Inside Georgia's, Kirby Smart's mentality with Andy Staples
I learned something about Kirby Smart today. Georgia’s football mentality fascinates me, and I spoke with Andy Staples about it in this week’s Wednesday Conversation.
Staples, of course, is a College Football extraordinaire in his own right.
But he also wrote a couple of books with the late Trevor Moawad – a mental coach who worked with several athletes and college athletics programs before his passing in 2021.
(You can check the books out here and here)
Well, Moawad worked with the Dawgs – among other teams – throughout his career.
One of his approaches included encouraging athletes to ‘get to neutral’ – something Georgia’s players worked on alongside other team-building exercises called ‘skull sessions.’
Smart uses advice from another mental coach named Drew Brannon now. It’s clear that the Dawgs don’t just attack teams with blocking and tackling.
Their mindset is just as dangerous.
Yes, the athletes and X’s and O’s of Kirby Smart’s program dominate the opposition
But you don’t win a National Championship, lose all of that NFL talent, and win like Georgia’s winning under Kirby Smart with those elements alone.
You have to have it between the ears.
Still, it’s been a work in progress for Smart and his team.
“I’m having a little trouble getting to neutral here,” Smart told Moawad, according to Staples, at halftime of the Rose Bowl.
As you know by now, the Dawgs found their footing.
You can hear how Smart implemented the mindset – and encouraged his defense to step up in an unconventional way – starting at the 5:46 mark in this conversation with Andy Staples:
Will Levis’s stat sheet
It’s fair to say that Kentucky quarterback Will Levis is on a bumpy road.
The heralded Wildcat QB had tons of NFL hype coming into the 2022 season. Now he has to face a vicious Georgia defense coming off of a loss to Vanderbilt.
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Levis hasn’t thrown for more than 200 yards in a game since a win over Mississippi State on October 15th.
“I didn’t foresee his offensive line being as bad as they’ve been, and that is really the problem,” Staples said.
“If you look at Will Levis’s actual numbers, he’s not been that bad. But they’re an offense that really doesn’t expect him to put up massive numbers. They’re not expecting the kind of numbers that Drake Maye puts up for North Carolina, or Hendon Hooker puts up for Tennessee. They expect him to be more in the Stetson Bennett vein. But the problem is, they’ve not been able to block. They can’t get the running game going.”
Staples went on to note that Levis does complete 66% of his passes, and averages over eight yards per throw.
But all of the other stuff doesn’t bode well for Georgia’s defense, which is the best in the SEC.
Who would portray The Mailman in a Stetson Bennett movie?
This was a classic, quirky question that I knew Staples could handle.
He stumbled out of the gate a little bit. Went too literal in the age category and overthought it for a moment.
But once I steered him back on course and brought him back to neutral, he didn’t disappoint.
You’ll have to watch the video to hear our one-of-a-kind conversation on that, which you’ll only hear at DawgsHQ.
We’re built different. Hop on and find out.
