Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart, along with several
players, previewed Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt with media on Monday. The
Dawgs and Commodores kick off at noon ET on ESPN.
Smart and the Dawgs offered the
following comments during Monday’s media session.
Head Coach Kirby Smart
Opening comments …
“I think any chance you get to go to
Nashville and play Vanderbilt — I know they have a great program. Derek Mason does a really good job with his team. They did a tremendous job last year
against us from a special teams standpoint. They really dominated and
controlled the game upfront with their defensive line. So, we have a lot of
challenges ahead of us in regards to preparing for Vanderbilt and wanting to
keep the team’s mentality of getting better and improving each week, which they
have done up to this point. They do that by the way they practice on Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, so that is the challenge we are presented with now. It only
gets greater because of the attention surrounding the team, but for us it is
really about getting better and focusing on the next opponent. That’s where we
are at.”
On if freshman QB Jake Fromm will start
Saturday …
“It will be just like last week — it
will be evaluated in practice. I do think Jacob Eason is much closer to 100
percent. Obviously, last week he did not get cleared until somewhere around
mid-week, so for him it was important to knock the rust off. He felt like he
did that in that game. Got to go out there and he will compete this week. We
will do it like we do every position.”
On a followup to the previous question
regarding if Jake Fromm will start …
“Again, we compete every position every
week. It is not something we have to announce. We are not starting to announce
who the starting right corner, left corner is. We are going to announce it
based on how they practice.”
On the status of junior DT Trenton
Thompson …
“Trenton’s injury is a sprained MCL. He
will be out for this game, but it was not as bad as we originally thought,
which was good news. Basically after this week he will be week-to-week.”
On his feelings on the quarterback
position now as opposed to earlier in the year …
“You have to feel better that you have two
that have played because we’ve certainly got that. I would say this — I felt
much better going into the season, I’m talking post scrimmages, post camp, I
felt much better about the quarterback situation because of the camp that Jake
Fromm had and the growth Jacob Eason had. So, I did feel better although you
could say you have never seen Fromm play, I count scrimmages as playing because
we set them up like games. I got to see him in the spring game, so felt much
better that we had those two guys who can execute at a high level and do good
things. They are different quarterbacks, but in some ways they do some of the
things similar. They will continue to compete in that regard, and it is
comforting to know that you’ve got two experienced, where last year we really
had one experienced and going into this year we had one experienced
quarterback. Now we like to think we’ve got two that have played at least a
complete season or four games in the case of Fromm — five games or four and a
half.”
On if it is the time he has put in or the
personnel that makes a difference on special teams this season …
“It’s both. I can’t say that we have put
more time in. We have just tried to emphasize it. We have gotten a little
better at kicking the ball. We’ve gotten a little better at punting the ball.
We have gotten better on those units executing. I think a lot of it has to do
with the fact that we have put a huge emphasis and premium on playing the best
players. I don’t think that we didn’t do that last year. I just think we had a
lot of guys who played a lot of snaps and it seems a little more spread out now
as far the number of snaps guys are having to play and using that total 70 as
opposed to 55 or 50, whatever the number was last year.”
On if the start of the Vanderbilt game
last year stuck with him …
“Yeah. There were a lot of errors in that
game. Give them credit. They caused them by what they did on their kickoff
return. They kicked the ball in the corner and Reggie stepped out. We had two
returners backs and tried to field some rugby punts, which are really tough the
way the kid was kicking the ball. There were 200 yards of field position that
were give or take lost, and we have to do a better job in regards to
that.”
On things he does as a coach to keep
players from buying into the hype …
“Well, we practice and when we practice we
practice hard. We show kids the tape. We are very honest with them. I think
when you watch the tape everybody can get humbled by the tape. We got beat, we
got beat up at positions, we got blocked at positions — so Monday is all we are
worried about and all we are really focused on. We call Monday block-protection
Monday because we go out and really work on blocking people on offense or
protecting blocks on defense. That’s one of the No. 1 things we can get better
at. If you get better at that, it does not matter what you call a lot of times.
You just get better at fundamentals and we try to humble the guys by showing
them the honest truth.”
On how Jay Johnson and Scott Fountain help
Georgia’s offense …
“I certainly think they have a role. I
mean it was the reason we brought them here from a schematic standpoint. They
were able to help coach the coaches, I like to say. They give fresh, new ideas.
I think both of them have brought some expertise and some value. I do not think
people recognize that there is more to the game than just throwing somebody out
there and saying kick the ball or throwing a guy out there and saying hey go
play quarterback or run this play. I think new ideas make you better and I
think anytime you get new ideas they are thought-provoking for me as a coach,
for a coordinator it always helps. It does not mean that we are necessarily
going to do it that way but we certainly think about it and it is good
information, so it helps.”
On how to keep his team at the same level
they are playing at now …
“Humility is a week away. That is what we
talk to them about all the time. Again, humility comes through practice, going
good on good, competing, getting better. It’s a 100-yard sprint and we are at
40 yards. Who cares? They don’t ever talk about who won the first 50 meters of
a 100-meter race. I have never heard anybody talk about it. They don’t care.
There’s a lot of football to be played and we are focused on Vanderbilt.”
On the gap between the 1’s and the 2’s in
the secondary …
“Some of our 2’s have changed and in some
instances it has closed, in some ways it has widened. I think it just depends
on what specific position you are talking about. We certainly lost some guys.
We got some guys back and that has helped with some depth. The guys who have
had an opportunity to make plays have made plays. Look, in the secondary it is
a lonely world. It is feast or famine. It is all or nothing. A guy either makes
a play or he doesn’t a lot of the times, so we’ve had a couple of guys — Bake
(Deandre Baker) and Tyrique McGhee — make some plays that have been big and
big momentum type plays. We’ve got to continue to do that.”
On Vanderbilt QB Kyle Shurmur and his
abilities to throw the ball down the field vertically …
“First of all, he is very intelligent and
does a great job with their offense. He will be the best pure passing
quarterback that we have played against. He does a really good job of putting
them in the right play. You know he looks at the right things. He reads the
coverages. He puts the ball where it is supposed to be thrown and does a really
good job of doing that. So, it will be our biggest test from a quarterback
standpoint defensing the quarterback as far as a thrower. They have some good
wideouts with them, so I have a lot of respect for him. I thought from our game
last year — he was still kind of growing up in our game — and then from our
game on he played lights out, really good, and has only improved.”
On Vanderbilt getting running
back Ralph Webb on track this season…
“No. There’s nothing that I can say
as far as seeing him struggling. I know this, he runs with a lot of power
for a smaller back. I saw him run over a safety from Florida and he did
with Ronnie Harrison from Alabama. He plays with more power than you give
him credit for. He is extremely elusive. He is dangerous out of the
backfield and they do a good job of getting the ball in the passing game. He’s one of the most electric players in our conference and that’s evidenced by
his statistics. He’s the leading rusher of their history.”
On the factors leading to Georgia’s red-zone
success….
“A lot of factors have led to it. The ability to run the ball better helps. Everyone thinks the efficiency
is great, but we have to score touchdowns. We had a situation the other
day where we had to kick a field goal, two field goals, but we want to score
touchdowns. Again, our efficiency rating is based off of scoring
touchdowns over field goals and that’s not perfect, where scoring has been, but
there is a lot more to it with scoring four more points on a touchdown than the
other. Obviously, we have focused on it, which has been a big help and we
have executed better. It’s not that I thought we were doing anything wrong
before. We’re just doing what we’re doing a little better.”
On the status of Reggie Carter…
“He will be day-to-day. We will find out
in the next 24-48 hours where he is at and see if he can go. We hope to
have him available. “
On the primary back up to Trenton Thompson…
“We rolled a lot of guys last year and now
they’re a year older. They’re a year more mature. All of those
freshmen that had to play last year, it’s paying off a lot now. Tyler
Clark is playing better than he did last year, he’s grown up a year. Julian Rochester is playing better. Those guys have grown up and played
more. With Trenton out it’s going to put a little more pressure on
Michail Carter to play a little more. David Marshall will play a little
more. Tyler will take on a few more snaps. We are going to continue
to sub guys. Michael Barnett and DaQuan Hawkins-Muckle will get a few looks.”
On improved play up front and consistency
to get interceptions….
“It helps having (Lorenzo Carter and Davin
Bellamy) up front playing well. It’s not like I didn’t think they would be
making some plays. They’ve caught a couple tips, a couple over-throws
that maybe we missed during the Notre Dame game or we dropped in other
games. I’ve always said those things come in bunches and it’s not like
we’re doing anything different. We’re catching the ones we’re supposed to
and capitalizing on those.”
On the change in confidence since game one…
“I think we’ve grown up a little bit as a
team. I think they’ve seen the evidence in the practice habits they
have. We didn’t know it would get the results we wanted from our practice
habits last year. They’ve bought in to the fact that if they’re physical on
Tuesday and Wednesday, they’ll be physical on Saturday. That’s carrying
over. I think we’re just a year older. I think that practice habit
and culture change has been good for them.”
On Davin Bellamy wearing a “club” on his
hand…
“I hope it won’t affect his play a
lot. He will probably have the club on there for practices for a while
and maybe in the game we’ll be able to give him a splint or a little
less. He should be fine. He is going to practice today and go with
it. The position he plays doesn’t have him carry the ball or catch the
ball a lot, so it’s going to be striking and block protection stuff that he’s
going to use it for.”
On Georgia’s defense playing Alabama-like…
“I would argue that Erk Russell is playing
Junkyard Dawg-like. And that takes a lot more pride to me, being a
Georgia alum, than the fact that our kids are playing hard and playing with
standards that has created a long time around here of flying to the ball and
hitting people.”
On the culture change in the program…
“I was not concerned with the way it was
before, I was only concerned with how I saw it being. I thought that was
important. It was nothing about before, because I wasn’t here. It
was more about how I felt practices should be done. From a depth
standpoint, you have to have good numbers to be able to practice things that
you want to practice. We had to work to get toward that and we’re still
striving to get what we need from a scout team standpoint, a rep standpoint, a
physicality standpoint. We’re trying to improve that everyday.”
Junior Tight End Jackson Harris
On success in the red zone…
“It is definitely something you want to
play like you practice. We definitely have put an emphasis on it and have been
fortunate that it has paid off well.”
On staying grounded despite the hype
around the program…
“Honestly, we don’t even pay attention to
it. We just focus on the week ahead. It has not been any different in the weeks
prior, it is just that each Saturday you have another game and different
opponent. We are just focused on improving ourselves each day and that is our
main task. We will take it one day at a time.”
On playing Tennessee and Vanderbilt back
to back…
“It is a fun trip for me since I’m from
the Nashville area so being able to go home and have a bunch of buddies come
watch me play as well as family is a good time. They (Tennessee/Vanderbilt
friends and family) are very supportive. Everyone texts me that week and wishes
me the best of luck. They are very supportive and it is all fun.”
On how last year’s Vanderbilt game
motivates this year…
“We don’t put a ton of emphasis on last year.
We just focus on this year. There is a lot of work to do. We are going to game
plan for them hard. We are focused on this year and this year’s team. We are
just taking it one day at a time."
Junior DB J.R. Reed
On the identity of the defense…
“Fun, fast and physical. Keep it really
basic like that. We want to be fast to the ball, keep it really physical, and
at the end of the day, we want to have fun.”
On the defensive success thus far…
“We don’t pay attention to the rankings.
We keep working like we’re ranked whatever we were ranked at the beginning of
the year. And we keep going, it starts in practice, keep our head down, and
like we said our motto is just to keep chopping wood.”
On Tyrique McGhee…
“It’s nice to see Tyrique grow into the
player he’s become. He’s made long strides at the beginning of the year to now.
Since Malkom’s gotten hurt, he’s really taken on that role, and now his hard
work is showing and paying off.”
On Vanderbilt…
“I watched a little bit of them this
morning. They have a good team, a great runningback, a really good quarterback.
I know they have a good defense, they started out strong this year. So it’ll be
a good game.”
Junior WR Terry Godwin
On the quarterback situation…
“Either way coaches go, it’s going to be
the best fit for us. With those two guys (Jacob Eason and Jake Fromm) back
there, it’s the best chance for us.”
On the upcoming game against Vanderbilt…
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