Kirby Smart shares on second scrimmage, focus for rest of fall camp

Georgia has entered the home stretch of fall camp. Fifteen practices down. Ten to go. And then it’s game time against Oregon. But today, two weeks before that season-opening matchup between the Dawgs and Ducks, Kirby Smart got to see his team in a game-line setting for the second time this season, and it’s safe to say he was happier than he was after the first.

“I thought it was warm today, which was great. We needed it to be. It was not as hot last week, so I thought the temperature allowed us to play through and push,” Smart said, speaking to media members on Zoom afterwards. “I did not think we started with as much energy at the start of practice as we did last week, but we did sustain better and had good ebbs and flow. Offense made some plays in some situational stuff; defense made some plays. I was pleased with the overall effort and very pleased with the toughness we’ve had in camp. At this point, we’ll be moving forward toward getting prepared for some future opponents and we’ll start on Oregon.”

A big part of the reason why today was better from Smart’s perspective? He saw more leadership out on the field. Especially on the defensive side of the ball. After the defense got roughed around a little bit last week, Smart said that there was more energy and they responded well this time out.

“Jalen Carter has done a great job. Pop (Jamon Dumas-Johnson) has done a great job. Trezmen Marshall has, Kelee Ringo has, Kamari Lassiter has. There are several guys that have stepped up and really taken on that responsibility,” Smart said. “Even Robert Beal. He’s not a guy of many words, but he has certainly been around here a long time like William Poole. We’ve got a lot of guys that know how to do it and have seen it done right. They haven’t been the featured player, but they understand how to lead and have seen it done the right way.”

“We talked a long time about connection,” he continued. “Connection is one of our four DNA traits. Connection is seen or heard through language or touch. If you want to visually see connection, you have to touch somebody—you have to high-five somebody, celebrate with somebody, you have to be connected. You see that through what you say. I don’t think you can be really connected if you don’t have great energy and focus. If you’re showing good energy and staying focused onto what’s going on, that usually creates a good connection. I thought we had more moments later in the scrimmage. Last week, it just flattened out. This week, it was more upward. It got better in terms of energy as the scrimmage went on, which at least lets me know that they are in better shape.”

At this point, like Smart said in his opening statement, the attention turns away from full on camp mode to a little bit more preparation for the season. Georgia will look into specific things that different teams do that are on their schedule before the bye week. Of course that includes Oregon who the Bulldogs open the season up against on September 3rd, two weeks from today. But still, the focus doesn’t turn completely to the Ducks.

“We don’t touch it just yet,” Smart said. “We would be reassessing our team and our roster, stacking the roster. We are going to look at some numbers and say, ‘If we have to go on the road in the SEC, who are the 70? Who are the 80? Who are the 85? Where do those number fall? What are the decision we have to make? If we are not taking that guy, then we are taking that guy.’ We have a lot of things to look at in the next day or two as the players get a little recovery time.”

“We will start working as coaches on Oregon in the next couple of days, but not with the players until later in the week,” he continued. “We will work on some future opponents we got before the off week in the coming days just so we have a little bit of history there when we get ready to play them.”

Georgia players get the day off on Sunday before the start of the final week of fall camp on Monday. Then, once camp is over, it’s on to the season and game-week with Oregon in Week One.