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ATHENS - Georgia football coach Kirby Smart spoke with reporters this week about Auburn, the triggered Alabama fan, Dwight Phillips and more.
OPENING STATEMENT...
COACH RICHT: They're getting ready to be state champs of the State of Alabama. That's right. Isn't that this weekend?
KIRBY: That's right.
COACH RICHT: Coach Smart, good luck this weekend.
Take care of business. G-A-T-A, get after their ass.
KIRBY: Thank you, coach. Belts look good. Not bad.
We appreciate that. What a great cause, and I have really enjoyed going to that event over the years, getting to see our players in a different kind of atmosphere and interact with others. So it's a great cause, and hope everybody will support it. For us its on to Auburn. As y'all know, the South's oldest rivalry.
It's an awesome rivalry. It's one that was special to me growing up close to Auburn. I actually lived closer to there than any other SEC school. I have known a lot of coaches there and seems like from the two places I've worked most of my life, that's been a permanent rival - certainly been a very traditional rivalry both places I worked and have so much respect for them.
They have a lot of talent. They got good football players and it's any given Saturday in this conference, as we see every week, will be a extremely physical game. They're coming off an off week, and we're coming off a really tough physical game.
So it'll be really important that the mindset and the approach to the game is right because they wanna make it physical the way they play. They're a really tough physical football team on both sides of the ball. And Coach Durkin, their defensive coordinator has been one of the best in the conference over all the years he's been in the conference.
He's a great defensive football coach. We got a lot of links - a lot of respect for him. Our guys gotta get ready to go play.
On Auburn coach Alex Golesh
Physical. Like, people want to make it about passing, and then they do have a lot of good passes, and they have tempo, and they get a lot of plays.
But they're physical. I mean they’re physical at the point of attack. When you watch the games, I watched yesterday on them you immediately see those same pillars of his program being able to throw the ball vertical down the field and being physical at the point of attack. And they've got a guy that can do that with their quarterback.
On if anything surprised him about the Alabama game
We watched the tape of it. It was extremely physical. This one's gonna be really physical, too. It was a really hard-fought game. Mistakes made both ways. I promise you that the page for us is focused on this Auburn team because they're well-rested, and they got a good football team coming in here.
On building roster to stay deep for SEC play; and traits he’s looking for
We want high-character kids that want to be at Georgia. We look for toughness because that's what the conference is.
But who doesn't look for toughness? We don't have these traits that are secret to us. We think it's more important what you do with your players than the players you get. We all have a pool of players. I don't think there's a huge separation, like some people do, between the players.
It's what you do with them. It's mindset training. It's lifting. It's concept training. It's defensive schemes, offensive schemes. It's how you practice. It's the culture you breed in the off-season program that makes your programs different. So as far as identifying players we take - we want to take tough players that love football.
But I just don't think that's different than other people.
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On teaching composure
I think some people have already learned it when they get here. Some people have further to go, um, in terms of learning to manage their composure. It's part of a DNA trait we have here that we sell early on, and we highlight it each and every day that it doesn't show up. And I think you take a lot of opportunities and mistakes that other people have, and you try to learn from them, but the greatest learning tool you have is experience or failures within your own program, and we certainly had those.
And hen we do we highlight them and bring them out and explain how loss of composure can affect, not yourself, it can affect others
On Mudita
Well, I think it's important in all team sports. You go to a business, and you go across the country, and you look at successful businesses you have to have pride in performance. You have to celebrate team goals. This is a team sport. Football is probably the ultimate team sport. And as much as we want to make it not that with individual awards and NIL and the culture that we've inherited, it still boils down to the best teams play well together.
And without Modita, you can't really do that.
On the leaked audio after the Alabama game
It's happened before. It's not something I want. I feel like that that's a spot that you should be able to feel safe to talk to your team and communicate with your team.
And I mean, it's happened before to us. We have to do a better job managing it, honestly.
On Alabama fan’s interaction with Raylen Wilson after the Alabama game
I don't know that you can predict - you want people to make good decisions and do things the right way, and Raylen certainly did there.
But there's so much that goes into that. He thought it was a Georgia fan, probably helped him react the way he did initially, you know? It's disappointing behavior by any fan and certainly nothing we condone, and I'm sure Alabama doesn't condone it either.
On running back injuries
Got a lot of injured tailbacks.
Is there any plans to move anybody there? We don't have anybody to move there. I mean, Tyriq Green, you can't move there. So we got the guys we got.
On Jaden Reddell
He's a little dinged up, and, uh, I thought he played really hard after the hit and played with toughness. He continues to grow as a player, and proud of where he's at.
On 3rd down conversions on offense
Well, we have an experienced quarterback, and we've been able to run the ball better. If you go back two years ago, for whatever reason, we really struggled to run the ball. What does that equal? Third and long.
What does that equal? 39%. And then we ran the ball better last year, and we had a quarterback that was in his, really his first year kind of starting. I think it's a tribute to the offensive staff, uh, it's attributed to the quarterback play, and it's attributed to the ability to run the ball on early downs and not get behind the sticks.
On UGA safeties play at Alabama
Some good, some bad. Some things we can improve and work on. Uh, certainly played hard
On the expectations for first-year head coaches
I'm still waiting on the first Cignetti effect in the SEC. So it's tough sledding, Week in - week out. Maybe it could happen with the right guy bringing the right players with him, but it's tough. Key to all that is quarterback, and Coach Cignetti's done a tremendous job developing or bringing or getting quarterbacks, and that's a big part to every offense's or team's success.
On freshman playing at Georgia
Yeah, and I would say this, too. You mentioned they don't play late in the game, they play in the game.
It's not a late-in-the-game deal. They're good football players. Some have created opportunities through injuries, some have created opportunities through earning it themselves. You can't survive without freshmen being able to play.
It's one of two things if you're not playing freshmen.
You got a really good old team, which is rare, or you don't have very good freshmen. And I don't really want to have the second. So as those guys are available and the best to play, obviously they'll play. We've had a really good track record of, for the last couple years, the most played snaps of freshmen, we've been in the top five in the country.
So that's because we play a lot of players, we sign good freshmen, and we're not afraid to play them.
On Dwight Phillips
His vision, his unique toughness for his size, and his speed. I mean, he has great vision, a great one-cut, and he's got great toughness, and his speed is elite.
On Isiah Canion
Yeah, it's a lower extremity injury, and, um, I mean, we had to go all week kind of not knowing on Isaiah. We knew on Thomas. Uh, but how does it affect you?
I mean, you know, I think if you talk to Mike, you talk to the offensive staff, it's, it's frustrating because you don't really know who's in and who's out, and you're trying to make decisions. You know, like I said, we thought Nate was gonna be able to play, and that was a surprise to us.
Just makes it hard because you can't get enough reps for guys, especially when you’ve got guys trying to take some reps as walk-through reps and things.
On Mike Bobo’s coaching style
We don't have some magic potion in the way we do things. I mean, we're a week away from humility on both sides of the ball. But I do think his intensity, the way he carries himself with the offense, the way the offensive staff plans, the schedule we keep Monday through Saturday of prep, of changing, of evolving, of adding this wrinkle, taking this wrinkle, utilizing personnel groupings, scheme.
He's very smart in the run game. In a world that a lot of new age coaches just don't get infatuated with the run game or the details of a run game in terms of who's blocking who. All those things are important to him. So when I say that, I say it talking about his total staff and the way they go about presenting to the total offense each and every day, day in and day out, Monday through Saturday.
On Auburn’s defense
Yeah, speed, athleticism. They can fly to the ball. Uh, they play really hard. They attack the ball. They, they blitz. They come after you. They're aggressive. Uh, you can see the person- his personality coming out in the players in the, in the way they play.”
