ATHENS — Kirby Smart doesn’t yet know the identity of his team for the 2024 season, but as the Bulldogs take the field for the first time for spring practice, Smart likes where his team is headed.
Smart spoke with reporters on Tuesday to start spring practice. He covered a number of areas, from rule changes to new players with the Georgia program.
Below is a full transcript of everything Smart had to say.
Opening statement…
“Welcome back guys. We’re getting ready to start spring ball. I feel like we just finished. We’ve been transitioning and doing a lot of work, football work meetings, lifting, running. It’s been really good for us. January we go out recruiting, so we don’t get to see our young, new players. I think we’ve got around 30 between the portal, I call them new, and midyears. It’s a big group of guys. It’s almost one-third of your team that keeps turning over each year. That’s really critical for me. We don’t get to spend much time with them. February we got to spend more time with them, but that’s also a time where we as a coaching staff don’t have recruiting on campus. We try to spend time with our families and spend time with our team. This is when March hits and we get to actually go out there and practice football and be around our players and implement our systems. I love spring practice because you get the day off in between. There’s a big recovery day, there’s a big install day. There’s a lot of information to be shared.
I want to be able to provide you guys with as much information as possible. A lot of updates. As you know, we have postseason surgeries. We had guys that had pre-bowl game surgeries, post-bowl game surgeries, a lot of medical information to be given out there. Are they coming out to practice Thursday or when are they coming out there. Thursday, so you’ll probably see a lot of that stuff Thursday. I’ll try to do this as quickly as I can and then you’re free to ask about whatever you need to ask about. I’m going to try to hit on some of these.
Bo Hughley, Bo had left shoulder surgery after the season to repair a labrum. We’ve had, on average, I think four labrums a year. I think we’re right on that this year. Bo will be out for spring. He should be ready for fall camp. He had a good fall, but he had to repair the surgery so that’s been done.
Ty Ingram-Dawkins had a left foot navicular fracture. He had surgery following the season and is progressing well. He’s going to miss spring practice, but he should be ready for fall camp. If you remember, he dealt with that a lot during the year. We were able to get him back and let him play, but felt like it was best now with the downtime to go ahead and have that surgery done.
Kris Jones, the midyear, young kid, he gave up the back half of his senior season to have surgery on his foot. He’s progressing well. You’ll see him out there practicing, doing things, but he’ll be limited some with what he’s doing.
Christen Miller, he had a meniscus prior to the Orange Bowl. He had surgery post-Orange Bowl. He’s progressing back into activity. He should be fine, but he’s been limited a little bit as well.
Smael underwent his stress fracture to his navicular to get it fixed. He’s going to miss spring ball but should be ready for fall camp. As you guys know, he decided to return this year. That played a large part in that for his return to be healthy.
Branson, that was a significant injury if you remember, the patellar tendon ruptured. A nine-month recovery, I think he’s at seven or eight. He looks good running straight ahead, but he’s not going to be cleared for spring. He’s going to get to do a lot of walkthroughs and a lot of things. At nine months, he should be ready to go, which should be right at the end of spring.
Malaki had a shoulder surgery. He’ll be limited a little bit in the spring. He’s going to be able to do some things, but he won’t be full go.
Then RaRa’s still coming off his foot injury. He’s out there repping and doing things. He won’t be full speed.
Damon Wilson, who missed the Orange Bowl, has been really good. He got the meniscus repair. He had surgery, he’s doing really well, he’s full activity now and is doing some good things.
Demello’s dealing with a little bit of a hamstring.
Colbie’s dealing with a little bit of an ankle. They’re both out there working, just limited in some ways.
I think that updates most of the postseason surgeries.
The one update that’s probably the toughest note for us is Pearce Spurlin is going to have to take a medical disqualification. He can no longer play football. He had a congenital heart condition, which we were aware of and closely monitoring over time. He had to make a decision with he and his family. They made the decision to give up football to be safe. It’s really a tough decision for him. We’re praying for him and his family. He’s going to be fine. He’s out there with us now helping. It’s just too much at risk for him. He will not be able to play. You hate it for the kid because he was going to be a really good football player. He got so much better during the season. It was something we were monitoring closely. It got to the point where he had to make the tough decision to give up football in the safety of his well-being. We think a lot of his mom and dad, his family. Both of them are Georgia grads. I really hate it for Pearce because he was going to be a really good football player. He’ll stay with the team on scholarship, in a role. He’ll help us day to day out there. We’ve had people have to do that before.
That’s a lot of words to open it up for you guys. Goals of spring for me would be to expand our roster of winning football players. What defines above the line and below the line is can you play winning football? We’ve probably got 30 or 40 guys that have proven that. We’ve got another 30 or 40 that have to prove that to get the team we need to have ready to go play the schedule we have.
On the amount of onboarding necessary with the four new on-field coaches...
“Well, I think anytime you have four new position coaches it’s obviously a big transition. What helps with that transition is Donte went through the entire bowl practices, so he’s done practices with us, he knows our players, he knows how we practice and knows the detail of it, so it’s a huge advantage for him. James Coley has been on our staff before and understands the standard and the expectations, which is part of the main reason we hired Coach Coley was the fact that I knew he knew the standard, he knew how things operate here, he’s a really good recruiter, he’s a great teacher. That was an asset. T-Rob has been with Coach Muschamp for many years. He came from over at Alabama where there’s some things similar, so I don’t worry about those expectations. And then Coach Crawford’s a guy that we’ve had kind of on our radar for a long time. He worked for Brent Key, who was also under a lot of the same things. So I don’t worry about the standard of excellence, the transition. They’ve got to go out and do it. We’ve got to go out and practice, and that starts today. But we’ve had a lot of training time up ‘til now. Does that answer your question?”
On if all of the mid-years are here...
“Yeah, when you say is everybody here, I don’t know what you mean. The guys that came mid-year, they’re all here.”
On if all the transfers are here...
“Yeah, everybody that came — like, the Stanford young man [Benjamin Yurosek] is not here. He’s not here yet, but the rest of those guys are all here. The guys that came in the portal that signed with us and came. Some of them got to practice in bowl practice. Some of them chose not to practice in bowl practice, but they’ve been here with us since January. They’ve been working out. They should be out there unless they were aforementioned injured.”
On when new leaders emerge amid so much turnover...
“Yeah, the leadership thing is going to be a question that everybody asks, but you earn that, you know? You don’t inherit it from previous years, so from January offseason conditioning, February, all the running we’ve done, March practices will show a lot of that. There’s been guys popping up in skull sessions doing a good job. We get to cultivate better leadership in these small groups. It gives more people an opportunity to speak. I’m very pleased with where we are. I’m very pleased with some of the returning players not accepting complacency for themselves. You know, as much as it is onboarding the 33 new guys, it’s taking the top 33 — 1/3 of your team — and making sure they’re not on cruise control and just back to be back, just back to be around. I mean, the guys like Naz, Tate Ratledge, Truss, Warren Brinson, Carson Beck. I mean, these guys have been a core part of our program for a long time. They’ve got to continue to grow and develop themselves. Otherwise, we’re pretty stagnant. So the leadership will continue to reveal itself over the coming weeks.”
On how things are changing at Georgia...
“I think we’re always changing and evolving. If anything, it’s how you cultivate your team each year because your team changes so much each year. For me, those I don’t know the exact number, y’all know better than I do, whether a guy is a walk-on or mid-year, I don’t know what the number is of whether it’s a portal or a freshman, what are we at 4, 5? I don’t even know. Whatever those numbers are combined, that new part of your team, integrating it into the culture and what you believe. There’s nothing that says those guys can’t be good leaders. Everything that we’ve heard about Etienne before he got here has held true. He’s a tremendous leader, he’s a high-character kid. He immediately surges into a leadership role because he’s not a first-year player. He’s been in our league, he’s been in our conference, he has standards and expectations and he’s high character. And he’s proven that in the time he’s been here. We try to reinvent our team each and every year with a new identity. I can’t say what this team’s identity is yet but I can say they’re well on their way to defining who they want to be and who they are. And I’m pleased with who they are in that progress.”
On Carson Beck…
“Carson is not an extremely assertive young man. he doesn’t try to assert himself, mechanically [organically], he doesn’t just jump in there and do it. He’s done that more in the last couple of days since being back from spring break. And I expect to see that even more today in terms of leadership in the huddle and the things he does. He has high standards, he has high expectations. His decision to come back was built around doing something different, doing something special. I think he has to build a rapport with some of these new wide outs we’ve got in that room. They’re going to be important for him to grow with. But I’m very comfortable with where he is as a leader and the way he leads is the way he’s comfortable leading. Which is primarily through his actions.”
On Dell McGee and Josh Crawford…
“I’ve been anticipating that with coach McGee for a long time. He was deserving a long time ago. He has not gotten his opportunity until now. He’ll seize that opportunity and do a great job. Dell and Linda and their son Austin have been tremendous for Athens, Georgia, tremendous for me. As a person there is nobody I’ve relied on more heavily through he last eight,nine years than Dell McGee. I’m so excited for him to get this opportunity. It’s something he’s always aspired to do. He’ll be successful with whatever he does. As much as we benefitted Dell’s growth, he helped our growth. He helped me become a much better head coach, having had that experience at the high school level and the places he’s done and the relationships he’s built. That part will be missed. I’m confident in him.
I’m confident in coach Crawford. We interviewed him as a wide receivers candidate and felt so strongly about him as a football coach. I don’t think you have to be any certain position if you’re a good football coach. It’s very evident across the state, the places in our state, I have a lot of respect for the places he’s coached, what he’s done and how he’s grown. We think he fits our program.”
On wide receiver transfers...
“Can’t tell you anything about them really because I haven’t seen them go out there and do anything. I’ve seen them run around in circles, touch a cone, lift a bar, but that doesn’t define a football player for me. I can tell you the research we’ve done to bring them into our program was, do they care more about the team than themselves, do they believe in culture? They all checked those boxes. I’ll find out a lot more as the spring goes and as they grow. I’m excited about their addition to the wide receiver room.”
On proposed mid-summer signing day...
“There’s positives and negatives to everything so we could sit here and debate it. Y’all guys put it all over the internet. There’s high school coaches that say, ‘They won’t want to play their senior year.’ Well, if a kid doesn’t play his senior year because he signed, I don’t really want him on my team. If he’s going to opt out for his senior year, will he do the same to me? I don’t really know if that’s a viable option. A lot of high school coaches think, ‘Well, at least I’ll get my kids signed,’ because a lot of high school coaches see players losing opportunities ad nauseum by signing in December and schools not having spaces because of the portal. I don’t like the idea of someone signing before their senior year because I think the senior year matters. I think in the state of Georgia and the Southeastern Conference footprint, the high school season of your senior year matters. I want to watch a kid play. Do you know any NFL teams that want a kid to skip their fourth year and not evaluate them or skip their third year when they’re draft eligible and not evaluate them? I’d prefer to have them play and grow, and I think it’s good for the game. I’m kind of indifferent, and if it goes that way, we’ll adjust to it and do the best we can with it.”
On the in-helmet communication...
“Lot of talk about nothing for me. We’ve used helmet communication whether it’s talking to our players at practice, having earphones in walk thrus and things, people have used it. We are going to get to experiment with that. We have not yet, but we haven’t practiced yet. As I understand it, each SEC team would have three helmet devices to use in practice. It’s a supply chain issue, so there’s no, ‘This school’s got 10, this school’s got 2.’ There’s a lot of liability involved with touching the helmets and putting pieces in, so they’re going to distribute them equally among the conference. We’ll have three and we’ll use them in practice. We’ve got until 15 seconds left on the play clock to talk to them. We’ve got plenty of time to implement that. We’ll use some of that in walk-thru, not the actual helmet because you can’t have a helmet in a walk-thru, but we’re going to find ways to simulate it and get the players accustomed to it. We’re going to talk to some NFL teams about how they use it and what all information they try to get to the player. You don’t want to overload them with information.”
On if it feels any different coming into spring not having won a championship last year...
“No, every year starts fresh. I say that all the time, y’all say it’s coach speak and redundant, but for me, it’s a fresh start with a new team. Since the last whistle, I’m trying to create this team. What does the 2024 team look like? That would be the case regardless of how last year finished. I don’t think last year plays anything into this season. Each season is independent of the previous.”
