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Kirby Smart’s Monday Presser

Opening Statement

“I guess most of you guys were on the conference last night, so there’s not a lot to say that hadn’t been said. SEC Championship game, awesome opportunity for our guys. I told them last night, ‘you earned the opportunity to play in this game. This was not given, this was earned. This was not picked by a committee, it was on the field.’ Two teams that already played once. Both played really daunting SEC schedules and get a chance to battle it out, see who the SEC champion is, which a lot at stake and always is. Playing a really good football team. Coach [Kalen] DeBoer’s done a great job with them. They’re playing at a high level. When you look at both sides of the ball, they complement each other. Playing really well offensively and defensively. I think that’s important to being successful in our conference. They’ve got a good group of players and their staff’s done a great job to put them in this position. This will be our guys opportunity to go out and play in a place that we’ve played a lot of games in. I’m excited for the opportunity. It’s always a great atmosphere and crowd. The viewership, the people that watch it across the country is always really high, so I’m excited for our guys.”

On Alabama’s offense changing since the first meeting…

“I got to watch the games in between our game and theirs. I don’t think you change a whole lot during the year. You play to the skill set of your playmakers. They’ve got playmakers. They play to the skill set of those guys. QB Ty [Simpson’s] still playing really well. He’s extremely athletic. He can extend plays. He knows where to go with the ball. He knows defenses. He’s played a lot of football. He’s played with a lot of confidence. I don’t think there’s a lot of change. They’re really good at what they do and they do a great job with shift, motion, keeping you off balance with tempo, vertical plays, horizontal plays, they do a great job.”

On if the offense has met his expectations…

“I’m very pleased with what our offense has done this year. I’m very pleased with the total package of how they’ve utilized the skill set and the strengths of the team. Considering two to three freshman linemen have been in there a lot, I’ve been really pleased with that group. The ability and the commitment to the run complements what Gunner [Stockton] does well. I’m pleased with where those guys have been.”

On the defensive line’s experience…

“I would say it’s more the experience has been bigger for young linebackers, outside linebackers, and secondary maybe the defensive line. Outside of ‘EG’ [Earnest Greene III], a lot of those guys have played football. EG is a guy that’s gotten better with time and gotten more comfortable, but a lot of those guys were experienced coming into the year. I don’t think any of our early struggles were a testament to anything about the defensive line. It was just more a matter of growth and getting more experience and executing at a higher level at all positions.”

On Glenn Schumann…

“Honestly, he’s grown over the course of his career, he’s grown over the course of ten years being here. Specifically, this year, I don’t think he’s had to grow. I think he’s had to do a great job of deciding what this group does best and trying to utilize and improve the skill sets. We don’t have a dynamic, clear-cut, dominant rusher. We’ve had some of those in the past with Jalen [Carter] and Mykel [Williams], both coming out early and ‘Ty’ [Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins] those guys not being there, it was a little bit of an adjustment to get the younger players groomed faster. I can’t say that Schumann’s had to grow. He’s had to utilize what we have.”

On the process of determining skill sets…

“I don’t know if there’s a lot of changes to make, guys. I think you all are making a big deal about something. We’re improving. We played better, but some of the offenses we’ve played have been really explosive. Ole Miss is a really explosive offense. Tennessee is a high-octane offense, and they get a lot of snaps. They go with tempo, they score points and Alabama’s done that. Some of it’s how you play, some of it’s who you play and some of it’s how you change and adapt. I think we’re always trying to change and adapt.”

On National Signing Day being the same week as the SEC Championship…

“Change to when? When’s a good time to have it? Last week? The next week? They made the decision a long time ago to move this in front of your roster changes and additions to your own team, so that you would have one thing squared away. You have to remember, as little as two to three years ago, we had a portal going on and signing day going on. I was in the decision-making process when it came to signing the week of the SEC Championship. I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now, but I don’t have a better answer. There’s a calendar timeline, there’s an academic calendar to universities and also high school kids. There’s not an opportune time to have it. You do what’s best for the most and not necessarily the least, the teams that are playing. It makes for some tough challenges this week for sure, but people understand that. They respect teams that are still playing.”

On championship experience helping in preparation…

“It doesn’t change game to game. The championship game is no different than the game that gets you to the championship game, right? We’ve been playing championship games every week, in my opinion. What wins football games doesn’t change. Good players win football games. Not turning the ball over wins football games. Being explosive wins football games and that will not change in this game. The turnover margin of the last game was a factor. Explosive plays of the last game were a factor. They’ll be factors in this one, they’ll be factors in the next one after this one. That doesn’t change, if anything, the experience you learn from playing in this is more about time management with signing day going on. Practice management with the load your players have this extra week in the season. That’s what we try to lean on from an experience standpoint.”

On the identity of running the ball changing…

“I wouldn’t say the identity has changed for us of needing to be able to run the ball to be successful. That can’t change, not for us. The things that are important to our identity –  the physical toughness required, the discipline, all the things that we require to be successful – have not changed week-to-week, or since the beginning of the season. We might do better out of one week or the other, but they don’t change.”

On staying consistent in the SEC among coaching changes…

“I have a great program, great administration, great supporting cast here, and it’s allowed us to be successful. I talk about it all the time. If you have good players, you coach them the right way, coach them hard. You can be successful and we’ve been successful. It’s hard to sustain anything and stay consistent, especially in this league where it’s really competitive. I don’t think a lot about the tenured or the person that’s been there the longest. I got a lot of respect for Mark, and he’s a good friend.” 

On maintaining consistency in the program…

“Things like Jonas Jennings, being part of our staff since I’ve been here. Scott Sinclair, Glenn Schumann, Tray Scott, they’re pillars in this building. They believe in the core values of the head coach. They help push those. I think reinventing yourself as much as you can every year and trying to be a good teacher creates consistency. I think the player buy-in and the players we select to be part of our program, that’s the only way you’re going to be consistent is not be afraid to make tough decisions, and we’ve talked about qualities of great leaders require you to make tough decisions.” 

On OL Drew Bobo’s impact…

“He’s very knowledgeable of the game. He grew up around it, in it. He understands football, he knows leverages, he knows a lot about what’s going on. He and his dad have a great relationship that allows him to know a lot of things and make a lot of checks, and put us in right situations a lot of times. He’s certainly a really good football player.”

On the importance of gap time in a rematch…

“No, unless you’re just beat up and got a lot of players missing, which they’re pretty beat up, we’re pretty beat up. The gauntlet of the stretch that they played and we’ve played has impacted both of our seasons. I think we both had people coming in or coming out of lineups the last time we played. Now you look at the long spell between games, seven, six, seven, eight games, whatever it is. Both teams are coming out of and coming into injuries. In terms of the X’s and O’s and the schemes, in terms of the gap, I don’t think so. You evolve as a team, you have trends, but good teams do what they do. They’re not going to be a lot of change and both these teams are good teams.”

On OLB Gabe Harris Jr. and Quintavius Johnson…

“Confidence and repetition. I think they both are very knowledgeable, a little more experienced, a lot of practice reps between [the Alabama game] and [the SEC Championship] and quite a bit of game reps between this one and that one. Gabe [Harris] is a little older. [Quintavius Johnson], he’s still kind of coming into his own. He was young then and he’s grown up a lot. He’s had to grow up because he got forced into playing time at an early age last year and even this year, and he’s accepted that role and he’s improved.”

On Lane Kiffin leaving for LSU and the influx of new SEC coaches…

“I think most of these guys are descendants or they come from a tree of coaching and there’ll be similarities. We have tape of every team we play, we have tape of every team that those guys coached. There’ll be some carry over in terms of the new coaches, but it’s a long way away before we start worrying about that. I don’t envy the position [Lane Kiffin] was in. I think it’s a really hard position to be in and to navigate. I think Coach Saban addressed it best. We’re in a time frame where [Athletic Directors] are in– people are making decisions in a timeline that’s not congruent with the season and the playoffs. It makes for really difficult decisions.”

On Dr. Drew Brannon’s work with the program…

“He’s helped every Alabama game since 2020. He does a great job.”

On QB Gunner Stockton’s improvement during the season…

“He’s had to make [decisions.] You get more comfortable doing things the more you’ve done it. It’s called experience, and he’s gained that. He’s forced into every play. ‘Do I do this, this or this?’ There’s very few plays that are just as simple as you do this. I think that gives you options. It makes you write more. And I think everybody in the country is really doing it– is putting a lot on the quarterback. He’s done a great job in terms of making the right decision with two, three options, and that puts you in advantage. It also puts stress on that position, and they’ve got to be able to handle it and make good decisions.”

MBB: Dawgs Travel to FSU Tonight

Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Time: 9:00 p.m. ET

Venue: Donald L. Tucker Civic Center (11,500)

Location: Tallahassee, Fla.

Streaming: ACC Network (Evan Lepler, play-by-play; Jim Boeheim & Dan Bonner, analysts)

Radio: Georgia Bulldog Network – Sirius 381 (Scott Howard, play-by-play; Chuck Dowdle, analyst; Adam Gillespie, producer)

The Starting Five

• America’s most explosive offense will play its first road game of the 2025-26 season on Tuesday when Georgia ventures to the Donald L. Tucker Center to face Florida State in the ACC/SEC Challenge. 

• Georgia enters this week leading the nation in scoring offense (99.0 ppg), fastbreak points (29.6 ppg), bench scoring (45.4 ppg) and blocks (8.8 bpg).

• The Bulldogs are the only Power Conference team in the country with an 11-man rotation with every player averaging double-figure minutes and seeing action in every game. 

• Georgia has topped the 100-point plateau in three of its first eight games…after reaching the century mark in two of 102 games during Mike White’s first three seasons with the Bulldogs.

• The Bulldogs are 2-0 in ACC/SEC Challenge contests, including a dramatic 68-66 win over the Seminoles two seasons ago in Tallahassee when Georgia rallied from a 17-point deficit with less than seven minutes remaining to win on Justin Hill’s jumper with 1.5 seconds left.

The Opening Tip

The Georgia Bulldogs – the nation’s most explosive offense to date during the 2025-26 season – take to the road for the first time on Tuesday when they trek to Tallahassee to face Florida State in the ACC/SEC Challenge.  

Georgia enters December leading the nation in three-point production categories – scoring offense (99.0 ppg), fastbreak points (29.6 ppg) and bench scoring (45.4 ppg). The Bulldogs also are the top rim protectors in the country, averaging 8.8 blocks per game – 0.8 bpg better than the rest of the 364 Division I teams.

Georgia features the nation’s deepest Power Conference rotation while playing at a breakneck pace among the quickest in college basketball.

Among the 79 Power Conference programs, the Bulldogs are the only team with a 11 players averaging double-figure minutes and all of those players seeing action in every game. According to the oft-used metric KenPom.com, Georgia enters the week ranked No. 4 nationally in both adjusted tempo (75.3) and average offensive possession length (13.8 seconds).

It would be hard to fathom a better beginning to the 2025-26 campaign for Georgia, at least statistically speaking. In addition to leading the country in the four aforementioned statistics, the Bulldogs are ranked among the nation’s top-10 teams in nine of 28 stats tracked by the NCAA.

Georgia’s depth is not just in numbers but also in its offensive production. Ten of the 11 Bulldogs playing double-digit minutes also have double-figure scoring outputs. Jeremiah Wilkinson and Blue Cain pace Georgia offensively, averaging 16.5 and 15.3 ppg, respectively. Three more Bulldogs are just shy of double figures, with  Jake Wilkins averaging 9.5 ppg, Marcus “Smurf” Millender at 9.4 ppg and Kanon Catchings at 9.1 ppg.

Scouting The Seminoles

Florida State is 5-2 to date under first-year head coach Luke Loucks.

Lajae Jones leads a highly balanced offense for the Seminoles, which features four double-digit scorers. Jones is averaging 13.9 ppg, followed closely by Chauncey Wiggins and Robert McCray ,V both at 13.3 ppg and Kobe Magee at 11.3 ppg.

Like Georgia, the Seminoles play at a breakneck pace. KenPom also ranks FSU among the nation’s top-10 teams in average offensive possession length (No. 6 at 14.1 seconds) and adjusted tempo (No. 9 at 74.5).

Georgia and Florida State both are among the nation’s top-10 teams in takeaways. The Bulldogs are No. 6 in steals per game (11.5), while the Seminoles are No. 10 (12.0).

Series History With FSU

Florida State owns a 19-11 edge in matchups between the Bulldogs and the Seminoles, including a 10-3 advantage in Tallahassee. 

Most of those 30 meetings – 27 to be exact – were in the ‘50s and ‘60s. UGA and FSU faced off multiple times every season from 1954-55 through 1965-66. 

Following a 14-year hiatus, the Bulldogs and Seminoles split a “home-and-home” series during the 1980-81 and 1981-82 campaigns, with Georgia staging its contest at The Omni in Atlanta as part of the Cotton States Classic.

The Bulldogs won the most recent matchup, a 68-66 victory in the ACC/SEC Challenge two seasons ago in Tallahassee. Justin Hill’s 15-foot jumper with 1.5 seconds remaining completed a miraculous rally from 17 points down with 6:37 remaining to defeat the Seminoles. 

Last Time Out

Marcus “Smurf” Millender scored 22 points, dished out seven assists and recorded four steals on his 21st birthday and Georgia connected on a school-record 21 3-pointers in a 123-81 win over Tennessee Tech at Stegeman Coliseum on Sunday. 

Georgia was 21-of-43 from 3-point range, both school-record totals. The previous mark for most makes was 19 against Fresno State on March 26, 1998, and the record for takes was 41 versus Texas A&M on March 2, 2024.

“I don’t think that we’ve had any lack of confidence to this point or other than we really questioned ourselves,” head coach Mike White said. “It just hadn’t gone in at the rate we thought it would go in. Our guys are better players and shooters than that number indicated. I think some of it early on was a little bit of shot selection and some of it is, again, getting used to the tempo. It’s new for everybody. Tonight we took a bunch of ‘A-shots’ and turned down some ‘C-shots.’”

UGA Game Notes- SECCG

“Hard To Kill” 

*Georgia went 7-1 in the SEC gauntlet this year, trailing early and/or late in seven of those contests.  The Bulldogs rallied to beat No. 15 Tennessee and Auburn on the road for their ninth straight victory in those series. They outlasted No. 5 Ole Miss 43-35 in Athens and never had to punt. Georgia won its fifth straight over Florida in Jacksonville. Georgia erased an early 7-0 deficit at MSU with 38 unanswered points and eventually recorded a 41-21 decision for the program’s 900th all-time win. Georgia used a  21-point fourth quarter to defeat No. 10 Texas 35-10 to close out the SEC regular season.  

*Georgia is 40-3 in its last 43 SEC regular-season games with two losses to UA and one to Ole Miss. *Georgia blanked then No. 17 UA and AU in the second half, while Kentucky’s lone second-half score came on a 23-yard drive with 1:51 left in the contest, and the Bulldogs were up 35-7. Trailing 35-26, Georgia outscored No. 5 OM 17-0 in the 4th quarter in that win. Against UF, Georgia fell behind 20-17 early in the 4th quarter, took the lead for good with 4:36 left and posted a pair of 4th-Down stops including one in the Red Zone as UF came in 22-for-23 there. 

*The only league contest where Georgia led wire-to-wire was a 35-14 home win over UK, while the only comeback that fell short came to then No. 17 UA 24-21 in Athens. 

Playing With FPE (Fire, Passion & Energy) 

*One of Georgia’s main themes in 2025 is to play with “FPE.”  

*Fifty-four percent of Georgia’s roster consists of players in their first or second season here. *Georgia’s scoring defense this year has allowed 16.7 ppg and posted 21 scoreless quarters.

*Junior ILB CJ Allen, who ranks third in the SEC in average tackles per game at 7.3, is a finalist for the Lott IMPACT Trophy and the Butkus Award. He is a semifinalist for the Jason Witten Collegiate  Man of the Year Award. 

*Redshirt junior QB Gunner Stockton is a finalist for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and a semifinalist for the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award.  

*Senior Brett Thorson (Ray Guy Award) is a finalist for the top punter award, while junior PK Peyton  Woodring (Lou Groza Award) and senior SN Beau Gardner (Patrick Mannelly Award) are semifinalists for their position awards. 

*Due to injuries, Georgia started six different offensive line units in the first six games and seven total. 

*Did You Know? Last Friday, Georgia defeated rival Ga. Tech 16-9 in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium after Tech moved its home game there. It marked Georgia’s record eighth straight win in the series and retained the  Governor’s Cup Trophy. The Bulldogs went 2-0 in this facility last year, winning their opener 34-3 over  No. 14 Clemson and then beating No. 2 Texas for the SEC Championship to earn the No. 2 seed in the CFP. 

Stopping The Run Starts Up Front 

Georgia ranks 6th nationally, allowing only 86.1 rushing yards a game.  Against No. 10 Texas, UT managed only 23 yards on 17 attempts. UT entered the game averaging 135.3 yards on the ground. Most recently, versus No. 23 Ga. Tech, which averaged 215 rushing yards, it finished with 69 on 23 attempts. 

*No. 15 Tennessee averaged 252.5 rushing yards and 605 yards of total offense/ game, and Georgia limited them to 125 rushing yards (34 att.) and 496 yards of total offense. Also of note, No. 5 OM had just 88 rushing yards. *No. 17 UA was held to 117 yards (38 att.) for a 3.1 average while UK averaged  188 yards and finished with only 45 yards on 22 attempts. 

*Redshirt junior Christen Miller and juniors Jordan Hall and Gabe Harris  Jr. are the veterans up front, with redshirt sophomore Xzavier McLeod now stepping in for the injured Hall for the past five games. McLeod made his first career start at MSU and tallied three tackles. 

*Miller had two tackles and three QB pressures versus No. 15 UT and five tackles, a half sack and three QB pressuers against MSU. 

*Harris Jr. had a career-high five stops at AU and made four in the win at MSU. *Redshirt freshmen Joseph Jonah-Ajonye, Nnamdi Ogboko, redshirt sophomore Josh Horton (Miami) and freshmen Elijah Griffin and JJ Hanne are  

in the rotation. Griffin got his first career sack against Charlotte. *Jonah-Ajonye posted a career-high three stops versus Austin Peay. Griffin had two tackles each against UK and AU while Horton, who has shown an ability to win one-on-one battles, made three tackles against No. 17 UA. Ogboko got  his first career sack versus UK. 

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