Wednesday Press Conference

Coach Kirby Smart

Opening Statement

“Our guys have been getting after it this week. We are hoping to get a break for Thanksgiving in the next couple of days. Then, get back together and head over to Columbia, and go over and play the Gamecocks over at their place.”

On his relationship with Mike Bobo...

“He and I obviously go way back. We lived together in college and really grew up not far apart. Our families and fathers were good friends. I know Mike well. I have always been close to him throughout the profession. We’ve worked together a couple of times, and have always remained close. Our immediate families, our kids are friends. We haven’t had a lot of communication this week, obviously. It’s a different kind of week because you are extremely busy. Thanksgiving week is harder because your preparation time shrinks, in terms of not practicing at normal times, moving things up. School is not going on. It’s a little tougher prep time. He and I really haven’t had a time to visit or do anything.”

On who is the better golfer between him and Bobo...

“You know, I don’t really answer questions like that with guys that are above 25 or 30 handicap. I don’t discuss that... Basically, he’s terrible.”

On where the team has improved the most this season...

“Well, different areas. I really feel like—if you look compared to last year you would say, in terms of special teams units, they have outperformed from last year. We had a punter come back which was helpful. Our kickoff returner team has been better. From a standpoint of offensively, I think being explosive in the pass game. We have made some more plays with the receivers downfield. We’ve protected the quarterback well, but we did that as well last year. Defensively, we haven’t probably done as good as some things we had done last year. We didn’t play as well obviously in the Florida game and playing Alabama. So, the level of competition we have played in a lot of instances. We have played some better quarterbacks this year than we did last year. Also, some weather conditions we played in last year weren’t conducive for offense at all. Overall, I am pleased with the effort of the guys. We’ve had really good leadership from those guys.”

On where injuries stand heading into Saturday...

“Pretty similar to what we have been. I don’t know if anything else is different this game than it was for last week’s Mississippi State’s game. I don’t know if there is somebody specific you are asking about, but I don’t see it as a big difference. We are trying to get Jordan [Davis] back. We are still hopeful to get him back. He has been able to do more this week, but we still don’t know if he is ready to go.”

On whether JT Daniels played like they’ve seen him in practice or if he played better on Saturday…

“Again, in practice you get as real reps as you do on Saturdays. There’s no substitution for Saturday reps in terms of functioning on third-downs. During the week you can see the run checks, the organization, the motions, the shifts, the hard counts. A lot of that stuff you can evaluate during the week. The timing of things is just so much more realistic in a game, so to see him do that well was very promising and we want him to continue to improve and continue to make decisions and not force things.”

On how legitimate he feels Georgia’s No. 9 CFP ranking is…

“Well, it’s great to be in the conversation all the time, but I think you said it best. I don’t really get into those and we have to let our play speak for itself. I welcome anybody that wants to jump in our conference and play 10 games, they’re more than welcome to. They can come right on over here with us and play 10 games if they want to play our conference schedule. I’d be more than happy to let them.”

On if the attrition they’ve faced is because of the SEC only…

“I don’t feel like the attrition happened because of the SEC only schedule, I feel like it had to do a lot with the offseason and maybe not, some of it is just luck. Good luck, bad luck and we’ve probably had more injuries. We’ve avoided more COVID-19 issues than some other guys. That’s probably the biggest thing. Going back to the Kentucky game, that’s probably the thing you can point at, is it was a physical, grind you out game on both sides and that probably had a bigger effect on us from an injury standpoint, but that’s the case each and every year. Those injuries didn’t have anything to do with why we didn’t cover a back out of the back field against Florida, that shouldn’t have an effect on that. It’s just not a big part of it to me.”