WATCH: Kirby Smart addresses where offense can improve entering Tennessee week

ATHENS, Ga. — Monday kicked off a big week in the Classic City as Georgia takes on Tennessee. It’ll be a night kick at Sanford Stadium – the first of the year in Athens – with lots of implications after UGA suffered a second loss on Saturday. The Bulldogs are fighting for their College Football Playoff hopes. Meanwhile, the Volunteers are trying to get into the SEC Championship. DawgsHQ was on hand to hear from head coach Kirby Smart and a pair of players. Here’s what was said…

Kirby Smart Opening Statement…

“I’m excited for this matchup. Two top teams in the country getting ready to play. Thank goodness it’s at our place. We get to come home and play. Night game, should be an electric atmosphere. It is every time we play them. They’ve got a tremendous team, Josh has done an unbelievable job with this team. They’re playing at a high level. Just got through watching a bunch of their special teams. I always say you can tell the character of a team and how good a team is and how hard they play by their special teams. They play really hard, defense, offense, 

I think they’re top in the conference, maybe top three, top two, in almost every category on offense and defense, which, as you know, that was what we faced last week. They were pretty high in both. But this team is playing defense at an extremely high level, and they have an extremely explosive offense and extremely physical offense. So it’s a great test. Nico’s playing really well in terms of athleticism, and he’s got a great arm talent. As you sit down and watch games, you start to realize how good this team is and how well they’ve played. 

So they’ve got a tremendous football team, and we’ve got a tremendous football team. And it’s going to be a great opportunity for these two to go play and square off in what’s a pivotal matchup. I mean, it’s going to be a great matchup at night, at our place, and on a national stage. So it’s what you come to Georgia to play in, and it seems like we have been in a bunch of these type of games, especially this year. So we’ve got to get our team prepared as coaches to play their best game, and they’ve got a great team.”

Smart on considering approaching this game like a de facto playoff game…

“I don’t ever take those approaches. I don’t think they’re the right way to go about things. I think you’re trying to win your conference all the time, and to do that you’ve got to win your games at home. You’ve got to play well on the road, which we have and haven’t. We’ve done both. But I like making it about who we play and how we play and less about just outcomes.”

Smart on anything he would like to try and change about the offensive approach…

“Execution would be the biggest thing. I feel like there’s been a couple — you call them wasted plays or wasted drives where we have a stupid penalty, we have a good play with a negative play with a penalty, and you start kind of backed up and screw things up. We haven’t had a lot of great field position the last couple of games where we have had some unfortunate things with special teams that have happened. But be more efficient is the most important thing, and that’s our biggest struggle is staying ahead of the chains for third downs and putting together drives where we don’t have turnovers. I mean, at the end of the day if you have two to three turnovers a game more than the other team, you’re not going to win a lot of games if you have that many more turnovers in them.”

Smart on striking the balance between getting the hurt offensive linemen ready for Tennessee and helping them get healthy…

“Well, you go with what the medical people give you, you know what I mean? If a guy’s healthy enough to practice, he practices. If he’s not, then he doesn’t. So I go with the recommendation of the tremendous training staff we have. Those kids want to practice. They want to go out there and do it. Sometimes they can, sometimes they can do certain things and they can’t do others. I defer to those guys, and most of the time, especially on your offensive line, it’s like the toughest unit you have. So they’re going to give you everything they’ve got, and they want to go out there and practice and play. But in some cases they can, in some cases they can’t.”

Kirby Smart on what he’s seen from Earnest Greene this year…

“Yeah, Earnest is, number one, he plays the hardest position in all of football, which is the left tackle position. I think he’s done really well. We’ve rolled some there, and Monroe spells him sometimes. Earnest has been dealing with an injury, a really tough injury to manage, and he has burners. He’s got some stingers and burners over there on his shoulder. So even he last week was limited in how much reps he could get in practice. So for him, he’s frustrated because right now he’s trying to improve and get better, and sometimes you can’t do that when you can’t practice every single day, and you can’t go out there and maybe bang and compete like you want to. But for a guy that’s played left tackle for really two years in major college football, and he’s been part of an offensive line that has done a great job protecting the quarterback over the course of two years.”

Smart on how similar Ole Miss and Tennessee are offensively…

“Not real similar. Two different offenses.” 

Smart on how the offensive line played against Ole Miss…

“Yeah, I think there’s a lot of plays where we blocked really talented, good players. We were able to run the ball at times effectively against a really talented defense. There were others where we didn’t block them, and our backs made some extremely, really good plays. I mean, I thought Trevor and Nate had some of their best runs of the year, considering what the blocking was or what we got done up front. And then you go to the pass game, and there were times we blocked them and times we didn’t. At the end of the day, when you play from behind and a team can rush the passer like they do. Their number one, Princely is an elite rusher. He did not play against LSU. They threw the ball, LSU threw the ball like 50 times in that game. You’ve got to wonder, if that guy’s out there for 50 passes, does he have an impact on the game? He had an impact on our game, for sure, and he does a really good job. But our guys, I’m completely confident in our offensive line. I think our offensive line has got a good offensive line. We can’t put them in harm’s way. And when you play on the road, guys, there’s not a guy in this room that’s lined up at left tackle with 80,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs and he knows it’s a pass. He gets a distinct .5 advantage, and .5’s a lot. Trust me, I know from coaching in this league, it’s hard to do. You’ve got to find ways to help people. You’ve got to be able to run the ball to slow it down. And you’ve got to help them out some.”

Smart on how he decides what to tell QBs when dealing with adversity and what Carson Beck needs to hear…

“Well, there’s need to hear, and then there’s need to reaffirm what’s true. What’s the actual truth? Because we don’t deal in narratives and themes, and what people say, and social media fodder, and what you guys think. We deal in truths, and the truth is what we usually say to them. Like, that’s a good decision. That’s a poor decision. That’s a good drop. That’s a bad drop. That’s a good protection of the ball. If you’re going to take a sack, that’s a poor protection of the ball. We deal in truths, and we don’t go much past that.” 

Kirby Smart on if they have considered a QB change or a different package in games…

“Absolutely not. We’ve got a quarterback we’ve got who’s completely competent, capable, and understanding of our system that gives us the best chance to win.”

Smart on the main reasons he feels the offense has struggled…

“Well, we’ve played really good defenses. So you guys will look at a stat sheet, and you’ll say, where do they rank? And I’ll say, well, against who? Because relative to who we’ve played, we’ve played some really good teams. But I would be remiss if I would say that we’re happy with where we are. We’re not happy with where we are. We’ve played some really, really, really, really good defenses, I think, this year, more than most people in terms of their schedule. And when you look at in SEC games, the ones that matter the most, SEC versus SEC, and you look at all those, it’s not as glaring as a difference because there’s some really good defenses in our league in terms of what you play against. But we want to be more productive. We want to be able to throw the ball vertical down the field. We want to be able to shoot play action. Play action is set up off of your backs and off of your ability to run the ball. In some games, we have been able to run the ball better than others. In some games, we’ve been able to drop back pass better than others. But regardless of those two things, you must protect the ball. And we have not done that. And that’s the key to the drill. If you don’t turn the ball over, guys, you’re going to have a chance to win. And then the flip side of that is you’ve got to get turnovers. So where are our strip outs? Where are our rip outs? Where are our takeaways, I would say. Because to win turnover margin, it’s a two-way street. It’s not just a one-way street.” 

Smart on Colbie Young…

“The legal process has got to play itself out. Look, we want to support Colbie where we can. We continue to provide him with access to our facilities and the support resources we have, whether that’s Rankin [M. Smith, Sr. Student-Athlete Academic Center], the training room, mental health, weight room. But the legal process has to play itself out before we can do anything.”

Smart on Jake Pope’s viral video…

“What an idiot. Just stupid. I didn’t see it until today. He’s embarrassed about it. He’s upset about it. That’s obviously a childhood friend of his, they grew up and played with at Buford. Hadn’t seen him in forever. Just not real smart. But to be honest with you, I don’t have time to waste energy on that. You know what I’m saying. My focus is on Tennessee. I’m not real worried on that.”

Kirby Smart on if NIL has made him more worried about commitments sticking…

“I’ve been worried about people committed to us before NIL. You know what I’m saying? There’s no commitment that is done until it’s signed. You know what I mean? Even when they’re signed, they’re not done. So I don’t know that if you’re trying to make it about NIL causes this, I can’t say that because it was that way before NIL.”

Smart on what stands out about Tennessee’s pass rush…

“They’re extremely disruptive with four people. They don’t have to add in — they do pressure and they pressure well, but they don’t have to. They get after people with four guys rushing. They two-platoon, play a lot of guys. They got elite rushers on the edge, which we all know about, but nobody talks about how hard they play internally. I think Coach Garner’s done a tremendous job with the physicality they play with across the board on the defensive line. It’s tremendous, and they play really hard.”

Smart on if the SEC is more competitive in years past and, if so, why…

“Yeah, I think statistics say there’s more parity. I mean, just looking at the sheer differentials in games, looking at the matchups, looking at the number of teams that are still in it. Some of that’s because of the non-divisions. It brings everybody into it, but there’s a lot of good football teams, and it’s a war of attrition. It’s like I’ve talked about all year. It’s an emotional roller coaster that you don’t want to be a part of. You want to navigate this thing with a long-term mindset in your approach to it, and there’s a lot of good football teams out there, and there’s a lot of good games left to be played. There’s a lot of good teams left to play games.”

Smart on how Carson Beck and the offensive line are doing in terms of communication with things like protections and checks and how that’s evolved with the line sometimes shuffling…

“Protection checks, he’s elite at. He does a great job. He’s really smart. He does an awesome job. The communication is, there’s no communication issue there. If anything, it’s blocking, you know what I mean? Like, you got to go physically block them and get them blocked. It’s not a communication [issue]. It’s, you know, one-on-one. I mean, the same way our guys beat people at times, one-on-one pass rush. Sometimes you get beat, and it’s usually not a communication error for us.”

Kirby Smart on areas where Georgia has gotten better since the bye week…

“Well, I would say the tackling on defense was a big, big deal for us, and at times we’ve shown the ability to prove. I don’t know which bye week you’re referencing. I guess you’re talking about the last one. Yeah, after the Texas game. So we worked really hard on some protection things that we wanted to do differently on offense. We’ve been able to utilize some of those. Some of those were in the Florida game, not necessarily in the Ole Miss game where we were in a little bit more pass-happy situation. But I thought that Nate Frazier’s improved a lot during that time. He’s gotten better. I think special teams-wise, we’ve added a few wrinkles. We’ve changed a couple things schematically, defensively that we’re doing different. The improvement is not seen sometimes in two games. It’s seen over a course of time, and it’s a continuum, right? It’s not like we’re saying, ‘Okay, it’s this jump.’ It’s like every practice we have since the bye week. We’ve had, I don’t know, not 14, but 14 days. We’ve had a lot of practices where the improvement for us is these younger players that have gotten more reps and continue to get better. Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t get to play because the games we’ve been in have been a lot tighter.”

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