What Was Said: Kirby Smart gets Clemson week underway at Georgia

ATHENS, Ga. — Clemson week is underway, and that means Kirby Smart spoke with reporters mid-day Monday to get this going. The now ninth-year head coach shared his usual respect for the opponent. He knows the Tigers’ roster well having recruited several of the players as prospects. There’s coaching cross over with offensive assistant Matt Luke and plenty to talk about on the Georgia side of things too.

DawgsHQ was on hand to hear from Smart – plus the two Bulldog players (Carson Beck and Mykel Williams) that spoke after him. We’ve got video available for you on our YouTube channel, but if you want to read what was said, a full transcript can be found below…

Kirby Smart’s Opening Statement

“Welcome to Monday of game week. Our guys got work in on Thursday, Friday, a little bit Saturday, and then starting back today after Sunday off on Clemson. Our guys are excited for a great matchup. I guess we’ll get the earliest kick of the day, so should be exciting in terms of all the people across the country are going to be waking up on the west coast, getting to watch a great game and really a great rivalry. A rivalry that if you look back, I didn’t realize how many years consecutively Georgia played Clemson for a long time.

Just a lot of respect for their program, what Dabo’s done. He’s done an incredible job. He’s got a great culture there, great environment. You think about their coaching staff, how intact it’s been able to stay, how many coaches he’s had go on to be head coaches. They do a tremendous job recruiting our state. We go head to head with them quite a bit. When you look across their roster, there’s a lot of kids that we were really close to. I’m sure it’s the same way with them.

It should be an awesome environment. I have so much respect for the Kickoff Classic game, Gary Stokan and his staff, Aflac is near and dear to my heart. They’ve done a tremendous job in our state. For them to take over this cause, I think it’s a great event. To have two teams like this, it’s going to be awesome.”

Smart on what he looks at when evaluating a team like Clemson…

“You study the history of the coordinators and look at that hard. Dabo has an impact on the offense, so you look at what he’s done through his time being there. The most recent you look at is last year’s games. Nobody is exactly what they were the year before, but you don’t have any other options to study. You don’t have game film of this year. This is the only game that we’ll go into without game film of this year, so it all starts to change. But I’m sure everybody across the country is the same way. You have a new wrinkle, you have a new player that’s an impact that you’re trying to use in a certain way. What are you going to do different, what are you going to do the same? At the end of the day, coaches chase all those things. It boils down to who blocks the best, who tackles the best, who makes the least catastrophic mistakes, avoiding turnovers, and being explosive.”

Smart on Clemson QB Cade Klubnik…

“It seems like he’s been there forever. This is I guess his third year. He’s a great, really good athlete. He’s played a lot of football for a guy that age. He has the ability to scramble, make plays on his feet, has some more weapons around him. I think he’s a lot more comfortable now in their offense. You can see that throughout the year last year as you watched the season go on, how much more comfortable he got, especially when they started going to Phil (Mafah) a lot more as their featured back. They became a much more physical team. The addition of Matt Luke, he’s a tremendous coach, he was here with us. I think that makes them even more versatile in some of the things he’s going to bring to the table. Cade’s been a great asset for them. I know he’ll be very experienced.”

Smart on Matt Luke and what to expect from one of his offensive lines…

“Toughness. He’s got an extremely experienced offensive line. I want to say it’s almost 100 starts. Three of the five guys have over 25 or something. That’s crazy. Very rare in college football to have a person with more than 25 starts because that means he stayed, or at least they’re coming into their third season starting. They’ve got a tremendous offensive line in terms of the amount of experience they have starting. I would have thought ours was one of the most experienced offensive lines in the country, but theirs has got more starts than ours. I know Matt will do a tremendous job. They’ll play with toughness, effort. I’m sure he’ll add some wrinkles to their offense. He’s a really good football coach.”

Smart on Colbie Young’s availability and work the last few weeks…

“Yeah, Colbie’s been great. He’s, ever since the scrimmage, not this Saturday but the Saturday before that, he’s been able to get out there and run and do some things. He’s practiced ever since we started on Clemson full-go, so he’s been great. He should be ready to go.”

Smart on familiarity with the Clemson roster from recruiting, state of Georgia players on Tigers’ roster…

“I don’t know if I have a better identity. I guess, compared to what? To other teams we play? When you play more teams in your conference, and you see them more in overlap film. A lot of times you can see defensive players in the SEC multiple times in your breakdown. Clemson, you won’t see in your breakdown very often. We do know a lot of their players, but it’s offense and defense both in terms of that. There are a lot more Georgia flavor to their defense. Some of that may be the area their coaches on defense recruit. I know they’ve got a former high school coach in Georgia on their defensive staff. A lot of good defensive players from our state on their defense.”

Smart on the Georgia running back rotation…

“Yeah, I’m really excited about the backs we’ve got. The guys have worked really hard. They continue to grow and get better. Rod’s toe is still an issue for him, but anytime you’re going into a new season, you’re like, what do I have? You don’t really know what you have. That’s why it’s so critical in our spring to go out and play our spring game like it’s a game because it’s the first version of your new self. Then you go through the scrimmages, which we’ve had two, and you try to find out the best version of yourself in those scrimmages because those are preseason games in the NFL terms. I felt really comfortable with where our backfield is in those games. They’re doing a good job. At Georgia, we don’t say, let’s start all over. There’s been these guys that have been in our program that have been picking up stunts, blitzes that our defense runs. We do two-spot walkthroughs where they get to pick stuff up. So there’s a lot of guys that have had a lot of reps doing those things that hopefully have great games Saturday.”

Smart on Rod Robinson’s surgery and Warren Brinson’s status…

“Warren looks good. He’s practiced every day we’ve practiced for Clemson. He’s done a good job. He didn’t get the luxury of going through camp, which, to me, camp is what you build your foundation on, so he missed some time in camp. But he also has had four camps in his time at Georgia, so it’s not like it’s his first go-round in terms of that. And yeah, Rod did have surgery on his toe.”

Smart on locker room chemistry being managed in the NIL era with Carson Beck specifically…

“Yeah, I think each individual person responds differently to how they perceive NIL. To assume it’s a problem in the locker room is not a good assumption. To assume it’s not is probably not a good assumption. We try to address that early with our team back in January and February when you start brand new that everybody is in a different position. It’s no different when we show the NFL salary cap. We show the NFL minimum and highest thing you can get at each position with franchise players. It’s very obvious what a starting quarterback’s making in the NFL. By no means do I think we are the NFL, but our kids acknowledge and recognize the quarterback is a different position when it comes to NIL. And Carson does a good job handling that. It’s never been about that with him. He’s very humble, he works hard, he’s a leader and the players respect what Carson went through to get where he is. And I think he earned that.” 

Smart on what Beck can do now that he’s entering his second season as a starter… 

“I was pretty comfortable with Carson last year to be honest with you. He’s seen a bunch of live bullets in practices. When you’ve got a guy that’s been in your program as long as he has and done as many drills and pickups and blitzs and third downs, that was not my biggest concern last year and won’t be my biggest concern this year in terms of his ability to execute and understand what defenses are trying to do. He’s seen most of it. It’s more about can he elevate the people around him’s game. Can he make them better? And that’s one of the things he’s been working on.”

Smart further on the growth of Beck… 

“He’s very comfortable in the offense. I think coach Bobo, coach Hartley, all the guys on offense that make decisions, they know they can probably put a little more on his plate in terms of volume. You’re always limited by the other people around you. I think that’s key in the first game. We’re not overloading their plate to appease Carson. Being smart about how much you game plan. How much you put in versus what you do well. What do you do all year round well?

Smart on the running back room’s availability…

“I’m excited about all those guys. I don’t really talk about any of the other stuff in regards to any of our players with suspensions but I’m excited about all the guys that are going to get an opportunity to play at back. 

Smart on if Georgia has developed depth or depth emerges during the season… 

“The latter.”

Smart on a potential timeline for Robinson’s return… 

“Not real sure. Probably will be week to week. Not sure how long it will take in terms of the surgery.”

Smart on if the decisions regarding suspensions have been made internally… 

“Like I said, we don’t discuss those.”

Smart on Clemson’s approach to the transfer portal…

“Yeah I think that’s much ado about nothing. You have who you have, right? SO in the spring you have I’m going to guess 90, 95 percent of your roster. You might pick up some after that. I think everybody makes a big deal about that. 

I’m like Dabo. If I could keep my entire roster my roster, I’d be all for keeping my roster my roster. I believe in the kids we sign, I believe in the kids we recruit. I want to grow them to get better. It’s not realistic to think you’re going to keep all your players right now. What is realistic you need to be operating with as much depth as possible and it’s made it tougher to do that. 

But as far as evaluating the opposing team, whether they have kids or don’t have kids, one thing you know is they’re going to know their system because they’ve been in it. They’re not new to it. They’re ingrained in it. They know their culture, they know who they are, they know how they play, they know what their standard is, that to me is you can be envious of that. The fact that they have the guys that have been in their program are in their program. 

Smart on Mykel Williams, attacking position change…

“I don’t know where that’s coming from. He’s not really at a new position. All the things he did last year, he’s done this year. He worked last year at outside linebacker in individual period and he worked with the defensive line. Those two are like a mirror. They almost share the same responsibilities. So he’s done the same thing this year that he did last year. I think that’s more of a souped up answer that he’s playing a different position. He’s not really playing a different position. He’s got the versatility to be able to go out and be an outside linebacker because he’s a really good athlete. He can cover and play people, but one of his best, most rewarding qualities is his rush, and we want him to be able to rush.”

Smart on Mercedes-Benz Stadium comfort…

“Hard to say. That’s about five minutes worth of value. Once the game kicks off nobody’s thinking about where they are. They’re thinking about the person they’re playing against.”

Smart on Clemson defensive front…

“You look at it on paper and they say they’ve only got a certain number of defensive starters returning but two of their best players and statistically strong players are back, and they were freshmen who technically didn’t start. Those two guys, (TJ) Parker and Peter Woods, they were both really good players. We knew those guys in recruiting and they’re tremendous athletes with experienced guys coming back. When you look across the defensive front, Clemson is never going to be short there. They’ve got twitchy, fast, hard playing guys. The linebacker crew is extremely instinctive and well coached. You can see they carry over from when Brent left. They don’t miss things in terms of keys and recognition and they play really hard on defense.”

Smart on Clemson LB Barrett Carter…

“First of all he’s a tremendous kid. A high academic kid who went to high school at North Gwinnett, a fun kid to recruit because he had a great personality. He enjoyed recruiting, was up front and honest, didn’t get too enamored in the process. He handled it the right way and made the choice he thought was best for him. He’s become a really good, dominant player, and you can see on tape his instincts and athleticism. He’s a playmaker and they’ve got a good one in Barrett.”

Smart on Branson Robinson’s return…

“It’s been a process. The kid was down in the dumps because he was having a great camp last year. The injury happened and he wasn’t with the rest of the team for a lot of the time. He had to break away, go about things a different way, spend a lot of time in the training room. That is a grueling injury to gro through and work all the way back to the point – he didn’t get to go through all of spring. He did a lot of things but didn’t get to go through all of that in spring, so this fall camp has been big for him in terms of confidence. He’s gained confidence in terms of special teams. He’s gained confidence through reps. He had a good body of work before. He had that entire freshman year where he took a lot of reps during that 2022 season.”

Smart on Clemson RB Phil Mafah…

“Physicality. He’s got a down hill way about him. He’s one of those guys that was that way in high school. The more carries he gets the harder he is to tackle. I think he enjoys it more the more he gets it. They hung their hat on him there late in the season, and he was really physical. I think with that offensive line, tying the experience they have and the size they have to him, it makes any offense better when you can run the ball.”