ATHENS — Georgia football wrapped up its second practice of the week on Tuesday.

The Bulldogs continue to prepare for No. 1 ranked Texas, with Georgia coach Kirby Smart stating that he was pleased with how things have gone for Georgia to this point.

Georgia’s game against Texas is set for a 7:30 p.m. ET start, with the game being broadcast on ABC. Below are Smart’s full remarks following Tuesday’s practice.

What Kirby Smart said about Georgia football

On what Isaiah Bond brings to Texas...

“He’s electric. He’s a great release guy. They’ve got other good wideouts. They did a great job of upgrading their talent pool in the portal. They got I think three, maybe four portal receivers — I don’t know, three — that play a lot of time, and he was one of those guys. He’s twitchy, fast, explosive, elite speed and elite body quickness. When you talk about covering people, he’s explosive. He can take a handoff or he can run through the middle of your defense and blow the top off. And Sark’s used to having really good guys like that to set plays up with, to stretch the field vertically and horizontally with.”

On practice so far this week...

“It’s good. I mean, I don’t know if it was our best Tuesday. I thought that it was good, not great. We’ve had some good ones, but it was a spirited thing. They got after it. We had a good competitive practice. Yesterday was a lighter Monday. Like I said, we’ve had more snaps played this year than we’ve ever had before, so we just did a little bit less on Monday. It’s the same kind of Tuesdays we’ve been having.”

On how similar Quinn Ewers and Carson Beck are...

“Yeah, it’s interesting you say that. I mean, I feel that way. I don’t get a chance to watch them. I didn’t get to watch them last year other than I watched their playoff games, obviously. And then watched them in the offseason some. You don’t have a full quota of his because he hasn’t played in every game. But the games he’s played in, they’re very similar in terms of knowledge, understanding of their offense and protections.

He doesn’t seem (like) pressure affects him much. He seems like he has really good composure and stands in there. They both have the ability, if something goes wrong, to get you out of a bad play and typically avoid catastrophes. That’s what older quarterbacks do. That’s the similarities they seem to have.”

On Georgia-Georgia Tech being played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2025...

“Yeah, I don’t really know. I had heard that. I mean, the rivalry is there. They’ve done a tremendous job. I think they’re recruiting at a really high level. They’re competing. They’re playing really hard. They play really physical. They’ve got a great coaching staff. So as far as the game being there over (being on campus), I don’t think it affects the rivalry. You know, like, where you play, that game doesn’t matter. It’s gonna be physical.”

On the challenges of a freshman cornerback getting playing time like Ellis Robinson is trying to do...

“I don’t know where to begin. I mean, the hardest parts are it starts with ability. He’s blessed with God-given talent. He’s really talented. He’s practiced better the last two weeks than he has all year. Like, I think he has the stamina to go practice the whole time, the attention to detail, to focus in meetings. He takes much better notes right now than he has.

I mean, his awareness. You know, early on there were times where he might bust a coverage, and if he’s playing squat, flat to the field and there’s nobody behind him because we’re in a different coverage, that can be — it’s not like a D-lineman. If the d-lineman messes up, and none of y’all know. Y’all don’t have a clue. If a linebacker messes up, very rarely do you know. But when a corner messes up, everybody knows. We’re trying to take that out of it — and physical. He’s a physical football player, but he continues to develop. He’s been lifting. His toughness shows. He’s always been a good tackler, so I’m excited about Ellis. I think he does a really good job, and we’ve gotta keep finding ways to try to get him out there.”

On Jordan Hall and Jared Wilson in practice this week…

“Yeah, Jared’s been good. Jared’s been practicing. Seems to be doing more the last two days than he has in previous weeks.That’s good, and repped out there today. Jordan’s done more than he has the last two weeks. He’s been out there repping, taking reps with us, and getting better. Jordan’s has been a long, hard process. And he’s having to get comfortable with the pain that he has. And it jumps up and bites him at times. And you never know, it might just hit him on a rep. And that’s kept him from taking the rep load that he would like to take. But he’s out there today doing more this week than he did last week. And Jared was too.”

On if being the underdog is motivation this week…

“No, I didn’t even know that. I don’t know. I do not look at lines and underdog, favorites. I worry about one thing, what do we have to do to play our best? That comes with a lot of game planning. There is a mental approach to the game, but I don’t think it’s about being the underdog. I think it’s about being physical and being prepared to play in a tough place and the mental strength it takes to play well on the road. You don’t need to waste all that energy talking about being an underdog.”

On the Texas Sugar Bowl loss and lessons learned from it…

“I don’t remember much about it. I get those things confused. There was one that we had a lot of guys out. We had a lot of guys either academically out, and we kind of took this approach of, if you want to be here, get all in. If you don’t, get all out. I think that was the Baylor one. That was really fun, and it was exciting. But I think we learned, maybe, from the Texas one, guys that may not have been all in. It was a weird season, because I think that was the year that you’re all the way in it to the very end, and then you’re not. And it was one of our first games that you weren’t playing for it to play in the playoffs. Maybe that’s not right, I don’t know that. But it seemed that way, and you’re always trying to find a motivating factor, especially at the end of the year. And I remember they had a really good team, and they were very talented. I know we played a lot of young players. I don’t know if that answers your question or not.”

On how Texas fits into what UGA does in recruiting…

“Unique, there’s tons of players in Texas. I mean, I’ve always said the entire SEC footprint, prior to Texas being in the SEC and A&M being in the SEC, could fit into Texas. So if you took all the people in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and you just said, it’s like Texas. So there’s so many good players there, so many good high schools. Development, coaches get paid more, they have indoors, they have to practice all day, they practice year round. They’ve just got everything. So when you go over there, I liken it to getting Georgia high school football players. They’re very well coached, hard-nosed, football’s important. But they’re hard to get because of the travel.

What we usually end up doing is getting somebody that’s connected. Like, okay, they have some kind of connection. Somebody in Atlanta, some relative, maybe a connection to a coach, or they really wanted to play in the SEC, and before they had one option. Now they’ve got multiple options. But the hardest job in Texas is figuring out who to go after. And that’s what I’ve always heard, Will’s always said that about the Texas job. It’s not a hard job because of that, it’s hard because you have to figure out who you’re gonna go recruit, because there’s so many good players. And differentiating player A and player B is really hard.

On Georgia not being able to afford to lose this game, whether that even is a discussion…

No, that’s for you guys to talk about, especially about, not for us. I mean, the quote you had about we weren’t playing for anything, I mean, we were playing for something. Okay, I shouldn’t have said that. I wanna say, it was playing for the Sugar Bowl. That matters, that’s a big deal. It was not a National Championship narrative, and at that point, we weren’t in that every year anyway.

So I look at it every year and observe our team based on the criteria of, do we get the most out of them? Do we maximize the potential of that team? And we know what we see every day on the practice field. We know what we have relative to who we’re playing. We know all those things. So I don’t get caught up in, well, if this happens, or that happens, or they’re playing -- everybody’s gonna start saying that. They’re gonna say that for every game, for every team the rest of the way. And really, you’re playing the long game. The long game is, who can be the best teams at the end of the year? And you’re trying to be one of the best 12 teams, and how that aligns with this game, it’s not relevant. We gotta worry about how we play in this game. We gotta worry about what we gotta do to play well in this game, not any narrative that’s out there or what people are talking about in the playoffs because that’s a ways down the road. We gotta get better at what we gotta do.

On the run game...

Who am I playing? Texas this week. Right, so our run game is relative to who we play typically. I mean, honestly, I think you take the opponent out of it and say, we set a standard, we should be able to do this. But I also think it’s unrealistic in this league to find many teams that are just dominating in the run game. If they are, they probably are doing it some with the quarterback run, okay?

So if you take quarterback run out of it and you say, all right, these are the teams that don’t run the quarterback by design, where do you stack up? How are your backs, how are you blocking people, what is your success rate, what is your, not average arms per carry, what is your efficiency runs per carry? And I’ve been really comfortable with where that is based on who we’ve play.

On Dillon Bell…

He’s developed a lot. He came in as a raw, talented running back, and we knew he could be a wide out from being here at camp. He’s brought toughness. He’s brought a very different skill set, a catch and run skill set, hard to tackle skill set.

He’s very intelligent, and he’s made us a better team and program. So I’m very thankful we were able to get him to come.

On the defensive line depth...

“Still coming, I mean, we’re not complete. We’re not injury free, Warren’s battling injury, Jordan’s battling injury, Mykel has been battling injury, and Christen has been battling injury. I mean, he’s not able to complete the work week every week, in and week out, but he’s able to go out and play. Naz has been the most reliable and dependable in terms of staying injury-free. But when you’re beat up in one area, it usually means... Xzavier McLeod they’ve missed all that time.

So there’s not really a guy that hasn’t missed time in that position. We’ve been really fortunate to have the numbers we have, even though it’s not necessarily the experience we need. It is a lot of big frames and big body types who are doing better.

On the Texas running back room...

“Tough. Man, they run well. They got a really fast physical backs. They have three backs that all play and do a great job. They’ve also got probably one of the deepest, most talented offensive lines in the country. They got multiple guys that will be high draft picks, and they’re really physical in the run game.

“They have a unique run game in that they run a little more of outside zones, than some teams we’ve played, and they’re really good at it. I mean, they did it when Sark was at Alabama. They’ve done it successfully at Texas. They do a nice job averaging a lot of yards a carry for SEC plays.”

On being able to rotate at center...

“Yeah, it’s much harder. I don’t know many people that can do that, and it’s hard to do that. Maybe somebody does, and I’m not aware of it. But typically that’s not a position where rotate in terms of that. But both of those guys have flexibility, too. They can play other positions. They don’t have to play guard and things.

On Chauncey Bowens...

“He’s fine. He’s practicing. He had a little injury he was dealing with last week but he’s been practicing all this week.”

On Texas being a wide zone team...

“Well, I would have to go a long time into that, and I had to give one of your long dissertations that you give about football, and I can’t sit here and give that dissertation right now. So, plus, I don’t really wanna talk strategy with the opponent. So, I mean, they’re good at it, I can just tell you that. And they do a really nice job at what they do. It’s just different angles, and the back’s got a different angle. It’s got different pressure points. We’ve had problems with certain runs in the last couple weeks. Well, they run those runs, but they also run outside zone as well.

On Nazir Stackhouse...

“I don’t know, he’s been really durable. I mean, of all the players we’ve ever had, I can’t remember if this is his fifth year, right, so I think it’s his fifth, and I can’t remember the guy missing practice.

I mean, he has tremendous flexibility, which keeps you from getting injured. He has what we call contact balance, which means he can strike and not get knocked off when another person hits him on a double team. He can anchor. So he’s been very durable, and we would be in trouble without him. And I thought he had a really, really good year two years ago. He had a pretty good year last year, and then this year he’s played better to me than last year. And he continues to grow and get better, but he’s just been a workload.

And he’s an invaluable leader because he sets an example by the way he practices and his toughness. I mean, he carries more reps than anybody, and we’ve tried to take some of that off of him too in practice because he’s played so long.”