ATHENS — Kirby Smart has liked what he’s seen so far from his team this week, as the Georgia Bulldogs have a massive game against the Tennessee Volunteers.
This will be Georgia’s first home game in over a month, as the Bulldogs have been away from Sanford Stadium since Oct. 12.
Georgia has completed its first two practices of the week ahead of Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. ET start on ABC. Below are Smart’s full comments following Tuesday’s practice.
What Kirby Smart said about Georgia practice, Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava
On how practice has been so far this week...
“It was good. Trying to think back to yesterday. It was a good practice today. I thought yesterday was a lot of dinged up, beat up guys. Probably not as physical a Monday as we’d like, but we had high tempo, good speed out there today. Good looks from the scout teams. I appreciated the way the scout teams worked and looked, but it was good. I mean, I thought it was spirited, it was nice and cool out there. So, they’ve got a good football team. They’re hard to simulate. That’s the hardest thing is simulating what they do, especially their offense and their defense, vertical strike, knockback. They’re very different in terms of how they play.”
On Branson Robinson, Anthony Evans, and Gabe Harris…
“Yeah, Gabe’s good. Hoping to get some more snaps out of Gabe. He’s playing. I think he started on some special teams. And then Branson is back out with us, moving around, running on the bike, in pads. I don’t want to say he’s a week away. I don’t honestly know, but he’s getting closer. And then Anthony Evans, he’s hitting some good speeds. He’s running. He feels good. But we’re being real careful with it. So, it’s one of those deals that we hope we can get him back.”
On using crowd noise to prepare the defense for home games...
“Yeah, we do that every week. We have to because it’s so loud. I think most teams do because it’s frustrating because the offense doesn’t really want to deal with it on the home games. But we go against each other, so we have to. We just keep crowd noise pumping in different periods every day because our offense is going to get it and our defense is going to get it. Communication on defense has changed so much since the advent of all these offenses with motions and shifts. So you can’t practice football without communicating on defense. So we do crank it in.”
On Daniel Harris playing more recently...
“Yeah, he’s practiced better. You know, we had a long meeting, and I don’t remember what game it was. I can’t remember the order of those games. But we had a long meeting with him and told him that we needed to see him practice better. It was the off week where he really, like, stepped up. He had really good practices. He competed. He gave great effort. He tackled better. He earned it, is what he did. So, he’s played more because of the way he’s practiced.”
On Smael Mondon in his first game back...
“Yeah, it was good for the confidence of the other guys and, I think, the depth of our other guys. You know, we were basically playing three, I guess, and a half inside backers between Jalen, C.J., and Raylen, and then Chris Cole was playing some. So, now, kicking him in allows, number one, Jalon maybe to be fresher and play on the edge a little more. And, you know, we weren’t even sure we were going to get Smael back for that game. He wanted to play. He felt good. He did not practice a lot last week. But the plan was to bring him back practicing this week. And he’s done that. And he’s embraced the leadership role of that room.”
On Jake Pope’s response...
“Yeah, you know, I don’t like to comment on the internal stuff going on inside. He did talk to the team, did a great job. I’ll say I should not have called the kid an idiot. That was a mistake by me. But I appreciate Jake. He’s a great kid. He works really hard. He’s a team player. I think he knows it was an emotional mistake. And he told the team that. So, I appreciate the way he handled it.”
On preparing for Tennessee quarterbacks amidst Nico Iamaleava injury...
“Yeah, that’s a dilemma. You know, we don’t know a lot. I’m talking about his injury. Like, we don’t really know what’s going on there. It’s hard to figure. We do have, because they had those games early in the year where they beat teams so bad, you know, that Gaston had to play up quite a bit. Then we obviously have the game that he played in. That kind of happened in the Florida game because I didn’t know a lot about the kid that came in in the Florida game. And, you know, in this situation, we don’t know. So, there is a threat there. And Nico’s such a high-level athlete and some of the runs he’s made, I knew the kid was a great thrower, but I didn’t know he was this kind of athlete. And hitting the speeds, he’s hitting GPS-wise. And they made a run on Alabama that was really elite. So, just recognizing his skill set is a lot and trying to prepare for kind of two guys, you know, because philosophically I don’t know how they’ll approach it with the other quarterback.”
On night game difference...
“Yeah, I don’t know that it’s the night that makes a huge difference. I mean, I know Lane made the comments he made about wanting our game being at night. I mean, given the alternative, I would take either one, the 3:30 or the night. I think some places it has a great impact. I think back to the year that we had the great home games. There was, I think, Arkansas at noon, and then it was one of the loudest I’ve ever been a part of. And then there were some 3:30 games. You know, I think back to the Notre Dame game at night. And I think the last time they played Tennessee at home, it was not. It was 3:30, right? So, how can I say that a night game is any better than that 3:30 Tennessee game? You know what I mean? Like, I don’t, I just think a home game in general, the SEC, is hell on the road team. I think it’s really hard, man. It’s hard. And I tell people all the time, I told our offensive line, it’s harder in the SEC to play on the road at offensive line tackle in some of those positions that are timing positions and snap-down positions than it is in the NFL until playoff. Because I coached in the NFL, Coach Saban coached in the NFL we talked about it all the time. The games are, they’re corporate. They’re not the same type noise in the regular season. Now, you get in the playoff, they catch something like that. But it’s a big advantage in terms of get off, and it basically highlights your run game. Because if you can run the ball on the road, you protect so many things from happening, bad things from happening.”
On player leadership...
“No, there’s been a, I mean, there was no lack of sense of urgency prior, but there’s been a vocal piece of the leaders. They’ve spoke up at meetings. They visually see it. You know, they called out and said, we need the greatest scout team work we’ve ever had. They went to the scout team and told them they wanted to get the best look they’ve ever had. I mean, the leaders are doing the right things. They’re handling those things well, and they’re also owning up to mistakes they’ve made or how they’ve played. If it hasn’t been to their standard, they want to improve. So, we have really good kids. It’s not about the leadership factor. I think this team’s got a lot of really good kids. It’s got kids that have been here for a long time. I mean, you talk about Tate and Naz and Carson and Truss. These guys have been here forever. Dillon, Jared, they’ve just been here forever.”
On Dylan Sampson...
“They’re stubborn, man. They’re physical. He is an elite runner. The runs they run are sometimes nontraditional. They run some runs that other people don’t run because of the space in the box. He’s very patient. He hits small creases. He’s hard to tackle. I mean, you don’t put up how many touchdowns he’s got in the SEC, 20-something? I mean, that’s crazy. In the SEC? The SEC’s the hardest league in the world to run the ball in, because they’ve got the most-sized defensive linemen. And he continues to do it at a crazy pace to me. So, what year is he, by the way? (Junior) Yeah, I mean, he’s as good. I mean, it seems like he’s been there for a while, and I know where he’s from, down in Louisiana, they do nothing but have great backs from there. He reminds me so much of his run skill set of Kamara, of Alvin. He’s very smooth and elusive.”
On the transition between the third and fourth quarter...
“Yeah, it’s just part of the entertainment. I don’t know anything about it. It did last week. We had a play called, and we were worried about that. I mean, we tried to wait. I think Lane was trying to get him to wait, too, because he was worried. I mean, we didn’t want that to impact the game. But it was like nobody in the box could see the field, and we could barely see on the field. It reminded me of, like, a fog bowl. But, you know, I don’t know much about what goes on at that time. I’m so focused on the game that I don’t really care, either. You know, I don’t want it to affect the vision, but I don’t care about what they do and the entertainment value of it, and just hope we’re competitive with what we do.”
On seeing the SEC trying to balance the home-away stretches more going forward...
“Yeah, I would like to have a rhythm to it. I do. I’m not also going to sit here and say that they probably didn’t think about that. There’s not a reason why it has to be that way. I know in our case it’s the Georgia-Florida game. That impacts every other year you can. Every year for us, but every other year, it would have been in our backyard. So it makes you have to leave home and go, and that’s always been one of the tough things. At the end of the day, you’re traveling more and you’re getting back later, especially these TV times, and that can impact your recovery time and what you do on Sundays. But in a perfect world, you wouldn’t go that long. I’m sure Auburn feels that way. We felt that way I think it was last year. It was a while before we went there and played. But I’m sure if you ask the SEC office, they’ll have a reason for it.”
On how the inside linebackers have played, especially with Smael Mondon out...
“Yeah, considering the age and the experience level of those guys, they’ve done a good job. It’s been by committee because Jalon really is kind of half inside, half outside. He does a lot of everything. CJ and Raylen have really grown up. Raylen missed some time for us there where he was out and obviously Smael’s missed time. It just seems like every year we’re in this cycle of having to get freshmen ready to play really fast, and I think Schumann does a good job of that because Chris Cole and Justin Williams are going to be really good players. They’re bright spots out there at practice each day. I mean, Justin is one of the hardest working, most positive kids I’ve ever been around, and he and Chris are both getting better faster. All those guys, they’ve got a great tight-knit group.”
On James Pierce comparing to Princely Umanmielen and what issues Pierce presents...
“Yeah, he’s similar. He’s very elite, get-off quickness. You know, they do different things with him. I mean, they put him on center before. They put him on guards before. They twist him and stunt him, but he’s really good on the edge. Abd I’m sure watching last week’s tape, that’s probably where they’ll want him. He was on the edge with the get off and the quickness. You’ve got to count for him every play, but the sad thing is, like, they’ve got other players, and he’s not a one-man team. Their inside guys are playing at a high level, rushing great. They’ve got great quickness and get off. They have several players from Georgia playing really good. They’ve got guys playing on the edge really well. The biggest difference in their team is probably their secondary, their corners. Their corners are playing as good as any set of corners in our conference right now.”
On how the offensive line has practiced so far this week...
“Well, they practice like they do every week. They’re giving great effort, great toughness. They’re doing it by committee. We’ve got guys injured left and right out there. I mean, we’re running a drill, and there’s no guard in there because we’re out of guards. And then this guy’s got to go in, take reps. This guy’s got to bump over here. He’s got to move out there. It’s welcome to the SEC.The one thing about those guys is they’re the toughest group on our team, and they are the most committed and want to do right and want to play well. It’s tough sledding. It’s tough sledding out there, especially when you’re throwing the ball that much. It’s hard to go block one-on-one and do those things. We have to help them with protection, and we’ve got to help them in the run game so they can come off the ball and hit people.”
