ATHENS — Kirby Smart called Georgia football linebackers Jamon Dumas-Johnson and Smael Mondon into his office earlier this spring and turned the tape on.

“There was a point in time there were I felt like I needed to call them in because I don’t know that they were practicing with the same ferocity that they would have been practicing with last year,” Smart said after putting his team through a scrimmage on Saturday.

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“I showed them some clips, I said, ‘here’s last spring, last fall camp, and this is the way you were practicing, because you had something to prove, but now, here’s the first four practices of this spring, is that the same two guys?” I think they both acknowledged that it probably wasn’t, and it needed to be.”

No doubt, Dumas-Johnson and Mondon are the heart of a Georgia defense that some believe can be the best in Smart’s tenure even after losing elite projected first-rounders Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith and playmakers Chris Smith and Kelee Ringo out of the secondary.

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Smart has indicated the challenge to repeat could be tougher this year than last on account of human nature, as success tends to breed complaceny.

“I think they started out the spring …. in a curious position,” Smart said. “Last spring, (they’ve) got a chip on the shoulder, like ‘nobody knows who I am, everybody is questioning us, I’m the new leader,’ and they are out there hungry and just eating off the floor.

“Then they have good seasons, both of them did in their own rights.”

Dumas-Johnson’s offseason focus might also have been jolted by his arrest on racing and reckless driving charges from an incident in the days preceding the tragic death of recruiting staff Chandler LeCroy and teammate Devin Willock.

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Smart, however, believes it has more to do with the players growing overly comfortable and losing the edge that made the UGA linebackers among the best in the nation.

“That’s the disease that’s out there,” Smart said. “I’ll say this, since that conversation they’ve both really picked it up and been great leaders.

“It wasn’t that they were doing anything wrong. It’s just they weren’t doing it right enough to the Georgia standard.”