Kamari Lassiter explains 'eating off the floor' mentality of Georgia defense

Few coaches have proven as masterful a motivator as Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who has guided his program to back-to-back national titles through a combination of elite recruiting and pushing all the right buttons.

Smart is always on the hunt for his new catchphrase, something he can get his players to rally around.

He appeared to find it during spring football practice, coining the term ‘eating off the floor’ as a new mantra. By the end of spring football practice, just about every player on the team seemed to be talking about doing just that.

So what, exactly, does eating off the floor mean at Georgia?

“Eating off the floor is just a mentality: You’re not too big for anything,” defensive back Kamari Lassiter said. “You’re not too big to do the little things right, you’re not too big to do the things that got to you where you are.”

You can certainly argue that Georgia has already been eating off the floor for more than a year.

Repeating as national champions was impressive enough after losing 15 NFL Draft picks following the 2021 campaign. Managing to do it in the manner that Georgia did in 2022, with only two games all year decided by single digits, that was something else.

Can Georgia do it again?

That’ll obviously be a much trickier proposition. Despite the heavy losses after the first national title, the Bulldogs still returned starting quarterback Stetson Bennett.

Now Bennett is gone and a new starter will take over. There’s unlikely to be any sense of entitlement at that position, given the lack of a proven track record so far.

But other spots are worth monitoring.

That’s where eating off the floor has to kick in. It’s as much about the veterans doing their part to set the culture and tone so that Smart and his staff don’t have to as anything else. That’s what’s made Georgia so elite — well, that and some insane talent — over the last couple years.

So it shouldn’t come as a huge shock that exiting spring all anyone could talk about was eating off the floor.

Players were practically shoving each other out of the way to do so. There it is, that healthy sense of competition and striving for more again.

“Eating off the floor is just going in and approaching every day like it’s your last day, giving your best at every opportunity you have,” Lassiter said.