The Dawgs worked out
for a little over two hours on Tuesday afternoon in preparation for their SEC
matchup this Saturday at home against Missouri.
Following are comments from coach Kirby Smart:
Opening Statements
‘’We had a good practice
today. It was a little warm out there. We went outside at the
halfway point and let both units go outside. It was about 92, 93 degrees,
so it was unseasonably warm. But I thought the guys had good
spirits. We did three or four periods against each other and had good
competition, and I think both groups continue to improve. We’ve got a
difficult task this week, with an offense we’ve got to defend and also some
things about their defense.’’
How would you characterize
Missouri’s defense?
‘’They move up front. They’ve always been a penetrating, gap defense. They get in 4-3 and
they’ve started to play a little more odd front, 3-4, and they do a lot of
games up front, which allows them to get some tackles for loss. They’re
fourth in our conference in tackles for loss. They do a good job of
creating negative plays by what they do. They’ve given up some plays in
that exchange. I think they played their best game, I thought, against a
good Kentucky football team the other night. I know they’ll be ready for
us. They played us really well last year.’’
How would you assess the play
of Andrew Thomas to this point in the season?
‘’He’s a freshman out there
playing in what I think is the toughest conference in the country. He’s
holding up, he’s holding his own. We haven’t put him in a lot of really
tough positions. We try to avoid that, whether we cover him up, or being
able to run the ball helps with that. But he’s mature beyond his years
and he’s very understanding of how important practice is, which I think allows
him to play well.’’
How beneficial is it for your
run defense to have the running backs that you have?
‘’It helps. It helps
Nick, Sony, Holyfield, Brian, Swift, even Prather Hudson comes over. Those guys roll down on the scout team and give us a great picture.’’
Do your receivers and tight
ends have a good level of buy-in to block on the perimeter, to run the ball as
well as you have?
‘’I think they do a great
job. They’re doing a much improved job this year, as opposed to last
year, in terms of understanding the importance of team, of team goals and team
success. I think a lot of that is our off-season program and our mindset
training program from the summer, to put the team ahead of yourself and I think
that’s just important to winning. It’s not the number of catches. It’s the value you get in team goals.’’
How has Davin Bellamy adjusted to
having the heavy wrap on his hand?
‘’I think it frustrates him at
times. He can’t rip off and tear off like he wants to. He can’t
bull and push sometimes. But he’s done a good job. He’s gotten
better with it this week. It was more frustrating for him last
week. I think it’s something he’s got to get used to, and he’s starting
to get more and more used to it. I think he shows a lot of toughness to
go out there and play with it and not really let it concern himself with how he
looks. He’s trying to help the team.
Does he have to continue to
wear it?
‘’We’re not sure yet. He’s got it on right now for practice
for safety purposes. As far as the game we’re not sure yet.’’
How important is it for you to
continue throwing to Mecole Hardman, despite his recent drops in games?
‘’He’s got to catch the
ball. I mean, we’re going to continue to throw it to him. We’re not
going to not throw it to him. I think Mecole’s a work in progress. He’s getting better each week. He’s doing a good job in the return
game. Nobody said it was going to be easy. It’s not natural for a
guy that didn’t play receiver his whole life, to go play receiver. I know
some of you guys in this room compare that to Terry Godwin. That’s not
true because Terry Godwin played receiver (in high school). I recruited
him. Mecole did not and it makes it very different for him.
Is it purely a case of
catching the ball?
‘’It’s running routes, it’s being comfortable catching the
ball. It’s just 10-15 years of that’s not what he did his whole
life. So he’s developing. I think he’s working hard at it, and I
think the guy is going to make a really good player. And to be honest
with you, he’s caught every ball we’ve thrown to him in the past couple of
weeks in practice. It’s not like he’s got the drops. He just hasn’t
had an opportunity, hasn’t had an opportunity in a game in a while.’’
How do you game plan to defend
Missouri quarterback Drew Lock?
‘’Well, of those 30 passes a
game, about 10 to 15 of those are runs that are passes. So your
preparation is to play the run. And you’ve got to defend the pass on top
of it, so it’s really hard because they run the ball and throw the ball the
same play, which is tough. And he’s got one of the quickest releases,
strongest arms I’ve seen. He knows where to go with the ball. He
knows who to stare down to read ‘em. He’s very efficient at doing what he
does, and it’s tough to defend because you think they’re a passing offense, but
they ultimately want to run the ball first.’’
Do you watch the ‘throwdown
videos’ done by your strength staff and what do you think when you see them?
‘’Very entertaining. I’m
an observer just like you are. They kinda come out of right field, so I’m
always intrigued to look and see what’s going on. I’m not part of
production or anything.’’
Describe the strength staff’s
job of energizing the team, something you called attention to after Saturday’s
game:
‘’They do a good job of doing
that. They keep things upbeat and positive, get the players going, their
juices flowing. A lot of times, your strength coach is the person that
has the greatest relationship with the team because they’re with them
year-round, literally. In the winter they’re with them, when we go Spring
recruiting they’re with them, they’re with them in summer. They’re always
with them and they get to be with them through thick and thin, so a lot of
those kids respond well to the strength staff. And I think Scott Sinclair
and his staff do a tremendous job.’’
After the game Saturday, you
talked about the need to develop your passing game more. How will you
manage that this Saturday, especially if your run game is as successful as it’s
been?
‘’I don’t think that you do
that in games. I think, during a game you do what you’ve got to do to
win. You’ve got to take what the defense gives you and take whatever
advantages you get. I think you develop that through practices and we’ve
tried to do that the last several weeks. When we work on the passing
game, we have all the quarterbacks to get comfortable throwing it, the
receivers comfortable catching it and we’ve certainly got to improve our pass
defense. So our guys get to go against it. That’s a practice issue
more than a game issue.’’
Missouri receiver J’Mon Moore
had a lot of success against Georgia last year. Has that matchup been
stressed this year, that rapport he has with Drew Lock?
‘’Yes, but I’ll be honest with
you. The other kid, 84 (Emanuel) Hall on the other side, had an
unbelievable night the other night against Kentucky. They dismissed one
of their wide receivers a couple of weeks ago and these two guys have been
electric. I think they’re two of the best wideouts that we have seen,
with the combination of a good passer. Here’s one of the best wideouts we
faced all of last year, J’Mon Moore, but the other kid was there and he’s
lighting it up this year. So it’s not like you’ve got one guy that’s a
good player. You’ve got two, and they’ve got multiple guys that are
really good wideouts, and a group of tight ends that are really big.’’
What is it about (OL coach) Sam
Pittman that makes him good at handling young players in particular?
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