Everything Kirby Smart said to preview UT-Martin Week 1 contest

The Georgia Bulldogs open the 2023 season on Saturday, Sept. 2.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart previewed the game against UT-Martin by touching on a number of subjects. Be it injuries or Carson Beck’s impending first career start, the Georgia coach had plenty to say.

Below is a full transcript of what Smart had to say to reporters on Monday.

Opening statement...

“We’ve started game-week prep. We actually did some work Thursday, Friday and Saturday on ourselves and our opponent, UT-Martin. Today, we’ll be primarily focused on that. Heard about the event they did today at the Dooley Memorial Intersection. Sounds like that is a great event. I certainly have a lot of appreciation for coach and his family and what they’ve meant to this community. They’ve meant a lot to me as well.

For today, to UT-Martin we move on. Got a lot of respect for UT-Martin. Coach Simpson and his staff have done a tremendous job. When you talk about conference champs, which they’ve been, a lot of their stats are similar to ours in terms of being balanced. Really good on offense and really good on defense. We played teams from that conference and I know a lot of coaches from that conference. One of our coaches get his start there. His first job by coach Simpson. He knows their offensive coordinator really well and they’ve done a tremendous job with their program in terms of building it from the ground up. They’ve got a great foundation laid.

We’re excited for them to come in. Hoping to have some good weather. Excited for our guys to get the chance to go play somebody else. They’ve worked tremendously hard this camp. We’ve probably had one of the toughest camps since I’ve been here, mainly because of the heat. The heat was so different the last I guess three weeks. You just can’t avoid it. It’s been tough. Our guys have pushed through it. Now we have to set a standard for how we practice in season and that starts today. Because you don’t inherit that from previous teams.

On the health situation at running back and Dillon Bell possibly playing there...

Well we’re looking at everybody at running back. We’re going to try and find the best way possible to get the ball in the hands of the playmakers.

But to answer your question specifically, Daijun was dealing with an MCL. He had one last year. But he’s actually doing great. He’s going to be able to practice today and do everything. We feel good about Daijun’s status. It happened in the second scrimmage. I don’t know what that date was. It would’ve been a week ago Saturday but he’s bounced back from that good.

Kendall has been dealing with a hamstring most of, almost all of camp. He feels 80 to 90 percent. We’re hoping to get him back today in terms of practicing and taking reps. The volume, you have to be careful of because they haven’t been doing in the heat as much of the other guys. But we feel good about both those guys.

“I feel good about Andrew Paul. Rod Robinson’s had a great camp. Cash has had a good camp. Really got a bunch of guys who have repped and done some good things there.

Dillon, we need at wide out, we need Dillon on special teams. Dillon has had a really good camp in terms of being a wide receiver. He played that (RB) some in high school so that’s something he’s done before. With the way offenses are these days, you can get your touches a lot of ways, and we’ve got a lot of plays that involve perimeter blocking, direct runs, perimeter runs. As a defensive coach, every offensive play has three plays on it. It could be a direct run with this and this. Those ways, you can get a lot of people touches. That would be the plan.

I feel good about the backs we have. I’d feel a lot better if Daijun and Kendall were 100%. We’ll see where they are today.”

On preparing for UT-Martin QB...

“You don’t prepare for the guy, you prepare for the offense. When we go play somebody, we don’t prepare for the guy. We might try to find something out about him in terms of, what did he do in high school, what does he excel at, what does he struggle with, is he a guy that doesn’t read coverages well, is he runner, is he not a runner. There’s all sorts of things we’re trying to discover, but they have an offense and an offensive system. They’ll cater that offensive system to fit his skillset so we go off what they’ve done in the past and a little bit of research on him as well.”

On UT-Martin scheme, any future fits down the road...

“We look at them schematically and try to figure out who they are, what they’ve done. You watch all their games. You worry about yourself and try to improve the things you do yourself. That’s really important. First game of the year, you always look back at things that gave us problems because that’s probably what they’re looking at. You want to research and say, what have they done well, what have they done poorly, what have we done well, and what have we done poorly because we’re going to see some of that. They are a well coached, very good scheme team.

Offensively, they’re like everybody you play. There’s really nobody that’s different any more. It’s more of the same. You don’t see a triple option. So what do they do offensively? They’re very similar to everybody else with the ability to throw the ball on the perimeter, run RPOs, they run the ball well. They have plays they don’t block anybody on the interior and it doesn’t matter because the ball goes on the perimeter. They do a good job. Defensively, they’re similar to us. They can go three down, four down. They’re primarily out of an odd look, three down look and we get to look at that a lot because we do that defensively. We share ideas in terms of schematics when you watch us and them, their conference, you see some similarities there.”

On Ladd McConkey’s status...

“Ladd’s doing great. We had to shut him down for a little bit. He had a little bit of a back injury but he’s fine. He’s dealt with it before. He had it last year. He practiced Saturday and it was good and expected to be out there today. So he should be fine.”

On Len’Neth Whitehead...

“He’s dealt with a little bit of a knee injury during camp. It was bothering him, but he has battled back from that. He’s trying to learn our offensive system still and pick up on things and kind of find his fit and where he fits in this running back group. He’s done a good job of giving us a great look and will continue to work and get opportunities. There’s certainly a lot of opportunities for guys at running back position for guys to get carries and show us what they can do.”

On the statuses Kamari Lassiter, David Daniel-Sisavahn, and Smael Mondon...

“Yeah, those guys look good, been practicing. David Daniel has a little bit of a turf toe. He came back out Saturday and was able to run, hit some high speeds. He’ll be practicing with us. Kamari and Smael have been practicing the past couple of weeks.”

How Carson Beck benefits from having Sedrick Van Pran and his experience...

“I would say familiarity. He knows that Sedrick has been there. It’s probably overrated because Carson understands fronts, coverages, pressures. He can (identify) protections, he can point runs, he can do a lot of different things. He doesn’t have to rely on Sedrick like maybe a new quarterback would because I don’t really just see Carson that way. He understands it. He gets it. He’s had a ton of reps. I think the fact that he’s got somebody who has played in big moments, somebody who has snapped the ball in tough environments is comforting but as far as what Sedrick provides for Carson, it’s probably reassurance.”

On the corner competition...

“We’ve got a group of cornerbacks. Kamari’s really been going now for a little over a week and practicing and taking his reps. He’s been in a black jersey some, but that’s more precautionary. We know he can hit and tackle. He’s a really physical tackler. He’s been able to tackle in individual drills and things. He’s been great. The other guys have all competed there, had really good competition between Nyland, AJ, Julian, and Daylen. They’ve all four taken reps and gotten work there. I don’t know that we’re ready to say anybody’s stood out, to be honest. We’ll have practices this week that are game speed, game-like. We may make a determination this week or a determination every game. But staying healthy, and all those guys have done a good job.”

On the safeties and stars and how the secondary has looked...

“Not a lot of difference. We’re running the defense we run. Those guys are competing. We’re trying to build depth, we’re trying to get experience for Javon. It’s a different transition when you go backwards than when you go forwards in a defense. He’s going backwards, but he’s going somewhere he’s played before. That transition’s been great. How are we playing right now? I can’t tell you that because we haven’t played anybody. We’ve got to go play to kind of find out where we are and see where we can grow. But number one is staying healthy at those two positions and building depth for if we’re not.”

On kicking and kickoff duties...

“Haven’t completely come to a conclusion of what we’re going to do there. Obviously the punt duties are sealed up. The kickoff and field goal kicking duties will be decided probably shortly.”

On if position battles could extend into the season with how the schedule is...

“Unfortunately here, it’s never decided. It changes the week off. Outside of a few positions, I don’t care who you are, if you don’t go out there and practice good, you’re not going to play. Position battles here will go on throughout the year. I think what you’re kind of directing it towards is you’re playing what would be considered, some would say is a lesser opponent. I certainly don’t look at it that way. We don’t look at it that way. We don’t look at it as a luxury to be able to do this or that. We want to go out and get great rhythm, start fast, dominate and play well. We want to play our best each and every game and grow from that. As far as the opportunities for guys to start and play, they get that opportunity every day. We’re going to go out there today and do best on best. We’ll see who plays. The guy that plays better is going to be the guys that get to play, regardless of whether they start the first or second game.”

On Lawson Luckie and what you’ve seen from depth at TE...

“Yeah, Lawson ended up getting the tightrope surgery. We don’t know when to expect him back. He’s already out of the boot and walking with pressure on it, which is great. He’s out at walkthroughs. In meetings, he’s very attentive. He’s going to help us special teams wise. In the times he’s been gone, Oscar and Pearce have both picked up the load, done a great job. We’ve had some other guys audition and move around at that position. It’s a position where, if you have the luxury of depth at receiver, you don’t have to play as much 12. If you’re going to play 12 personnel, you better have two viable backups that can play there. We certainly have worked towards that. We’ll continue to see where it goes. But Pearce has done a nice job. With Lawson’s injury, he’s got more opportunities.”

On managing the demands of the job and navigating the family side of things...

“Yeah, that part has actually become easier. The demands of the job have increased, but so has the retention of my staff, which has allowed me to afford people the opportunity to lead the team, lead their unit, delegate more duties, which in turn, allows me to be a better husband and father, which is probably the primary goal of what I want to do as a man. I certainly have had more time in the last 2-3 years with my family than I have previous. That has a lot to do with maturing as a coach and having a staff that allows you to do that, a support staff, with former head coaches on our staff between Will, Bobo, Monken being here at the time. You’ve got guys — Dell, Schumann, they understand what you want and what you demand. Allowing those guys to lead the team, lead certain areas of the team, it affords me the opportunity to be a better husband and father.”

On if Smart is in favor of a weekly SEC availability report...

“I’m for whatever helps curb the gambling issues because I think it’s a major issue in all of sports with the states now taking on more and more gambling, the tax revenues that states are able to get, the pressure that they put on student-athletes sometimes trying to get information — which I have no proof that happens, but it certainly scares you as a coach. You worry about pitfalls and you worry about where your kids can make mistakes. That’s an area that’s really hard to police for us as coaches ‘cause outside of this building what they come in contact with, what information they may or may not share is scary.

But as far as a uniform injury policy, I would have no issue with that. I always defer to Sankey and the leadership of our conference because he does such a good job of seeing it from 10,000 feet and not from the view of just one coach. Again, I don’t have a whole lot to hide. If you want to ask me about it, I’ll tell you. I can never say sometimes whether they’re going to play in the game or not because I don’t know. I don’t know until right up to the game sometimes because we’re trying to make every player available we can and we don’t know the most accurate information. If there was a standard reporting procedure that was more uniform, it’d probably make it better, but you’re not going to make the people go away that still want to go dig and find and ask questions and try to gather up the competitive advantage.”

I know you like to stay in the moment and not looking too far down the road—

“That’s correct, but you’re going to ask anyway.”

On if there’s any way to use the last two national championships as a motivator...

“Absolutely not. I just don’t think you can make it about that because the minute you do that, you open yourself to distractions and add pressure. What if it doesn’t happen? What are you playing for? I mean, there’s just so many things that I don’t believe philosophically in doing that because what the previous two teams did has no bearing on this team. Has no bearing. Our focus is UT Martin and really us, and that’s going to be true whoever we play. We have to remain focused on us, and we have to — like I said — set a standard of the way this team is going to practice in a game week. That’s kind of like being where your feet are because you don’t inherit practice habits. You don’t inherit standards — you set them. And they change year to year, and you’ve got to kind of acknowledge them. So that’s where our focus is. And I know it’s so hard to believe that we’re not talking about the other, but we’ve got a lot of work to be done before we start talking about that.”

On how the program is reinventing itself to be better than it was last year...

“Well, you know, you do it based on who you have. I think offensively, defensively, special teams. We’re looking at things to change that are going to make us better. We’re looking at different ways we walk through. We’re looking at a different practice format today than it was last year on this Monday. We’re looking at what this team needs relative to where we are. This is not the same team that we had two years ago or last year, so what do they need? That’s how you reinvent yourself to be better, and we’re looking at that every day.”

On the offensive line and any weaknesses...

“Not weakness, the fear is reading what y’all say about them. It’s believing what Warren Brinson says about Amarius Mims is going to be the gospel. You have to earn that. You have to go out and earn what you get and do it on tape. You just get told that you’re this or that doesn’t make you that. I can show you countless examples on tape where that hasn’t been true. I can also show you countless examples where it has been. You’re only as good as your last practice. That’s what this offensive line will worry about. I mean, depth is a concern. How many guys can we play? How do we avoid injury, stay healthy? Some of that comes with luck.”

On what excites you about this team...

“What excites me about this team? The maturity level. The approach they’re taking to their work. So we had an offseason workout program, and a spring practice, which I was very pleased with. We had summer workouts, which I was very pleased with. We had camp that it wasn’t our very best camp, but we also had tougher circumstances than we’ve ever had in camp. I can say that we’ve had better practices, but we never had 110-degree heat either. I’m very excited about every day you go to work with this group, they’re fun to be around because they actually listen to what you say and try to do it like you say it. That’s important. Who you are intangibly is really important, and they’ve done a great job with that. Now, still got to transition it to the field with games.”

On watching games this weekend and new clock stoppage rule...

“Yeah, there’s a lot of talk, a lot of texts going around, but we worked on Saturday, so I didn’t get to see any games. We practiced and worked. We talked to some analytics people that had it from 65 to 69 offensive snaps — or 69 to 65, meaning it was 3-4 lower. But people factored in the Navy game with Notre Dame, and Navy is very different. We’ll see more as the year goes on. We all thought that it would be less. We thought it would be 3-5 less on average the first weekend, and it’s right around that, and that’s not including some special teams plays that might’ve gone down in there as well. I don’t think we’ll know until we get into conference play.”