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Video/Transcript: Kirby Smart meets with reporters after Wednesday practice

Coach Smart’s Condolences to the Seiler Family…

“I would like to send our condolences to the Seiler Family. One of the first people I met when I got here in school was Sonny Seiler and his family. Obviously, the obvious meaning that they’ve had to the University of Georgia and to the UGA Dawg Nation family, they’ve been incredible so we’re all mourning the loss of him. My thoughts are with his family during this tough time.”

On what he looks to evaluate in game one…

“I think, procedurally, you haven’t had the play clock permanently on. We have it at practice, but it’s not the same. The first game is no different than the last game in terms of things that will get you beat, but I do think first game jitters exist. You want the players to be able to get comfortable, go out and cut loose and play, and get the anxiety out of the way, get the first hit out of the way. I want to play our brand of football and play really disciplined, not have a lot of penalties and a lot of sloppy mistakes. Communication things, things where you just beat yourself, we’re trying to avoid.”

On Daijun Edwards and Kendall Milton’s health…

“They’ve both done more. Daijun stayed in a black jersey. Kendall’s been out of the black. They both look good. We’re giving a lot of reps to a lot of other guys because we’ve got other guys to get prepared for, but they’ve both been in “Indy,” and they’ve both done drills. They both worked during the run periods and the pass periods. I feel good about both of them.”

On the team being ready to play against more than themselves…

“With the way things are now, you could feel that way in the spring, and you could feel that way in the summer. We do so many glorified walkthroughs. We try to change it up and break up the monotony, but I can’t pinpoint a day because you have to be willing to against each other and not let it become monotony. I told everybody today, that one rep of inside zone that you take today has to be the greatest rep of inside zone you’ve ever taken. That one stunt step you take as a defensive lineman has to be the best one you’ve ever taken. Repetition is the mother of all skill, and you’ve got to get a lot of reps to get good at it.”

On the growth he has seen from Julian Humphrey…

“I think Fran [Brown] has done a tremendous job with Julian. He’s a fast guy who came in with kind of raw talent. A lot of the techniques that we’re teaching in terms of multiple coverages, he played a lot of man. He’s grown as a player. He’s gotten tougher. He’s gotten more physical. He still has not arrived. He still has moments that make you wonder what he’s doing, and then he has wow moments. He’s made some really good plays in camp, but he has to continue to play in and kind of buy into the process of getting better at that position. And he’ll get better because he’s talented.”

On the talent of young players versus their knowledge of the system and the playbook…

“I think to simplify things, it takes away a little bit of our advantage. We don’t have to simplify things because we have players with experience who are good teachers. We had two freshman last year who were talented enough and smart enough to walk out there and start and a third by the end of the year with Jalon Walker. Between Mykel [Williams], Jalon [Walker] and Malaki [Starks], we’ve proven that we can play with freshmen and have volume. So, we don’t look at it as we have to give up one to get the other. We’re going to do all we can to help people have roles and learn and put the best people out there to give us a chance to win.”

On Zion Logue and what his experience adds to the defensive front…

“He creates a lot of value in the locker room. He’s a lunch pail guy. He carries his lunch pail every day to work, and he gives you an honest day’s work every day. He competes. He covers down. He’s always one of the hardest guys to – when they throw the ball he breaks and covers down. When you’ve been in this program as long as he has there’s a lot of work that he’s done that we certainly appreciate as a staff because he buys into the hard work. “

On the value of having such experienced members of the defensive line…

“That’s what they do; they set the standard. We challenged them this week to set the standard for a game week of practice and those guys do that. They set an example. They’re able to carry the weight and show guys how it’s supposed to be done because they have a unique spot because they’ve been a part of a lot of success. They carry the weight, and they show those guys how to practice and what to do to get better. They’ve all kind of become products of that because none of those guys were immediate success stories upon arrival. They had to earn it.”

On the wide receiver rotation…

“I don’t know. I feel like we’re thin at wideout. Everybody keeps talking about this wide receiver core and I’m like, ‘We are thin.’ We just don’t have enough depth there. We don’t have enough guys in our two deep to finish practice, and so it makes it tough. We got guys dinged up, guys injured, so that makes it a little bit harder. I don’t know that you have a rotation. The year LSU won the championship, I think 95% of their snaps were three receivers and they were three really good receivers. So, you play the players that give you a chance to play. We have a bar, and we say this is winning football above it and this is losing football below it, and if you can play winning football then we’re going to give you opportunities and chances to play based on what you have shown us. We got some guys that can play winning football; we probably got six or seven. We probably got three of four that are right on the line that aren’t playing winning football yet but we’re going to try to get ready, so that’s the hope.”

On the number of players dressing…

“Overall dress out I haven’t really thought about. I mean, I can dress the entire roster if I want to. It’s just going to be a matter of how much room we have on the sideline. We’ll have some other games that we have an opportunity to dress those guys for. We try to reward everybody by dressing at least one during the year. Typically, we do the guys that came to camp because they’ve been through the most practices and then try to get the guys when school came later.”

On Trey Scott who got his start at UT Martin and his coaching growth…

“The first thing that attracted me to him was Pete Jenkins who is the father of all D-line coaches. One of y’all should go do a special on Pete Jenkins. He is – I don’t want to call him a dinosaur, but he is – one of a kind. He has been through maybe ever SEC school but Georgia. He is the father of at least 120 defensive line coaches. Tray would tell you that he helped develop him, and when we needed a defensive line coach, we called Pete and said, ‘Pete, give us somebody in your tree and tell us where the best young one is and we want him to develop here at a really great university,’ and Pete talked about Tray. I think Tray at the time had just gone to Ole Miss, and we hired him, but he had a background that started at UT Martin like we all did. He played back in the Division II Gulf South Conference days over in Arkansas and I had some history there. I had a lot of respect for the way Tray had worked his way up and earned it and he’s done nothing but the same here.”

On experience with halftime adjustments…

“Yeah, I would think it is an overused term. I think it’s more important now than it’s ever been with the advent of the offense. There’s so much volume of offense out there that by half, you feel like you have an understanding of where they are trying to attack you and what they are trying to do, so you obviously get more time to go in and adjust at halftime. Back in the days of let’s call it 2008, 2010, 2012, it wasn’t like that. There was a physicality to the game that is probably unseen now. From direct runs and people playing in a phone booth, there’s a little less adjustment that you could do to that. You could tweak some things but now, there’s alternatives and there’s a lot more offense out there. Every offensive play has three plays on it, so defenses have to find ways to be creative to create an advantage. I think there’s a lot more strategy now. Some offenses hold things for the second half. Some defenses hold things for the second half. I’m always a big believer that if it’s good enough to use it, you better use it in the first half and not save it for the second. We try to do a good job of doing that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It has a lot to do with the players, not the adjustments.”

On if he has looked into traits from teams that have completed a three-peat…

“No, I have not. Not that I know of. I don’t think that we have. We really haven’t studied anybody that has three-peated. The All Blacks was more about being the winningest organization. I would assume if they have the winningest organization that they would have probably three-peated. I don’t even know if they have. Each and every year is independent from the previous, and there’s nothing about the other two that’s going to help us or hurt us in this season. It’s completely independent, just as last year was. We’ve kept it that way. We’re focused on this year. Our team is 80 percent new from the one two years ago. It’s a new group.”

On young guys stepping up, where Georgia stand on generating rush without Nolan Smith…

“We’re not doing a whole lot different. I mean Nolan, God bless him, he was not as productive as you might make him seem. A first-round pick would probably have more production than he had. He was a really tough, physical run player. He was great at knowing whether it was run-pass. He sacrificed a lot of rushes to break the pocket and get quarterbacks out of there and try to create scrambles. He did a lot of really good things, so we have to replace him, but he was not exactly just a huge sack producer because he didn’t have a lot of sacks as a junior, and then his senior year he was injured. So, who is going to replace Nolan? Well, a group of people are. When I say a group of people, it’s by committee. We got guys that go in on third down and give us similar rush that he does. We got guys that play on first and second that give us similar run value that he gave us in terms of toughness, closing, scraping, effort and energy. He was probably most valuable on special teams. He made tackles on kickoff; he blocked a punt. You don’t replace him with one guy, you replace him with a lot of guys.”

On Cal Camp, the son of Coach Smart’s former teammate Drew Camp…

“I remember Drew here as a player. He was certainly a really good player, and we were around the same age. I don’t remember his son, as well, but I remember when his son was here locally. He came through and worked out growing up, but I’ve got a lot of respect for his family, and I’m looking forward to having him come to Sanford Stadium. I know it will be special for his family to watch him play in that same stadium.”

On how the Georgia offense has changed during Coach Smart’s tenure…

“We’ve all talked about it before. You start with Nick Chubb and Sony [Michel], and you go to George Pickens, Brock Bowers and Darnell [Washington] are the guys we’ve had out there – Kearis [Jackson]. It’s just kind of evolved over who we have been able to recruit, and I think that evolution is constant. Probably the biggest change is the spreading of the ball. There are so many guys. We’d come out of a game last year and seven people got receptions, eight people got receptions. I just don’t think you find that in a lot of teams in the country that are able to spread the ball around to that many people. Sometimes, you don’t control that. It’s controlled by what the defense does. That can be a good thing, and that can be a bad thing. If the defense is controlling where it goes, they’re telling you where they want you to throw it. But that’s usually the right decision. If you have a guy that has to touch the ball, you got to try and find ways to do that, as well. I’m proud of the evolution of it and what they’ve done, but a lot of that has to do with who the coordinators were.”

On Kamari Lassiter and Smael Mondon…

“Smael has been dealing with a little bit of a foot injury that was from the spring, and he has done a really good job with that. He’s been practicing and looks great out there. He’s done everything in practice htis week, and Kamari has done everything and looked good out there. He was dealing with a foot sprain, but he’s practiced and done really well this week.”

On Dan Jackson…

“The foot injury – he’s been great. He’s had no issues with the foot. He’s had a hamstring from early in camp, but he’s practiced – I don’t know if it’s the last four days, five days – they all run together for me. He’s practiced since the last scrimmage. He did low volume in the scrimmage, and he’s picked up volume ever since. He’s taking all his reps right now.”

On bringing Todd Hartley onto his staff…

“Well, I had tried to hire Todd prior to that [the opening on his staff] after Coach Beamer left, I believe. I tried to hire Todd at that time, but he was with Coach Richt at Miami and chose to stay. Then I had a second chance to hire him when we had an opening, and he chose to come home. I knew him when I got the job here. He stayed for maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month on with me. I’d known Todd for a long time. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s very detail oriented. He’s a get it done guy. He knows the questions to ask to get things done, and when you give him an assignment, he does it really well. He’s got a bright future in coaching, and I’m certainly very thankful that we have him on our team.”

On how walk-ons impact both Georgia’s and other programs’ rosters…

“Our staff and our state are incredible. Our staff does great research. We leave no stone unturned. We don’t just go recruit five-star guys. We go to high schools and visit and try to find out the tangibles of good football players, and then if they have interest in coming to our football organization. Your organization and culture are made up of just as many walk-ons as it is scholarship players. I have a lot of respect for walk-ons and what they do. I don’t know relative to others because I don’t have a way of researching that. When I look at a team’s roster, I don’t know who is a walk-on, so I can’t identify it. I do know that we have had success nurturing those relationships and developing those players. A lot of times, they are your smartest and toughest, and they do exactly what your coaches ask them to do. You get good production out of them. We are very blessed to be in a state where high school football is so good that you find guys that help you.”

On Kearis Jackson making the Titans 53-man roster…

“We announced that today in team meetings right before practice. I got a text. Kearis texted me, or one of the guys on the Titans texted me and the whole team went nuts. Kearis was just ecstatic. I mean, who better deserves that then a guy who went through two, three, four injuries? He was on the leadership SEC committee and represented this university on every board you could be on. He stood up in front of the team and led. Just an unbelievable leader and had all the cards stacked against him, and he still overcame all that to make it on one of what is the toughest things to do in all of sports – to make that 53-man roster. He did, and I’m really proud of him.”

Video/Transcript: Zion Logue and Javon Bullard post-practice interviews

On his performance in fall camp and his role on the defensive line… 

“I had a very productive fall camp. I feel like I was very good in my leadership. They were very tough times – a lot of hot days. I was the guy who was getting everybody through, pushing the guys, and telling them, ‘Win this situation’ if it was third down or two-minute. I really prided myself on that this camp, and I feel like I got better at that. I feel like it’s going to take us a long way throughout the season.” 

On being patient and waiting for his opportunity… 

“It’s not wanting to be that guy who is 10 to 15 years down the road and saying, ‘I could have been this.’ I always waited my turn. It’s getting greater for me, and I know that this season is what I really need to put myself in that position to get to the next level, as well as some other guys on this team like Dan Jackson. He’s waited his turn, even with injuries. Nyland Green has waited his time since he’s been here. The University of Georgia does that. If you’re not ready, we’re going to develop you, and when your time comes, you’ve got to step up and make plays.” 

On preparation for UT Martin… 

“Game prep has been great. Coach Smart came in on Monday, and he said that practice for game week and fall camp are two different things, and guys have to lock in. It’s time for the foolishness and silliness to go out the door. You’ve got to come in with a workman’s attitude, hard hat, and a lunch pail, and I feel like guys have really clicked into that. We’ve had two good, solid days, so we’ve just got to finish the week out right and get ready for Saturday.” 

On Julian Humphrey and how he is primed to play a key role for the team this season

“He has actually had an amazing offseason, really just sharpening the tools he already had. He has great speed and is a guy who comes in and works day in and day out. Really, I am excited to see him contribute and help this team this year. He definitely put in the work and deserves the opportunity to play.” 

On the battle for the other cornerback position beside Kamari and what it does to bring out the best in the rest of the group…

“There is competition all across the board, not even just from that position. There is competition from every position. Everyone is still competing for a spot, and Coach Smart does a great job showing everybody that no one is entitled to have a designated position. Specifically for that spot, I know the DB room loves it. It brings excitement to us. All those guys come in to work day in and day out, so it’s just the coach’s decision at the end of the day. Whoever fills in that role will definitely help us throughout the year, and all those guys are more than capable of helping us.” 

On being back in the safety position… 

“I just love the game. I love football, so it really doesn’t matter what position they put me at. As far as adapting to the role, whatever the team needs me to do, I will dial in 100% toward doing that. I love it. I am playing with a great group of guys, a great defense, and guys who bring the football spirit and come in and work day in and day out. It makes my job easier when I know I am coming to work with these guys. And even if I don’t have the best practice, still the energy that those guys bring around me and the juice that they have lifts me up. I am adapting to that new role, finding ways to play with the system, and making plays when my number is called.” 

On Kearis Jackson making the Tennessee Titans 53-man roster today… 

“That’s our brother. It is huge. I am going to call him later to congratulate him because that’s huge. It’s huge for me because we grew up around the same places. I am proud of him. It’s motivation for me, and I have to give him a call because it just hit my heart. He’s a guy who has put so much work in, and it is finally paying off for him, I am excited to see it.” 

UGAAA reminds football fans about the improvements that have been made to Sanford Stadium’s South side in anticipation for this Saturday’s opener

In order for the new gates to be installed weekly, the bridge will be closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday and will reopen following each game.

The Bulldogs’ home facility has been undergoing a two-phase $68.5 million improvement.  The completion of phase one will be unveiled when Georgia plays host to UT Martin.  Phase two is on pace to be completed prior to the 2024 season.

Here is a breakdown of the improvements:

• New location for Gate 1 and Gate 9.  These gates will now be on the bridge as a portion of the bridge on the West side will now be inside the stadium and a ticketed area on game days
• Gate 9 will now have two entry points: 1) one entering on the bridge at the new gate 9 plaza 2) one entering at the top of the 100 level
• Connection of the South 100 concourse and the West Endzone plaza
• Addition of Grab & Go concession options at Gate 6 and Gate 9 and additional concessions on the bridge for fans in the West Endzone
• Upgraded seating alignment and more seats for disabled fans on the 100 level South concourse
• The concourse from Gate 6 to Gate 9 has more than doubled in width
• New larger and more spacious restrooms on the Gate 9 plaza, 100 level concourse and Gate 6 entry plaza, nearly doubling the overall fixture counts in these areas of the stadium
• Family bathrooms added to the 100 level South concourse near Section 128
• Addition of a sensory room at Section 128 for fans that may need a quiet space if sights and sounds in the stadium become overwhelming

Please contact the UGA Athletic Association Ticket Office with questions: 706-542-1231

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