Andrew Smart, son of Georgia coach Kirby, hits home run in LLWS Regional game

Andrew Smart is trying to follow in the footsteps of his father Kirby Smart and help his team to a championship. The younger Smart took a step towards doing that on Friday, blasting a home run during a Little League World Series Southeast Regional game.

Andrew Smart and Georgia went on to defeat South Carolina 8-6, thanks in part to Andrew’s big blast. You can watch the home run below:

He's a DAWG. #GoDawgs@GeorgiaFootball #LLWS pic.twitter.com/X5TKIbzIn7

— Little League (@LittleLeague) August 2, 2024

The Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama little league teams are competing at the Little League Baseball Southeast Region tournament. The winner of the eight-team field will advance to the Little League World Series.

Andrew Smart is the youngest son of Kirby Smart and his wife Mary Beth. The Smarts also have twins in Weston and Julia, who were born in 2008.

While his son is succeeding on the baseball diamond, Kirby Smart has led Georgia to two of the past three national titles.

The Bulldogs won the 2021 and 2022 national championships, before coming up just short of reaching the College Football Playoff in 2023.

Georgia once again has a loaded roster for the 2024 season and is considered one of the favorites to win the national title heading into the upcoming season.

Greg McElroy reveals his main concerns about Georgia ahead of 2024

While Georgia is one of the favorites to win it all in 2024, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some concerns with the Bulldogs.

There’s has been very little if anything wrong with Georgia over the past three seasons. Still, going into 2024, Greg McElroy has two main questions for these Bulldogs coming in.

McElroy shared those issues during the latest episode of ‘Always College Football’ on Monday.

For him, that began with their run defense from last fall. Georgia allowed 113.6 yards per game at 3.8 yards per carry. For reference, that was up 35.6 total yards and one yard a carry from their combined rushing defense averages from the pair of seasons prior when they won consecutive national titles.

“Here’s the problem – 2023 rushing defense statistics. Remember, we are not comparing Georgia to your average football team. I am comparing Georgia to Georgia, to the best versions of Georgia, okay? If you can’t stop the run in the SEC, you’re going to have some issues. In 2023, they were 20th in the sport against the run. They gave up 114 yards per game,” McElroy noted. “That was probably inflated with a couple performances – the ‘Bama game, the Georgia Tech game, the Missouri game. They got gashed on the ground. Were 37th in yards per carry given up. They also had eight percent negative play rate – that was 66th in the country. So they weren’t creating a lot of disruption, they weren’t having as many tackles for loss as maybe they’ve had in the past. They also gave up a decent amount of explosive runs.”

Beyond that, McElroy also dove into the Bulldogs’ schedule as a potential problem. They have had little to no issue the last three seasons with them having gone 42-2. However, 2024 provides some significant challenges throughout, especially with their half that they’ll have away from Athens.

“You have six home games, you got two neutral sites. Then you have four true road games. How about these road games? Kentucky – perennial bowl team. Alabama – perennial playoff contender. At Texas – playoff team last year, likely a playoff contender for the foreseeable future. At Ole Miss,” McElroy said. “Four very difficult road games. Then you’ve got two neutral sites. Clemson – Top-15 team, Top-10 program. Florida – not a Top-15 team but, traditionally, probably a Top-15 program and some years better than that.”