ATHENS — Georgia football isn’t anywhere close to being ready to take on red-hot Michigan in the Orange Bowl College Football Playoff Semifinal, but the Bulldogs don’t have to be at this stage.
“We’ve taken a mental check to see what kind of physical and mental shape we’re in,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “Our guys are in a really good place. We slowly have started to come back.”
Smart said that Georgia is “in a good place,” but there’s still plenty to work on between now and when the game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 31 in Miami Gardens, Fla.
“We haven’t done a lot; it’s really good to get them away, focus on finals, focus on their health, focus on other things they’ve got going on,” Smart said at his press conference on Wednesday, which was split between questions about the early signing day and the No. 3-ranked Bulldogs’ prep for the No. 2-ranked Wolverines.
“To get somebody’s total focus, you can’t sustain that for four weeks, you can’t sustain that for three weeks.”
Georgia held limited workouts with strength and conditioning coaches last week and began practice this week, with the players finishing up their finals on Wednesday.
The real work is just getting started, though.
“As we turn the page towards Michigan, we as a staff have been working on them for several days now, preparing and getting things ready,” Smart said. “We’ll start prepping the players for some of that here in the next couple of days, and we’ll batten down the hatches and start practicing heavier (Thursday) for those guys.”
Smart explained how it will be a process for the Bulldogs to approach their return to football after the disappointing 41-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 4.
“You want to build to a point of getting back to an in-season mode,” Smart said. “I don’t think you can continue doing what you did in-season for three or four weeks because the game is too far away.”
The Georgia quarterbacks situation remained at the forefront of the discussion, with Smart saying he was confident all four quarterbacks could play.
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When pushed on Stetson Bennett and JT Daniels, and why he has stuck with Bennett of Daniels, Smart reiterated that it’s evaluated every day, and that Bennett’s mobility has provided advantages in some instances.
Bennett rushed for two first downs in the loss to Alabama, but he was also sacked three times and threw two interceptions, one that was returned for a touchdown.
A deeper dive into advanced metrics shows Bennett has six first-down runs on 11 third-down rushing attempts vs. SEC teams. Bennett also has been sacked six times on the 65 third-down plays he didn’t handoff in league play.
On the injury front, George Pickens (knee), Jamaree Salyer (foot) and Christopher Smith (knee) all played against Alabama in the SEC title game and are expected to be even healthier for the bowl game.
Receiver Ladd McConkey could be slowed by a lower-body injury, but he’s not expected to miss any practice time once at the bowl site.
Georgia is expected to arrive in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area on Dec. 26.
“The two practices we had, had high energy and they’ve done an awesome job, they’ve been great,” Smart said. “It’s more about what they’re going to do from this point forward as we get into things the next couple of weeks.”
