ATHENS — Georgia faces one of its biggest rivals this week as the Bulldogs travel to take on the Auburn Tigers.
From injuries to it being Georgia’s first road game of the season, Kirby Smart had plenty to say about the state of his team.
Below is a full transcript of what Smart had to say entering Saturday’s game. The game against Auburn is set for a 3:30 p.m. ET start on Saturday.
Opening statement...
“Getting ready on the road for the first time this season. Road SEC tests are always difficult, there’s no way around it. I mean, any conference when you go on the road, it’s always a test. It’s a test of focus, patience, endurance, composure, all the qualities you need to be a good team, so we get our first one. Going to Auburn, got a lot of respect for Hugh [Freeze] and the job he’s done everywhere he’s been. He’s really been successful. Very bright. He does a great job with his team and they’re playing really really hard right now and got a lot of guys transfers in, that have added to their depth and they’re doing a really good job playing extremely hard and I know the environment we’ll be going into will be extremely tough.
On how to simplify the offense to avoid a tough road environment...
“I really don’t know. I think it depends on the level of experience you have. How you choose to use your offense. I think everybody’s different, so we’ll put a plan together and do the best job we can”
On how he believes Carson Beck will handle his first SEC road start...
“You know, I think that’s something that we’re gonna find out I don’t think you know, I think that he’s been through some ups and downs. He’s certainly been against good defenses, like Auburn as --- he goes against our guys. So, it’s different when it’s live, so you got to find out how he responds to that. I’m very confident in Carson’s ability to communicate, to understand things. He’s been in our system you know, you only get good at these situational football things by playing football for a long time and he’s been with us for a while. It’s his first chance to do it on the road.”
On Auburn’s quarterbacks…
“Well, they’re both really good athletes. I don’t think people give Peyton Thorne enough credit for his athleticism and quickness. Now, obviously, when you talk about Robbie, you’re talking about a different kind of athlete. This guy’s as fast as anybody we’ve ever played against with size and a strong arm. So they do a good job of using, number one, their backs are extremely hard and extremely physical and tough and are hard to tackle and you combine that with a quarterback run and it creates a lot of eye candy. A lot of misdirection, they do a really good job. I mean Hugh always has done a good job of that.”
On the similarities and differences of Hugh Freeze’s offense since the last time Smart faced him…
“I think as people evolve, they’ve evolved. They’ve evolved in protection. They’ve evolved in route structure. He has, you know, it’s not the same staff he had. Hugh doesn’t do everything, so he’s got a staff that he puts in charge of doing things and they’ve gone out and added some wrinkles. There are qualities and traits of his DNA, his offense from years ago that are still a part of this, but there’s things that have been added, just like defensively we’ve added things throughout the years too.”
On Jamon Dumas-Johnson’s progression…
“A good leader. He’s been a little more vocal this year, which I think is important. He has the pulse of the team of when to push somebody and when to back off a young player and help him and pat him on the back. So, he’s done a good job, in terms of that.”
On avoiding complacency early in the season…”Hard to say. I think the focus level each week has been good, the results always haven’t. But the preparation is what’s more important to me. I actually put a lot of value on Monday to Friday, mental makeup, disposition, practice habits, improvement. I’ve repeatedly said we want to be elite at getting better. I’ve really been pleased with the progress that we’ve made. That makes me feel comfortable that there’s no complacency there.”
On what he needs to see from Ladd for him to play…”Well he’s got to practice. He’s got to be able to practice. That’s a big part of it. He’s going to be able to come back to practice this week and we’re going to be able to do some more things with him. How he does in those things will determine whether or not he’s able to play. He had kind of a two-week advised shutdown. He’s done that. We’re expecting him to be able to go out there today and do some things, but non-contact early in the week and try to move to that.”
On Brock Bowers stiff arms in practice…”We don’t have a lot of Brock versus linebacker battles. Most of the battles, there’s no stiff arm because he’s usually caught the ball and run away from them when they’re on him. There’s not an opportunity to. Maybe a run after catch type deal, screen or something like that. Brock’s stiff arm is pretty strong, saw that first hand.”
On Robby Ashford in the red zone and the advantages of a dual-threat QB there…”Extending plays. It’s an extra element in the red zone. Every defense has an extra hat because nobody has to back up and play deep anymore. It becomes really tough to get the ball in in the red area in our league. Robby gives you that dimension. He is elite at the plays they do with him. They’re really hard to defend. There’s so many options to it. They’ve got good runners, they’ve got good people to block, and then you add him to it and the fact he can throw, it makes for difficult situations. They do a good job with his package.”
On the importance of eye discipline for younger LBs against Auburn…”It’s very important. It’s very important to have disciplined eyes.”On Javon Bullard’s injury…”We think he’s going to be able to do more, hoping to get him back. Know more if he gets more done today and tomorrow and able to practice. We’ll obviously know more.”On defensive communication and the challenges of replacing with Javon Bullard in that area…”I don’t feel that any communication issues result from Javon because Dan is really bright, David Daniel’s really bright. They know our system, they’ve been in it. I don’t foresee any communication issues there with Bull.”
On the end-of-half TDs allowed against South Carolina and UAB…
“Execution by the offense. A couple of explosive plays, extended play by the quarterback. Throw and catch the ball, man. They throw and catch the ball, they tend to move it. Both those cases they did. I helped them last week by calling timeout, so that didn’t do anything but benefit the offense. Some of it’s decision making, some of it’s execution, some of it give them credit. When you execute and do things well, you’ll have success.”
On what stands out about Auburn’s running backs…
“Yeah, the difference in the guys. I mean, they’ve got one of the hardest guys to tackle in the SEC [Jarquez Hunter], and he runs really hard. He’s physical. They’ve got fast backs, they have elusive backs, downhill backs. I mean, they do a good job. It’s like by committee. They’ve got several guys that have done really well.”
On what makes different road environments unique to play in…
“I think they’re more similar than unique. I would have a hard time, you know, pinpointing differences other than they’re all loud as hell in our conference. They do a great job. I mean, we went to Missouri last year, and I thought it was as loud as anything at night. The environment was really loud, and it’s not even an enclosed stadium, you know? This stadium is enclosed. It’s similar to ours. People have always said there’s a similarity between the look of theres and ours, but it’s extremely loud. I mean, I don’t know how to differentiate one school to another because they’re just loud. All their fans are passionate. It’s a very similar environment.”
On second-guessing the decision to call the timeout before the half against UAB because the end result was not positive…
“Sure. I mean, you second guess every decision, whether it works or not. You can make the wrong decision and it work out good, and it was still the wrong decision, you know? You can make the right decision and it come out wrong, and I still think it’s the right decision. So it’s just a matter of philosophically what you believe in. I want to be aggressive and always try to get the ball back to our team and show confidence in the players that we’re going to stop them.”
On blowing the speakers at practice and how much you work on crowd noise even before home games…
“We use crowd noise year round. We use it in spring. It’s a great changeup. Coaches can’t coach the players. They don’t necessarily like it because people get a headache, but we’ve done it since the first day of practices since camp. We did it four practices in the spring. We do it all the time. It doesn’t matter though because the crowd noise doesn’t always create the anxiety, you know? So you can’t simulate that. You simulate the communication it requires. And we play at home in one of the loudest stadiums in the country, so our defense has to communicate during it. I like it doing it both ways. You find out what they know when nobody’s out there yelling and screaming at ‘em, so it’s important. But we got those speakers fixed. I don’t think they blew because of us, but it may have just been old age.”
On Ron Roberts disguising pressure and the challenge it presents an offensive line…
“Yeah, you don’t necessarily know where it’s coming from. That’s what good defenses do, so when you don’t know you’ve got assignments, right? So I’ve got my guy, I’ve got this guy, and if we don’t got that guy, then the quarterback better know it and everybody else needs to know that, too. You know, there’s only so many you can bring. There’s lot of them you can drop. We like to think we do a lot to our quarterback in the offseason and things like that year round here with our defense, but it’s much tougher when you go against somebody that maybe you don’t traditionally play against. He does a tremendous job of exactly what you’re talking about, so it’s important to know your rules and know where your strengths and know where your weaknesses are.”
On Mykel Williams, Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins and Gabe Harris…
“I don’t know that Gabe played a whole lot more. He did get an earlier opportunity I felt like. He’s coming along really well. He’s developing and getting better each week and getting more opportunities due to the injuries. I’m hopeful that Gabe continues to grow. He’s a guy that we’re repping a lot in practice, giving him extra work and trying to speed up that process of his because of the injuries we’ve had. Ty is coming into his fourth week I think. We don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I don’t expect him back this week. Mykel we’re hopeful to get back if he’s over the sickness.”
On Dylan Fairchild, Xavier Truss...
“They did a good job. They’ve played very consistent throughout the year, both of them have. Dylan has obviously played the same spot most of the time. Truss has played multiple spots. There’s some things they can do better and clean up confidence wise, but I think they’re getting better. They understand where their help is, what we’re trying to do on certain plays. The only way you get used to that is keep playing, and they’ve done that.”
On how close Georgia is to elite...
“I don’t really judge it that way. I’m looking at the progress and how much we improve each week through our practices. The game is such a small vision of what we see, and we put so much value in the prep, the walk throughs, the reps, the good on good, the opportunity periods where we get younger players snaps. I put so much into that, and I’ve been very pleased with the progression we’ve had in that. As far as the field goes, it’s so small. Every test is another chance. It’s like these small chapters, and we’re going into Chapter 5, and we’ve got to see how we do.”
On Xavier Truss and Rhode Island...
“He’s the first one I’ve recruited from Rhode Island. He takes a lot of pride in that area, and he always defends high school football up there. I don’t know why he tries to defend it, especially in this neck of the woods, but he vehemently declares that they have great high school football in the state and that he’s a product of that. He always reminds us of the other kids that have come out of that area that have made it and played at big schools. Nothing really sticks out about the recruitment. Beautiful family, mom, dad, sisters. I enjoyed going up there to visit them.”
On assessment of the defense...
“I think it’s been really good in spurts and really poor in spurts. That’s been a common theme, that the consistency in performance - and it’s not game by game, sometimes it’s series by series. We have had the fortune of playing a lot of players. That’s good because you gain depth doing that. We’ve played really dominant at times, sometimes against inferior opponents, and then we’ve had — our standard of defense here is so high. That what we consider good play versus other people, it may be viewed different. We play against a good thrower and some good pass catchers, you’re going to give up some plays. You’ve got to accept that. It’s how you respond to that that’s more important. Our swarm to the ball has been good. I like how our guys fly around. I love how they play, I love the passion they play with. Controlling the line of scrimmage is something we have to do. If we don’t do that, it’s the bear minimum.”
On the UGA wide receiver room...
“I think the younger players have all made great progress. I think the inconsistency of the availability has been the bigger problem with the older players. Whether it’s Rosemy, Ladd, whether anyone is dinged, the use of Dillon at running back. You’ve had that in and out, in and out. Last week was the first week that it was pretty consistent. Now it was consistent without Ladd but it was consistent. You hope you have that consistency again this week. We’ve had some young guys grow up and make some plays. CJ Smith has stepped up and improved. We need to keep getting guys to do that.”
On Andrew Paul...
“Well he’s basically like a freshman. A lot of our freshman running backs, they do it by committee. They get their opportunity, they get their turns. He’s really improved tremendously at his pass pro, picking people up. He’s thick, he’s heavy. We’ve got some guys that we feel like are different than him in terms of weapons. Whether it’s Cash, Dillon, Kendall, Daijun, those guys are playing their too. We feel like Andrew has done a good job and continues to improve.”
On Georgia getting better...
“It’s hard to say one area. I feel like we’ve improved as a whole across the board. I feel like we had a really good test there against South Carolina, who was a really a good football team in my opinion. We responded to that. As far as pinpointing the area, it’s each day in practice. The perimeter blocking. The ability to execute calls on defense and growing the library with what we feel comfortable with. Quarterback getting experience and playing, they’ve done a good job. We did improve in the red area but it was one game. It’s like, every game you can make a case for what you improved and what you went backwards in. It’s hard to pinpoint one thing.”
On special teams play...
“I’ve been very pleased with kickoff coverage. I think we’ve done a great job. The ball placement, I wish we could improve. What Zirkel does is he gets really good hang time. If anything, they had good opportunities to return the ball, where previously he’s kicked them out. To judge it previous to now, there’s really been nothing there. For those guys who went out there and covered it, made some nice tackles, some nice plays. We want to continue to get more hang time on that with our kicker and continue to get the best guys on it to go down there and make tackles.”
