Georgia players explain expectations for playing Lanning-led Ducks
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said that this weekend’s game between his Bulldogs and Dan Lanning’s, his pupil, Oregon Ducks isn’t personal. But Smart won’t be the only one in a weird place on Saturday. Many of the players suiting up in red and black were recruited and coached over the last couple of years by the man leading the team in green. On Monday, they shared about what they expect Saturday to be like.
“I don’t think too much of it,” outside linebacker Nolan Smith said. “He coached me for three years and he’s an amazing coach. I know he’s going to have those guys fired up and ready to play for him.”
Smith and Lanning spent three years together in the same position group. He was asked about him at SEC Media Days, and at his opening press conference for Week One, Lanning said that he thinks the Georgia defense takes on Smith’s personality.
Meanwhile, on the offensive side of the football, Georgia knows what to expect some having gone up against Lanning’s defense every day in practice. Furthermore, the play callers understand his tendencies, what he likes and, of course, what he doesn’t like to do too.
“I think to a certain extent, you kind of have to anticipate that Coach Lanning will do what he loves to do, send pressures and things like that,” offensive lineman Sedrick Van Pran said. “But at the same time, I think we should expect a little bit of a mix up, something that he may have seen that we do from being around us.”
“I guess he’s probably more familiar with the way we go about day-to-day things than any other DC that we’ll face this year,” quarterback Stetson Bennett added. “You know, I could be wrong, not really thinking about it. But, you know, you can’t let that affect yourself too much because either way we could overreact ’cause we think that he thinks this, or we could think that we think we know what he’s doing and overreact. You know, you can play all kinds of brain [games]. At the end of the day, you’ve got to be able to block counter, and you’ve got to be able to fill counter, right? So, that’s what we’re doing.”
As for how Lanning sees things, he shared some of those thoughts too. Like Smart, to him, this game isn’t about him or any of the other coaches that have connections. It’s all about the players.
“The biggest carryover is going to be, I’d probably have a good feel for what they’re going to do defensively and how they’re going to do things defensively. And on the same note, they probably have a good feel on how we’re going to do things defensively,” Lanning said. “Right? So I think the challenge of a coach is ultimately, you know, Kirby Smart’s not gonna play a single snap on Saturday, and neither is Dan Lanning. Right? So it doesn’t really matter what I know. It matters what my players know and what they can execute. And sometimes coaches try to get too cute. It’s gonna come down to takeaways, it’s gonna come down to explosive plays, right? Who can out hit, who can out hustle, right, who can tackle on the perimeter? You know, that’s what this game is really about. And certainly, there’s going to be a schematic advantage on both sides, at times. But that’s not ultimately what it’s about. It’s about who can put their players in position to make plays.”
