be a learning curve, and then what does he weigh and what does he run?

On Khamari Brooks

KIRBY: He's got great work ethic. I think it's still yet to be determined how ready he is.

I think there's a lot of guys that you know, they get battle tested in practices. They’ll get battle tested today. They got battle tested in the first scrimmages to find out where they are. And he missed some time in fall camp with an injury, and he fought back from that and he's really just now coming back from that.

So we're trying to grow him and expedite his learning process so he can help us. 

On Tyson Helton at Western Kentucky 

KIRBY: It shows you they have a tremendous evaluation process. They've done a great job of developing players. It's changed, and he's changed with it because they've had to dip into the portal and take more kids out of the portal because more of theirs have moved on through the portal.

On fighting more national teams and trying to keep recruits either in-state or just even in the SEC

KIRBY: It's moved that way over a ten-year trend. I can't say that it's more because of NIL.

I think it's more because of social media. These kids travel. They play more 7 on 7s. They know more kids across the country. So that trend was trending that way before NIL, and NIL probably just sped it up even more.

On Dante Dowdell

KIRBY: Connor and Ryan have been unbelievable with communication talking to his family talking to Shepherd Center and different places and they've been with him a lo- every step of the way, along with Coach Crawford in the running back room. They got to go over and visit him and see him in Atlanta and reached out and, and have talked to him a lot and. He's been around the team some and, he knows what his priorities are right now and that, that's trying to get healthy.

On seeing game film rather than practice film

KIRBY: I think it's helpful for them to assess maybe effort. How they ran to the ball. How they performed in a small window - because nobody played more than 30 or 40 snaps - and, assess where they need to go from here.

Everybody talks about your greatest improvement from game one to game two. I don't think that's necessarily true unless you make it true. You have to learn lessons from that. 

On Elyiss Williams’ physicality 

KIRBY: When he first got here. He's never been shy from contact.You never know sometimes, where guys are from how much football they've played. He played basketball, and he's a tremendous athlete. But he was never afraid of the physicality from the time he got here. He’s gotten better at that, but it's more technique-based than it was toughness-based.

On Jeremy Bell

KIRBY: 

He's a kid that's from our state. We comb the state for good football players, and he was a tremendous athlete. He’s from a very rural area, and we've had several players from his school, and we have relationships there with coaches, so they reached out to us, and we pursued it. He took advantage of an opportunity, and he continues to get better.

He's worked really hard, and he's had some really good springs. He’s getting better with each and every week. Sometimes when you come from those areas, you're not as polished as a receiver as a kid that played in some kind of system in high school. He was not fortunate enough to play in some elaborate passing scheme offense.

He worked really hard at what he did, and he's continued to hone his skills since being here. 

On Isiah Canion

KIRBY: I go more off of the camp he had. He’s tough, physical, works hard and plays fast. There's things that he does really well and things that he's here working to improve on. We need him to have a big year to create matchups and stay healthy.