ATHENS — It’s a big week for Georgia, as the Bulldogs go on the road for the first time this season and start SEC play.
The Bulldogs will visit the Kentucky Wildcats, with the game set for a 7:30 p.m. ET start. Georgia will see some familiar faces, as the Wildcats added Jamon Dumas-Johnson and Brock Vandagriff via the transfer portal.
That gave head coach Kirby Smart plenty to talk about during his Monday press conference. Below is a full transcript of everything Smart had to say.
OPENING STATEMENT...
“Got to work yesterday and put that game to bed and started on Kentucky yesterday afternoon. Have immense respect for Mark [Stoops]. He and I have grown to be really good friends. He’s one of the best in the business. Done a tremendous job at Kentucky over the time he’s been there. His teams are always very disciplined, very physical. That’s a really tough place to play. When you go there, as you can see from every time we’ve played there, it’s been really tough. So a lot of excitement playing the SEC opponent on the road. I think we know around this place how hard that can be.
You get an opportunity to play at night on the road and you know the environment’s gonna be really loud. We gotta prepare for a tough, really physical game, which it’s that way every time we play Kentucky.”
On preparing for Brock Vandagriff based on the early Kentucky film versus his time at Georgia...
“Very little. You know, a lot of respect for Brock, his dad, his family. What Brock did for this university was awesome. He was a wonderful teammate and just a great kid. Always put the team first and would do anything to help the team and really helped our culture while he was here. I have a lot of appreciation for what he did and in fact he graduated from here. It’s really cool when he told me he was gonna do that, and then he was gonna go play and he did that.”
On if playing Kentucky on the road is a little more dangerous after a disappointing performance in Week 2...
“I don’t know. I think it’s all about perception and how you perceive things. They’re just as dangerous whether they won or lost that game, in my opinion. I mean, I don’t get into the whole, you know — we’re gonna prepare the same way regardless of what happened in that game, you know? A lot of things went wrong quickly for them in that game, and it snowballed in some ways. I know what they’re capable of. I’ve seen them on tape. I know the football players they got, I know how physical they are, I know how they’re coached, and we’ve got to get ready for a really tough opponent.”
On Brock Vandagriff’s strengths you’ll see on Saturday...
“I think we’ll see. I think that’s part of their identity is figuring out who Brock is and as well as their other quarterback that’s playing. I think that’s something that they gotta answer, you know? Our job is to stop whatever they do, and we’ve got to work hard on that. We’ve got to worry about us.”
On what it looks like every year when Smart meets with players potentially entering the portal...
“I think it’s different with each kid. Every kid’s different. Every kid’s in a different spot. What age am I? How much am I playing? Will I get an opportunity somewhere else? What’s going on with my family and my family dynamic? I don’t think there’s a cookie cutter answer to that question. I wouldn’t delve into specifically each kid that I deal with. I think that’s relative to me and the kid, not for public consumption. But certainly there’s conversations that are had.
The transfer portal is an option for some guys to think about going somewhere else. It’s unfortunate because the feedback we get from the NFL is there’s nowhere they’d rather have players than here developing. Countless GMs have told me, ‘The kids that come out of your program are so much better off and developed for having stayed even over playing because of what kind of practice they get and who they get to go against at practice.’ They feel like their best evaluation is when they come to our practice and see guys go against each other.
That’s not anything directly at Brock and Pop, not at all. Both those guys were awesome young men, great young men for our program. But just as a whole, asking about transfer portal stuff.”
On what makes it tough to play at Kentucky…
“Physical. So you play defense, you have physical lines of scrimmage. You have huge people on the offensive and defensive line. And you’re hard to move the ball on. So the environment they create is very good. They’ve got great fans, they got a great stadium. They reduced their stadium to have more premium seating. So they actually get less people in, but they’re louder when they’re there. They’re passionate. They play really hard. They’re well coached. That’s what makes it tough.”
On Deone Walker…
“Yeah, extremely physical, versatile player, can play inside out. Seems like he’s been there forever. He’s a kid we recruited, highly recruited kid, tremendous athlete. Just like a wrecking ball. I mean, he literally can wreck a play from any position. And I mean, they even dropped him last year. And so he’s a tremendous athlete.”
On when they start planning for rain and how it affects what they do…
“Yeah, we look at it last night and start tracking it each and every day. We do every two weeks wet ball drill and practice with wet balls like we’re gonna play in the rain. We’ve been able to practice some this year a couple times in the rain. And sometimes the weather up there, typically it’s later in the year we play them, and typically it’s much colder, which we’ve had some really tough games up there in the cold, in the wind. This year, it looks like there may be some inclement weather, and we’ve gotta prepare for it, so.”
On Oscar Delp and Lawson Luckie…
“Oscar’'s good. Oscar’s fine. Lawson has done really well. He would have had the same progression, he got injured last year in camp. So he missed some time with a significant ankle injury he had. But he’s been growing since the time he came back last year. And he wasn’t really 100% when he came back to play, but he was able to play, and he was coming off that high ankle. And he got better and better as the year went on. Had good bowl practices, good bowl game, he had a great spring practice. He’s worked really hard at the things he’s got to improve on during fall camp. And he continues to work to get better.”
On the young players on the interior defensive line…
“Yeah, I’m excited about that group, they work really hard. They’ve gotten a ton of work this fall camp in terms of the youth has. Our older players, which we’ve got a good group of old and a good group of young in that room. We’re really pleased with where they are. The amount of work the young guys have gotten is probably more than we’ve ever gotten in a young group. It’s been great because we’ve been able to take care of our older guys and get them in games and get them going. But then also improve the younger guys, so we’ve got a lot of depth in that room.”
On what he’s seen from Jamon Dumas-Johnson in the Kentucky defense…
“Too early to tell, it’s one of those things, I just got to look at their offense first. So I studied the offense all day yesterday, this morning, I got to look at a couple games. So I think you’d be better to ask an offensive coach that question.”
On Nasir Johnson, CJ Allen, Raylen Wilson…
“Yeah, Nasir had a little bit of a sublux, he’s had before, should be fine. Raylen and CJ are both very intelligent, mature beyond their years. They’re guys that we’ve talked about repeatedly, they’ve been thrown in the fire. They’ve had to get in the fire and do it at a young age, and they’re both growing. I mean, most of the time, you’re playing your first real meaningful time at linebacker at Georgia has been in your second season. Both of them had to play in their first season due to injuries. And that seems to be happening more and more across the country. These guys have prepared well, they’re very intelligent, they’re very well coached.”
On using the ‘22 draft as “proof of concept” in regards to Georgia development…
“Yeah, I don’t know, we sell that. I mean, we sell the use of our personnel and the playing of our players. We sell it immensely. People try to sell against it, I mean, with saying you don’t have, I mean, but all you gotta do is talk to one NFL person and they’ll tell you that they’d much rather have quality over quantity. They’d much rather judge you on the plays you play, and they’d much rather you be training at Georgia than anywhere else. So there’s not a lot to argue in regard to that. I think the 22 draft was just an exceptional group of defensive players who were all at one time here, and yeah, we use that as a great sell. But regardless of the 22 happening, we would still have the same defensive philosophy. You need depth, you need players, you need a lot of guys who can play winning football. And if you can prove to us you can play winning football, you’ll be on the field and you’ll get an opportunity to put on tape what you can do. It’s not about stats, they could care less about stats.”
On what he needs to see from Mykel Williams to say he’s ready to play…
“He’s got to be able to practice. He’s got to be able to compete, run, put pressure on it. And he’s doing a great job of rehab. He did a great job this weekend of getting extra time in, and see where he’s at.”
On if it was mission accomplished against Tennessee Tech…
“Mission accomplished in terms of playing guys, probably yes. Mission accomplished in terms of how we played, maybe no. We got a chance to grow kids and go out and play. And that’s probably an individual basis judgment. How did this guy play? How did that guy play? How did we play as a unit? How did we play as a unit on special teams when other guys got in? And a lot of these kids, early in their careers, this is the opportunity they get to play in front of their family. This is the opportunity they get to play in front of their community or TV. And that’s important to them, and they practice hard too. So I’m very thankful we got to get some guys in the game.”
On Xavier Truss and Chaz Chambliss…
“Yeah, both kids, extremely tough, physical. They carry our culture really well. I don’t think you’ll find two individuals who have had more contact in the University of Georgia than these two guys, especially Truss with the amount of time he’s been here. And Chaz, he seeks contact, and they’re both kind of what we want our program to represent in terms of toughness and discipline, and nowhere is that more needed than this week. And that’s probably why they’re in front of you guys, because they carry the water in terms of discipline and toughness.”
On Warren Brinson…
“First on Warren, he looks good. Hopefully be able to go today. We’ll find out more. I don’t honestly know until we get out there, but seems to be good. And he did some stuff yesterday in the weight room.”
On Brock Vandagriff deciding to transfer and if it’s different for QBs…
“I think everybody wants to play right now. I haven’t met a player that doesn’t wanna play, and again I don’t understand what you’re asking. If you’re trying to say, was Brock’s situation different than Carson’s? Well, not everybody’s looking to transfer early and often.They all wanna play. They don’t all wanna transfer. I think that would be a generalization that’s not there.
You know what I mean? I’d say the quarterback position, there comes a point in time when if you haven’t played, you’re running out of time to play. So I don’t know what you want a kid to do, wait out his whole career and not play, I mean, he did graduate. He became a better player.
He certainly feels that he had a great experience at Georgia, and two national championship rings. So I think that that’s a positive more than it is any kind of negative.”
On Anthony Evans…
“Well, Anthony is, number one, tough. He’s aggressive. He has a lot of confidence in his return skills, and he has a lot of confidence in his receiver skills. He has worked really hard at two positions in our offense, both the slot and the Z, with some receiver injuries through camp and just not a lot of depth. He worked at two positions. First of all, to play those two positions in our offense, you have to be extremely smart. And he’s gone out there and done a great job of repping at Z and F. I’m really proud of what he’s done there.
He’s had a bigger impact on the games as a returner. And he works really hard at that. He takes a lot of pride. I’m hard on him as a returner because I have a high standard of what that position in decision-making should be. He’s extremely aggressive, and I want him to keep being smart with the ball.”
On keeping up with Georgia players in the NFL…
“Yeah, I don’t monitor it. I do get text messages, whether it’s from my family, my son, friends. People put it out there, and I see my phone, so it’s one of those things. But I don’t have a report, I don’t monitor it, I don’t go say. I just get a text, and it’s like, hey, Ladd scored a touchdown, and I see a video of it, and I think it’s pretty cool. Awesome, Brock had a good day. There’s a lot of those guys that played, and three defensive guys started in secondaries, I think. I mean, it’s a lot of good that you get, but I ain’t got time to think about it right now.”
On playing in the rain…
“I’d rather not even get into those.”
On Chaz Chambliss…
“He’s gotten much more intelligent in terms of football knowledge. So he can do recognition. He can tell you tendencies. He knows snap count cadences. He does tackle reports on what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are, what the backfield set is to run, pass. He’s really tough. He’s really physical. He understands our defense. We give our defensive players tools that they can use, but we can’t practice them all. Because there are things that happen on this formation, this play with this defense. It’s basically a very low probability that it happens. But if it happens, you can do this. He hits on those. He gets those. He understands it, and he puts himself in an advantageous position when that multiple hits, and makes him valuable. It’s his toughness and the kind of the way he practices.
On Jared Wilson…
“Yeah, Jared’s doing a good job. He’s practiced more over the last two weeks than he did in camp. So I think he’s shown rapid improvement because of the amount of work he’s been able to do in practice. And we need him to continue getting better. We need Jared to be a leader, and the center has to make a lot of decisions on our offensive line.”
