Everything Kirby Smart said ahead of Game

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Everything Kirby Smart said ahead of Georgia-Auburn

ByJake Rowe

13-16 minutes

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We're a day closer to the 126th playing of The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. No. 2 Georgia will travel to The Plains to take on No. 18 Auburn on Saturday with kickoff set for 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS. Each team has gone through two days of preparation and both are still alive in the SEC and National picture.

Georgia has impressed thus far, winning three straight SEC games by a combined score of 139-13. Auburn has been up and down through the first month-plus of the season with a loss to Penn State, a close win over Georgia State, but and impressive road victory at LSU this past weekend. 

Kirby Smart met with the UGA beat via zoom after Tuesday's practice. It'll be his last press conference before the Bulldogs play Auburn and below Dawgs247 delivers everything the sixth-year head coach had to say.

On prep this week and being limited in space.
“It’s messy outside. We actually got to go out a little bit, which was nice. It was wet but it wasn’t unbearable. The problem with inside is the turf wears on your legs a little harder. You don’t like being on turf every day. You want to be able to go in and out, switch shoes in, switch shoes out, but we’ve had to be in because right now we’ve just got the one grass field. That’s been tough but the preparation has been great. I thought the guys had good energy, it was a good practice, although we’ve still got some guys who are banged up and beat up probably, I don’t know, as much as since I’ve been here. I don’t remember having this many guys injured at once since I’ve been here. But the guys work hard and they’re buying into the plan and executing it."

Chance of getting Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, Arian Smith and Dominick Blaylock back...
“We have a chance of getting all three. They were out there running, hitting 18-19 mph. They weren’t running full speed but they were moving around. Rosemy probably has the best chance, but each one of them has a chance to make it back. But they’re not taking a lot of reps. They’re hitting walk-through reps but we’re going to see if they can clear by Thursday or Friday."

On crowd noise...
"It’s always a concern when you go on the road in the SEC and I can give you four or five examples of first road trips for teams. What’s wrong, is it’s not unusual to have 25 percent of your team that hasn’t been on the road for a true road game, now it’s at 50 percent that hasn’t been in that kind of environment due to Covid last year. So, you’re seeing the impact of that whether it’s our game, Kentucky-Florida, Alabama-Ole Miss, all the games; they’re all over the place. We try to teach and learn from it but inevitably you may have mistakes. You’ve just got to overcome those and not let one mistake compound things and make it work. We’re trying to talk about the threats to us not playing well, and talk about them, and conquer them in practice so you can go out in the game and play with confidence.”

How close are Tykee Smith and Darnell Washington to 100 percent?
“Tykee and Darnell are both working really well. We’re not limiting the reps anymore. They’re probably not 100 percent in terms of speed but they’re getting there. Being on the turf affects them, too. It’s a different kind of surface. With a foot injury, it bothers them more than probably anybody, but I think Tykee is much closer. He took more reps today. It’s not just ability. He has the ability, it’s him understanding the defense, getting back in, getting full speed reps. It’s different when you start covering a guy running 19, 20 miles an hour at you. That’s the biggest thing getting him back comfortable doing that. Darnell, he was really more effective last week than I thought he would be. He’s been able to take to take his reps this week so he’s moving in the right direction. The biggest thing with Darnell is getting him in playing shape.”

On defensive line being so productive with non five stars Davis and Wyatt and then Carter and Walker. What’s key to that group?
“The key is work and growth. Devonte Wyatt was not the player that he is now when he got there. I can assure you Jordan wasn’t either. Travon’s worked a long time really hard. You go back to his freshman year. He made some splash plays but he didn’t play first and second down much. He played a lot of third down. He’s grown as a player to be much better against the run. Being able to play first and second down. They’ve grown but that growth has nothing to do with what they were rated coming in. They’ve all improved. I think Tray does an incredible job of development. That’s part of football, finding the right person to recruit and then being able to get them and then being able to develop them. That’s a key ingredient that Tray has done."

JT Daniels injury, comparisons to the other lat injuries, and maybe being able to finesse it more in practice...
“I don’t know about it finesse it. My first question to Ron was is he going to aggravate it and hurt it worse by doing anything. He said basically it’s a muscle injury so anything that bothers it, you don’t want to do. Anything that doesn’t bother it, you want to continue to do. So he was able today to go out and do some soft toss and it didn’t bother it. That’s the same protocol they did with Dak. It’s not a complete shutdown. There’s exercises he can do in our training room that are bands and throwing motions and things that don’t hurt him. They don’t bother him. As long as it doesn’t bother him, then we feel like we’re getting improvement, gradual improvement. That’s the key. The last thing I want to do is push the envelope, re-injure and go back. Then a constant cycle of that. We’re not trying to finesse it at the point that, hey, we throw him out there. We’re trying to get him to do what he can without getting injured. I’m not the expert at that. I’m not the expert at that I can assure you. I do listen to what Ron says and we also consult with other people.”

On the 25th anniversary of the 1996 game...
"Yeah it was a tremendous game and a tremendous atmosphere is what I remember. Big-time comeback of epic proportions. It was a crazy finish to regulation. I remember that. And then I remember just didn't think you would ever stop going out there. And then we finally had a chance and ended up stopping Dameyune Craig on like a sweep. It was a wild game. I don't remember specifics because it was so long ago. Ferguson, about 330 pounds doing a cartwheel down the field. That's when I knew he was going to play in the NFL for a long time. Talented dude. Those games are always like that year-in, year-out."

Defensive challenge of facing a mobile quarterback?
“The defensive challenge of facing a mobile quarterback (starts to laugh) is how long you have to cover, and how creative you have to be. There’s plays that are eight seconds long. Our guys on average play, I don’t know, a three- or four-second play is a long time? An eight-second play is a long time. He can extend plays. He can win with his feet. Bobo’s really creative with quarterbacks that can run. Some quarterbacks who can run can’t throw. He can throw and run. So it adds an extra element that sometimes the designed runs are easy to defend than one that you think is a pass because it is a pass and then he takes off. So it’s tremendously hard. I don’t think people understand how good an athlete this guy is. It’s been reported to me he’s hit 22 mph on GPS. We don’t have but maybe two receivers on our entire team that can hit 22 mph. So he is a really, really good athlete.”

Jack Podlesny and keeping his confidence up after a slot start...
“Well he’s a hard worker. He has a routine he goes about, and he’s just a tremendous kid and individual and success story. I think the psychological disposition of kickers is always different from normal position players. He goes through, it’s like a hitter, you hit slumps, and there are highs and lows, and you try to always err on the middle, never being too high, never being too low. I think he’s brought himself back, he’s kicked really well. We’ve seen him kick more in practice than we have in games, and he’s been really consistent. Just great thankful that he chose to come here as a walk-on, and earned a scholarship. We’d be in a tough way without him.”

Stetson Bennett’s back injury and how he’s looked this week...
“He’s looked good. His lower back still bothers him, he has to get treatment on him, but it’s not to the point of affecting his performance. We just have to be careful with him. He’s done a good job of getting treatment on it, staying on top of it. He also has a bit of a knee laceration from last week, but it hasn’t affected performance or anything. But he’s done a good job. Stetson’s a savvy vet, he understands defenses, he’s very intelligent, a lot of the football he’s had to learn is through other quarterbacks, by sitting and watching them. I think he enjoys getting an opportunity to go out there and do the things he’s done.”

On Adam Anderson, what makes him a unique player...
"Size, speed, athleticism, great get off. He's just long and fast. If you start looking at it, the comparison for me is Leonard Floyd. I saw Leonard play for so long, recruited Leonard back when I was at Alabama, Adam has a lot of his traits. His biggest issue would probably be being able to handle bulk and weight and gained weight. He's gained a lot of muscle mass. I'm so proud of Adam's maturity, he's just matured so much. He's become a leader in the classroom over at Rankin (Smith Student Athlete Academic Center). He was a guy who didn't love school initially but bought into the program and all the things that go into it. He's a very special person in this program."

On if they can hear Georgia fans on the road, what impact they can make...
"It's always important. I doubt they're going to be able to take over the stadium. I can assure you that. The visitors crowd, at most road games there's a pocket of them. There's a small pocket of them, they put all the visitors together. I think about it in the Georgia stadium, you know where they are, and if you've got noise coming from there, it's probably not a good sign. I don't know how much they can impact the game, but they definitely impact our players and their momentum. You want to feel like you've got support when you go into a place like that. You know, a lot of kids play well on the road. They feel like it's them against the world. Sometimes that's the best mentality to have in these road games. But, to each player it's different psychologically."

On how they prepare for noise on the road, usage of false noise at practice...
"We use it every week. We use it for home games because our defense has to play with the noise and can't communicate. We do it in fall camp, and it's fun for the kids. Sometimes they don't want to hear me and Monken, us yelling at them. So they enjoy the crowd noise because it silences us."

On UGA long-snapper Payne Walker...
"We'd be in trouble with out him. Him and (William) Mote have done a tremendous job. Nobody knows their name until they screw up. Every good snap, I've never heard one of you guys say, 'man, Payne Walker did a hell of a job snapping this game.' Y'all are going to be the first one to bring him up if he doesn't snap it good. It's like a thankless job. He doesn't get an opportunity to be thanked for what he does because it's just expected, it's understood, and I don't take that for granted. The work he and Mote put in, they're great leaders in our organization. They do a tremendous job for us."

Becoming elite at creating turnovers...
"Been trying to figure it out for 25 years, bud. I'm still looking. If I can figure out that solution, I can bottle it and we'll both make a lot of money. Not going to give you coach speak, I don't know how to do it but I can promise you this, we're trying like hell every day."

What it's like coaching Stetson Bennett...
"I don't look at coaching him any differently than I do anybody on the team. I really don't. Stetson's got thick skin. He's a tough kid. He grew up in Pierce County. He's been coached hard. He's been reprimanded. He stands up for what he believes in. He argues his point. If he thinks he's right, he usually has a good reason for it. I appreciate the way he approaches things and all the quarterbacks. It's not a sensitive subject. If I think they're wrong, we tell them. We're trying to make them better and he's done that since he's been here. Kid has good moxy and he's got good confidence, got good composure. You don't see him real rattled very often and he handles success and ups and downs really well. I think he's got good wiring for a quarterback."

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