WATCH: Kirby Smart opens Georgia preparation for Mississippi State with press conference

ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia head coach Kirby Smart addressed the media Monday in Athens to get the week underway. His Bulldogs take on the SEC’s other Bulldogs, Mississippi State, Saturday at Sanford Stadium (4:15 p.m. ET, SEC Network). DawgsHQ was on hand to hear what Smart said. We’ve got a full transcript and video available for you below…

Kirby Smart Opening Statement…

“The 10K Day this Friday, I don’t know if you guys are aware of, but it’s a huge deal for our volleyball program. They’re looking to set an attendance record for an NCAA volleyball match in our state, so the goal is to get 10,000 fans this Friday over to Stegmen. We’re playing South Carolina in the SEC home opener. Admission is free and the match starts around 7 p.m., so we’ll be going over to the hotel for our deal and we may swing by there. But gates open at 6, the match starts at 7, and all fans are encouraged to wear black.

So the hope is we’ll get 10,000 fans to set that record, and I know our volleyball program has taken off and done some really good things, so I encourage everybody to be there for that. 

The other note is we’ll have the green ribbons on the back of our helmets this week in recognition of Tyler Hilinski and suicide prevention and mental health. So we’ll be wearing the green ribbon decals on the back of our helmets in honor of his memory. And with that, I’ll move it on to Mississippi State.”

Smart on whether or not Georgia is kicking kickoffs short by design this year… 

“No, I always prefer to kick it out of the back of the end zone. Our kicker’s doing a good job of getting a great hang time, and we’ve got to continue to improve on that. He’s doing the best job he can.”

Smart on Michael Van Buren stepping up as Mississippi State’s quarterback…

“Yeah I’ll tell you he got thrown into the fire quick. I mean, in the middle of an SEC game to have to go in and play and then turn around the next week and go to Texas. I mean, that was two really tough games. He’s a tremendous athlete. I think they’ve allowed him to do some things that he’s really good at, and they’re mixing the other quarterback in with the quarterback run. So they both are capable runners, but they bring Chris [Parson] in and do more stuff with him. 

You know, I got a lot of respect for Jeff Lebby and his offense and what he’s done and where he’s been. The people he’s worked for in his career are really good offensive coaches, so they’re hard to defend because they space you out, they spread you out, they tempo you, they count your numbers in the box. I mean, they’re almost always going to be right in terms of what they run. You’ve got to beat the man in front of you to beat them. You’ve got to outwork the guy to win two gaps a lot of times because it’s hard the way they play, and they’ve got really good backs.”

Smart on coaching up the bottom of the roster and where young guys are… 

“Well, I don’t know last week that we got to see any of those guys in terms of playing time. I mean, if you’re referencing playing time or practice time, I don’t know. Chris Cole played a little more significant role because of Smael’s injury, so Chris Cole has had to play a little bit more. Quinton (Quintavius Johnson) has taken a bigger role in special teams. KJ started on a couple of units that really helped us. Justin Williams got to play on some special teams. 

But, I mean, I can mention all those kids in practice because in practice they’re getting better. You know, we take a considerable amount of our reps and share them with young players because we want to see them develop. We told them when we brought them here we would develop them and get them better. Sometimes kids only think that means in the game, but you get to go against our 1s if you’re a 2 or a 3 every day. So you play an SEC-quality opponent every day you go out there, and we’re hoping those guys continue to get better.”

Kirby Smart on what cutting it loose looks like…

“Play with no of anxiety, play with no fear of what might happen, execute at a high level, don’t be entrapped by the weather. Play above all that and cut it loose. You earn the right to do that by what you do during the week, and I thought we earned the right to do that. In the game, at times we did and at times we didn’t.”

Smart on fan engagement, the give and take between fans providing energy and the team…

“I said what I said, and I stand on what I said, and feel that it could have been better. But, you know, my job is to coach the football team, and I’m going to do the best I can in my power. I’ve been in some really good places where there’s times that you create a monster, whether it’s when I was at FSU, when I was at Alabama, and you have to appreciate that and you have to create home-field advantages. We’ve had coaches tell us that come in here and play  and say that it was the best environment they played in the entire year, but I didn’t think that was Saturday, and I don’t think I’m the only one that feels that way. My concern is with Mississippi State, not the other. I trust the people that are in charge of it to help. I trust our fans.”

Smart on Christen Miller, Jordan Hall injuries…

“Yeah, I hope they will be able to (play Saturday). We’ll find out today.”

Smart on what the team can do to provide more juice…

“Well, if you take pride in their performance, which I hope our team takes pride in their performance each week, then you worry about what you can control. And our players have an opponent to play, and we’re trying to make it harder on the opponent to play in our environment. It’s as simple as, did we make it harder on them to play in that game? I don’t know. But the pride in the performance that our fans take, that our programming takes, that Josh Brooks and his staff take, and our players take. It’s a collective effort.”

Kirby Smart on not playing with anxiety offensively…

“Yeah, I don’t reference Carson with that. Carson’s, I mean, you start for a year at the SEC and play the games he’s played in, I’m not referencing Carson with that. I never directly said him and I don’t think that he’s played that way. I think Carson is in a good head space. He’s continued to get better. It has nothing to do with him. Probably some other positions that we have younger players at, sometimes they play with a lot of anxiety.”

Smart on Smael Mondon injury…

“We hope to get him back soon.”

Smart on Trevor Etienne…

“Yeah, I thought he performed really well Saturday. He made some things happen with nothing there and then had a couple that I thought maybe he should have got more on, that he’s one step away from breaking one open and using his quickness. He’s got really good open field skills to make people miss, and I think that’s something that we’ve needed around here, a guy that can go make people miss in open spaces. He’s a really good receiver out of the backfield, and more important than all that, he’s one of our best leaders. He holds people accountable. He’s a good kid, and I appreciate the way he’s come into our team and bought into the culture that we have here.”

Smart on Auburn providing a different look and how the coaching…

“Well, we rush three and drop eight on our defense, so it’s not something that when we go against each other we don’t see. We see everything from our defense every week. We don’t go out there and say, okay, we’re only working on this for Auburn. Well, they might play man, but then they might play zone. They also rush three and play man with two droppers,which is eight guys dropping, but it’s man free. So they did a little bit of both, and we continue to see that. Kentucky did that. They did that, and then people max splits. So if you’re a good defense, you’re not going to do the same thing over and over, right? So you pitch to people, especially somebody like Carson. You want to give him different looks. Our answers are within the route tree. I mean, you call a play, this portion of the play is for this coverage, this portion of the play is for this coverage, and Carson usually knows where to go with that.

Kirby Smart on trying to win the game vs. trying to do things that help you moving forward… 

“I’ve never thought of it that way. I look at it as win the game, and do what you have to do in practice. So if I really felt strongly that we needed to improve the passing game or improve the running game, or I don’t really know what you’re getting at with which part we’re trying to improve in game, I would do it in practice periods. I would say, hey, guys, we’ve got to do more of this, because this is our struggles. We’ve got to load the box and run against it. Well, I don’t want to do that. We’ve got to throw the ball when we can throw the ball. I’m very pleased with where we are in terms of it. We’ve played some really good teams,especially when you look at some of the defensive statistics out there with Kentucky and Clemson, what they’ve done. So the most important thing is to get better. I think we do that in practice better than going into a game where we don’t know what’s going to happen in a game. We don’t know. I’m not into experimentation in games.

Smart on Chris Cole…

“Well, number one, he has tremendous pride in performance, and we rank that as one of the number one qualities. A lot of people rank size, speed, height, weight, stars. He is self-aware and has great pride in performance, and that is a number one trait of a winner, of a good athlete, of guys that play as freshmen. He has size. He can run, but he’s really intelligent. He’s very conscientious. We’ve been very impressed with him, the way he’s grown up and gotten better, and he’s still not there. It’s like Raylen and CJ last year. They weren’t ready for what they had to go do, but they had to go play. We need him to keep getting better, and we need Justin (Williams) to come along too.”

Smart on why winning on the road is difficult… 

“The margins are tighter. I don’t think it has anything to do with the road at all. It’s just the margins are tighter.

Everybody’s got the ability to go get people’s backups, and just look at the scores in the league. It’s tighter than it’s ever been.

It’s a really competitive league. We made it better by bringing more people in, and it really boils down to who can play the long game. It’s not about, it is hard to play on the road, yes. But it’s not about that as much as it is these teams are closer than most people realize.”

Smart on the play of the secondary against Auburn…

“I thought we mixed it up well, played some back shoulder balls, got some balls down, had some 50-50 balls we got PIs on. Didn’t come out of breaks in some spots real well, but we changed up coverages. We pitched to them. We were able to pressure them with our front. If you’re going to make people one-dimensional, then they’re going to throw it on you. We didn’t exactly make them one-dimensional from running it, so they had even more downs a lot of times. We got in some second longs and lost some of them. But I was pleased with the secondary because I think that Auburn’s a good team. I think Peyton Thorne’s a good quarterback. I think they have good skill players.”

Kirby Smart on Raylen Wilson and his development…

“Yeah, he’s really intelligent. He works really hard. He’s got great athleticism. I think he needs experience. He’s gaining that rapidly. He’s still just a sophomore, and it seems like he’s had to play more than your typical sophomore. But he’s a very intelligent kid, and he takes a lot of pride.” 

Smart on the RB group as a whole…

“Yeah, I like the depth in the room. I like what Cash brings. I like what Nate brings, what Branson brings, and what Trevor brings. I mean, we have four guys that we really feel good about. The young kid, Chauncey, is doing some really good things. He’s improved immensely since arriving here, and he’s got great toughness, great character, and he’s going to be a really good player. Dwight Phillips has gotten better over on the scout team. A kid that has never played in an environment like this one, he’s getting better. So I like that group as a whole. I think it’s a really good group.”

Smart on Cole Speer playing special teams and teaching players to play there coming out of high school…

“Yeah, from a litigation and insurance spot, we teach them all how to tackle. Because, you know, if a play happens and you’ve got to go tackle somebody, you want them to understand their heads up, how they go about it. He played some growing up. He’s always been physical, and he’s fast, and he’s another guy that takes tremendous pride in his performance. He wants to do it right. It’s important to him. Georgia is important to him, and I love the way he’s playing right now. He plays with great toughness, and without concern for his body, he plays reckless. I like the way he gets after it on special teams. He’s been a great asset for us.” 

Smart on if there was a specific point in the game he was disappointed in the fans and if the team has to give them more to cheer about…

“I’m not like, you’re wanting to make this us against them. That’s not really what this is about. We’re a team. We’re a unit, and I think it’s okay to say how you feel and try to pull the family together and pull in the right direction, and you guys want to make it about Kirby said this.

We’re a team. We’re a team. Let’s do this together. Let’s help each other, not make it about he said and they said. I’m not into that. We need to all be together. That’s, when I got hired here,

It was all about pulling in the same direction, creating an atmosphere that’s hard to play in. You win these games at home, and maybe you take it for granted if you win so many games at home, but I know this. It’s hard. These teams are going on the road all across the SEC. You make it hard on them by what you do and what you create, so it’s not about a specific point in time. It’s about us all pulling in the same direction.”