ATHENS — Georgia has begun fully preparing for the Florida Gators, as the two teams resume their heated rivalry this Saturday.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who played in this game as a player, understands the importance of this game and what it means to the Georgia program.
The head coach touched on a number of topics, ranging from the status of Brock Bowers to Florida quarterback Graham Mertz.
Below is a full transcript of what Smart said during his Monday press conference.
Opening Statement...
“We’ll start gearing up here towards Florida. Did a little bit of work last week in terms of introducing those guys on Thursday. Today we’ll get back to work on these guys. I know our guys are excited to play in Jacksonville. An incredible stadium and atmosphere. Our players love playing in this neutral site game. It’s just kind of different in terms of the start of it, the fans, the split crowd. It seems to be a momentum flow type of game because the team that has momentum is really at home for that moment, but it goes back and forth. It’s a game of momentum swings.
Lot of respect for Billy. Always have liked him a lot. He does a really good job as a football coach, as a man, as a person. Worked on a staff with him and admire him and the way he coaches and goes about things. He’s very detail oriented. No stone is left unturned, and they play that way. Have a lot of respect for the way they play. I know a lot of guys on their staff. It’ll be a physical game, always is, and our kids will be looking forward to it.”
On first-time starters in Georgia-Florida...
“Couldn’t tell you. Don’t know, didn’t know the stat but it’s all about working and executing within your offense. That’s what we’ll ask Carson to do. Play within the offense. He’s a quarterback with a lot of experience under his belt. I know he’ll be excited to play in Jacksonville.”
On Ricky Pearsall...
“He’s been available. He’s been healthy and very consistent for them. They’ve got some other guys - just looking at stats can be misleading because they’ve got other guys who have missed games and opportunities to get stats. But he’s very consistent, an explosive play maker. He’s tough. They do a lot of things with him. He’s not just a sit there and play guy. He’s worked the slot, done double moves, been a vertical guy. He makes a lot of plays. They have other weapons, but some of those have been injured. They lost a kid for the year, they lost a couple of guys for a couple of games. It’s been a myriad of injuries that have led to the stats being that way.”
On Florida growing up...
“They’ve played their best football the last two weeks or so. Look at the statistics on their quarterback, he’s maybe the No. 1 quarterback in the country for two games in terms of the way he’s played. You can tell he’s got a lot of confidence in their system. They’re able to execute and do a lot of good things with him. He handles it well, makes a lot of run checks for them. He’s done a really nice job of not putting them in harms way with his decision making, so they’re playing at a really high level right now and doing a great job with him.”
On Oscar Delp & Brock Bowers...
“Delp has been fine. We’re not asking Delp to do anything normally different than what he’s done. Nor anybody on the team.
Yeah, Brock has been at walkthroughs. He’s been out there with the team. Some of it last week, some of it different times.”
On Roderick Robinson and Tate Ratledge...
“Tate had an elbow coming out of the Vanderbilt game but he’s been fine. he practiced all last week but he’s been fine. He practiced all last week with that elbow. Rod was able to go a lot of last week as well.”
On Montgomery VanGorder...
“Gummy does a great job. He’s a coach’s son. He’s grown up around football his entire life. He’s a quarterback, understands the game. He does a nice job assisting our offensive staff with weekly things. Coach Bobo puts him in charge of things. He takes those things very serious. He’ll be a good coach.”
On Amarius Mims and Xavier Truss...
“Yeah we’ll find out a lot more today. They both were able to do some different things last week in the off week. A lot of rehab, a lot of maintenance, a lot of getting back. Until I see him out there today, I probably wouldn’t be a good judge to be able to tell.”
On Florida’s defense...
“Well we do that every week. There’s some merit to watching what teams do defensively. We get to see the teams in our league on defense as we watch offenses. So you overlap with teams. You might bring an idea up here or there. But a lot of times offensively they look at things through a different lens. They’re trying to measure our strengths and their strengths against each other and our weaknesses and their weaknesses against each other and try to figure that out. You can get too caught up in the scheme and think a lot of times this game boils down to physicality, line of scrimmage, team that can rush the ball, team that tackles well, team that doesn’t turn it over. And those don’t have to do with schemes.”
On Graham Mertz...
“Nah, it’s never all about pressure. It’s about controlling the line of scrimmage and not giving up explosives. Who can not let someone run the ball and not give up explosives? That’s what you’re looking for. That is what football’s become. A game of explosives and teams are trying to find them. They throw the ball vertically down the field. Billy always has. The team that runs the ball well, that’s what they should do. They’ve got a stable of backs that are really good. As good a backs as we’ve faced. Eugene Wilson is an elite player, he’s missed a couple of games. He is a weapon and breaks lots of tackles. They’re creative in their ways of getting him the football. Mertz knows that, he does a great job of knowing Billy’s system of when to take a shot, when to take the check down, when to put them in the right play. If you’re just in the right play more often. You tend to have more success. And he’s done a really good job of that.”
On what he tells young players playing in this rivalry for the first time…”Welcome to the SEC. Every game’s going to be a rivalry game when you get in the SEC. They’re all tough games. This one’s unique because of where it’s played. It’ll be a new experience for some of our guys. I think that’s, you forget about that after the whistle blows and you kick it off and get out there and go play.”
On Brock Bowers’ rehab so far and if he’s bearing any weight yet…”I’m not going to focus on that right now. I think that’s all speculation. I’m not getting into the speculation part of it. The most important thing right now is our guys and getting them prepared for Florida.”
On the offensive line coming out of the bye week…”I think it’s important that we get more depth. We’re an injury away from being down this guy, that guy. We’re also trying to get guys back. It’s like, there’s always a balance of who you are. We tried really hard last week to work on fundamentals. At the end of the day, you’re not going to trick people in our league. They’ve seen every play. It’s not like a new play is going to win you the game. To win the game, it’s can you block better than the other team, can you execute, can you protect the ball, can you convert third downs, can you play well in the red area? Those are the things we’re trying to work on. As an offensive line group, I’m very proud of and pleased with the work ethic, the leadership, the practices we’ve had. We have an interesting group. We have a group that has played in a lot of games, and then we have a group that has not played a lot of games. So you have experience there and you’re trying to balance out how you get the older group better without injury and how you get the younger group more reps at the same time.”
On fourth-down decisions…”I think it depends on the flow of the game. It depends on your defense and your kicking game. If you’re not giving up a lot to take a smaller risk, then you’re gaining a chance to score points. At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to score more points than the other team. I would probably say historically, teams have been probably overly conservative, coaches have been overly conservative. They’re probably erring towards overly aggressive. I don’t know, it’s hard to say what’s right or wrong. It only comes out right if it works. It comes out wrong if it doesn’t. I don’t look at it that way. I just look at it as can you out-execute the other team and can you stop the other team when you think the point totals are going to be.”
On evaluating 3rd- and 4th-and-short…”Well when I’ve referenced looking at that, I’m talking about third-and-1 and 2 and fourth-and-1 and 2, which we’re not in those all the time. There’s just, those come up periodically within games. I think they’re important to determine the outcome of games is your ability to get a yard when you’ve got to have a yard. It’s never been harder in all of college football to gain a yard when you have to gain a yard. Defenses play you differently now than they have in the past. There’s no concession of a yard in our league. So I just like watching it to see what’s out there, what people are doing and how they’re doing it.”
On Kendall Milton….”Kendall was good last week. He pushed through and did a good job. We’ll see where he’s at today.”
On alleviating the stress level going into big games considering Georgia’s current winning streak...
“I don’t think about it a lot. I mean, what consumes me is how we’re going to gain a yard, what we’re going to do in this situation, what we’re going to do at practice. I can’t speak for every kid on the team, but the focus is not on the wins and losses of the games. Like I’ve said all the time, that’s going to come to an end. I’ve been a part of a lot of streaks. That’s going to come to an end at some point. When it does we’ll worry about the next game, but I don’t think you can be consumed with that thought process or think that way. You’ve got to think towards what you can do to help your team win.”
On the biggest point of emphasis during the bye week...
“Yeah, the focus was about us. That’s all it was about last week. It’s not about Florida or anybody we play. It’s about u. This week it’ll be about us again and just be about us getting ready for Florida. So last week was, you know, a work week, a chance for us to get better and in some ways refueling to restart. Refueling looks different ways sometimes. It’s not all rest and recovery — it’s where can you get better and where can you create an advantage for yourself?”
On how much it’s helped Oscar Delp that he’s gotten to work alongside Brock Bowers...
“Yeah, I think being around Darnell and Brock last year was a great learning tool for him because from the side of being a Y and a physical blocker. He got to see Darnell and be around Darnell, and he got to see Brock do the things he’s done. His growth has been good. I don’t know that if he didn’t have those two he would be where he is because those two demanded that he do things right in order to get on the field. He had to earn the right to play, and he’s earned that by how he’s practiced and how he’s playing.”
On Daylen Everrette’s play...
“He’s been good. He’s done good things. I mean, I think he’s starting to play with a little more confidence. He’s gotten to go out there, make some plays with his back to the ball, had a couple big stops in games. He’s a good, physical tackler. He’s not afraid of contact. He continues to work to get better — and Julian as well. Julian’s played a considerable amount of minutes. He’s gotten a lot of work with Kamari being up and down and having some injuries over there, he’s gotten a lot of work in practice. The two of those guys, I look at them as co-starters and continue to improve and get better.”
On where the Georgia-Florida game is played …
Don’t really even think about it anymore. We are where we are. That really has not even crossed my mind, except for in the offseason when I get asked about it. I’m a lot more concerned with how we play than where we play.
On Carson Beck’s recruitment…
“I don’t remember the exact timing of it. I really don’t. I’d be misspoken if I did. I know that what we liked was his leadership. He won a state championship in the toughest classification of Florida at a school in Jacksonville that had not had many teams win. That level of competition, it was very impressive what he was able to do there at Madarin in terms of leadership and playing quarterback at a high level playing against some really good high school football teams. So, to me, it was that. And the demeanor and approach that he has to the game was something that attracted us to him. As to when that came about, I don’t really recall.”
On if Beck’s flat-line style has continued in the lead-up to going home to Jacksonville...
“Nothing different from last week. I thought he was good last week. He continues to work on the things that will help us win, him being accurate, him making good decisions, him putting us in the right plays. He’s a bright kid. He sees a lot of defense in the offseason and walk-throughs here. So, when you see a lot of defense and have been exposed to a lot of things, I think that gives him confidence. And he knows it not all on him. He’s got people around him to help him.”
On Peyton Woodring’s improvement…
“I don’t know. It’s like a hitter, man. You go out there and you can’t get a basehit every single time. His mental approach, I think, has been better. I think creating a thought process of being a kicker. He was a position player in high school, so he never had the thought process of sitting on the sideline and wondering, ‘when am I going in, when am I’m going to kick, when’s this gonna happen? There’s a lot of thoughts that can go through your head in that time, and being a position player he never had those thoughts. So these were his first games of ‘when am I going out there with one shot, one opportunity and I’ve got to make the most of it.’ I think he’s a little more accustomed to having to do that. He’s had some help from some people here in our organization and he’s had help from kickers outside of our building who have kicked here at one time. They’ve helped him as well.”
On Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint’s growth since 2020 injury vs. Florida…
“Well, the biggest thing he’s grown in is from a leadership standpoint. When that happened he was a young kid coming on strong in a receiving corps that was very thin. And he helped us tremendously as a freshman. Very confident, good play-maker. Fast-forward to now and he’s an emotional leader, a toughness leader, believes in doing things the right way and sells the culture and value of the organization very well.”
