What Was Said: Kirby Smart shares after disappointing Tuesday practice

ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is not one to hide his feelings. After Tuesday’s practice ahead of the matchup with Tennessee, it was easy to see how he wasn’t happy. DawgsHQ was on hand and had everything Smart said shared with you below.

Kirby Smart on how the team preps for Tennessee’s pace…

“I don’t think you can simulate their pace. They’re really good at what they do, they’re fast at what they do. We try to. I don’t really delve into how we practice publicly. We keep that in house. It is tough to simulate.”

Smart on how Amarius Mims has looked in practice…

“He’s been good. He played good. He feels more comfortable with each day. The highs and lows of that injury are common. He feels good.”

Smart on injuries to Warren Brinson and CJ Smith…

“CJ’s dealing with a knee injury. It’s been bothering him, he’s had it off and on for a while. We’re hoping to get him back soon. Warren had a calf injury. We’re hopeful to get him back. He really hasn’t been able to do much this week. He felt it in the game some, but we’re hopeful to get him back. He was out there today moving around.”

Kirby Smart on Brock Bowers’ competitiveness and trying to beat a time getting back from tightrope surgery…

“You’re probably better off asking him that. He wanted to get back. I don’t think, it was never a rush. You don’t rush an injury back, especially not somebody like that. You have markers to hit. When you hit the markers, you go to the next marker. Once you hit the four markers, then it becomes are you capable of playing at a higher level enough level to contribute to the team? It was never about a number of days. It was about the markers. He could click those off and move to the next step each time. He felt like he had the confidence to go out there and play and he did that.”

Smart on throwing the ball more than running it offensively and if it says anything about the program…

“No. We had Nick Chubb and Sony Michel when we got here. We’d be fools to throw it more than we run it. Both first-round picks in my mind. It’s really about your personnel.”

Smart on making sure the offensive coordinator and O-line coach are aligned and how that figured in with hiring Stacy Searels…

“I think we hired Stacy before Mike, but I’m not sure the order of events there. Or maybe Mike was here, but he was an analyst. We hired Stacy because Coach Monken was really comfortable with Stacy. I was comfortable with Stacy. He had worked with him at LSU. I had worked with him at LSU. He’s a really good O-line coach, so the hiring of Stacy didn’t have much to do with Mike. The coordinator/O-line is, like, a big deal, you know, ’cause that’s his go-to guy. So they want to have a good relationship and a good understanding, and philosophies need to marry up. So that was really important to Monken in that hire. Is that what you’re saying? Is that what you’re asking? Because once we hired Mike, it was a no-brainer because he had already been a coordinator. He’d worked with everybody in the room.”

Kirby Smart on what has stood out to him about Mike Bobo and his role as offensive coordinator…

“His ability to adapt to the personnel we have. I mean, he’s had a very rotating lineup. I mean, he’s had this guy in, that guy out; this guy in, that guy. He did have two tight ends; he didn’t have two tight ends. Pearce’s been injured twice, Lawson’s been hurt, Brock’s been hurt. I mean, he’s had backs in and out, in and out. Wideouts in and out, in and out, so the ability to teach concepts and have plug-and-play players [stands out]. His development of the quarterback, his leadership and messaging to the offense is critical ’cause I’m not over there all the time. So he has to be the leader and voice of reason. 

He relies heavily on his staff. He’d be the first to tell you he’s got an incredible staff. Dell, Hartley, B-Mac, Searels are incredible, and the analysts are incredible. So when you put an incredible staff together, you get good decision-making, innovative, a lot of ideas. They present each week to him so that he has good material to pick from.”

Smart on what makes Tennessee’s run game so explosive…

“Well, it’s the backs. It’s the commitment to the run. It’s the spacing of the receivers. You know, they’re not playing in a phone booth — they’re playing in a big farm field. I mean, they’ve got everybody spread out, so when a run spits, it’s going to go for a long way before somebody else gets to it. So your ability to tackle and fit runs is exposed at three times the level, and they almost always have a good box count meaning they got a hat on a hat and they’re at an advantage. A man has to whip another man to be able to stop the run against them, and sometimes you don’t do that.”

Smart on praising Amarius and Brock…

“That’s just a snippet. What you saw, I praised a lot of guys in that moment. I don’t know what they pick and choose to play, I don’t have anything to do with it, but I’m certainly proud of those guys. I was proud of a lot of guys the other night. Jah, Jamaal Jarrett, he came back from injury twice. Proud of all the players that come back from injuries.”

Kirby Smart on crowd noise simulation…

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t go play without it, but I can’t tell you today how much it helps. I honestly don’t know how much it helps. It’s hard to measure that. Some teams could do it more than we do it, but have a young offense and a lot of penalties. You could have a very experienced offense and not do it and not have penalties. It comes and goes. A lot of it has to do with the situation of your team and the focus of your team.”

Smart on if it’s harder to get attention of team playing a team not coming off of their best outing…

“It was today, but I don’t know if it was because of that. I don’t know what it was because of. They must be feeling themselves a little bit. Little disappointed. I don’t think it has anything to do with Tennessee, just a disappointing practice. We’ve had about five really good Tuesdays in a row, but they were not good today.”

Smart on bouncing back from bad practice…

“Having a good core leadership, good culture on your team to respond.”

Kirby Smart on Jonathan Jefferson going down with injury…

“He’s good. Breath just got knocked out of him I think.”

Smart on what he tells his assistants who end up as candidates for other jobs…

“Pick the right one. Be where your feet are. You’ve got a good job, do a good job at your job and you’ll get more opportunities. A lot of jobs out there aren’t better than the one you’ve got.”