Brock Bowers shares hilarious story about drawing Kirby Smart's ire at practice

Kirby Smart doesn’t miss much, even when Georgia takes to a pair of practice fields and sprawls the 100 plus Bulldogs across more than 20,000 square yards of turf. Just take it from former star Georgia tight end Brock Bowers.

During a brief interview on SportsCenter on Wednesday, Bowers shared how players were always conscious of their head coach’s ability to catch everything. Even from across multiple fields.

“He’d yell at you and you’d be on the opposite field and you’d be like, ‘How does he even see me doing this right now?'” Bowers said.

Adding to the experience was the fact that Smart had a microphone hooked up to the speaker system around Georgia’s practice facilities. It means the coach doesn’t even need to make his way to the player to chew them out.

And it also means the players not getting yelled at make a point to stay out of their coaches gaze while he’s angry.

“I’d just say at practice, every single day he had the mic and it was connected to all the speakers around our practice field. And he’d get on somebody on another field and you don’t want to be caught in the vision, or else he’d get on you too,” Bowers said. 

The practices were always for the better, for Bowers and all the Bulldogs

Bowers is one of the top prospects ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft, taking home the John Mackey Award twice in his three-year college career presented annually to college football’s most outstanding tight end.

Bowers did so playing in the SEC, the conference that most consider the most competitive across all of college football comprising of the most talent. But the competition at his practices may have been even stiffer, consistently facing one of the most elite defenses in college football history during his time in Athens.

“We always said the practices were gonna be harder than the games and that’s how it was,” Bowers said. “I mean coming in there going against guys like Travon Walker, having Jordan Davis, and Nakobe [Dean], and Quay [Walker], and all those NFL dudes. I mean I think after my freshman year all those dudes were on NFL rosters and just doing their thing. So it definitely made me better throughout my three years.”

Bowers bust onto the scene in his freshman season with the Bulldogs, ending the year with 56 receptions for 882 yards and 13 touchdowns en route to a national championship victory. He made a multitude of All-American teams and earned numerous Freshman of the Year awards following the season, but before the season, he had to prove he belong on Georgia’s practice field against a historic defense.