What Was Said: Kirby Smart shares on Georgia G-Day 2024

ATHENS, Ga. — G-Day is in the books, and the 2024 edition of the annual Georgia spring game has ended in a tie. With the red and black squads scoring 20 a piece, Kirby Smart joked that neither team is deserving of the steak and lobster dinner reward and that both should eat beanie weenies.

That’s not all that he had to say. Talking about the performance of Carson Beck, the defensive back and much more, DawgsHQ has it all for you. Here’s what Smart had to say after G-Day 2024.

Kirby Smart Opening Statement…

“Yeah, I always try to thank the fans. I appreciate them coming out. We had great weather today, little windy, but considering the weather we’ve practiced in, I thought the weather conditions were awesome. I thought our players handled it the right way. I wanted to handle it like a game, very game-like situations. Next time we put on those uniforms it’ll be for real. We’ll be playing in Atlanta against a really good opponent. We want to find out where we are as a team and get a lot of guys reps. We’re kind of where we’ve got guys that have gotten a lot of work and a lot of reps, fifth-year, fourth-year guys. But then we’ve got about 40 guys that are in their first year. The discrepancy between old and young is really great. I thought the defense played much better today than they did in previous scrimmages in terms of energy, enthusiasm, running to the ball. We rushed the passer better today. The offense probably didn’t have as good a day as maybe they’ve had in two scrimmages, but some of that was dictated by the terms of which we scrimmaged with which was passing and loose plays. They did a nice job of handling that in the second half. Overall, I don’t evaluate things on today. I know you guys will ask questions and talk about today. For me it was about the entire spring, 15 practices. Very pleased with our health coming out of it.”

Smart on how the operation was today…

“It was better second scrimmage than the first scrimmage, and it was better today than the first two scrimmages. We had one delay of game which wasn’t really the offense’s fault. We had an injured player on the field so we slowed down and the officials kept it going. Operation-wise I was very pleased. We got to use the new headset model. Both quarterbacks had headsets in and could talk to the coordinators up until 15 seconds. We had one on defense, so we were able to use three of those, get comfortable with it. Operation-wise, we put so much on our practice operation that the game is usually easy.”

Smart on Mykel Williams…

“First and foremost, he’s been, what’s the right word, present. He’s been able to practice. He has not, he had spring practice last year, he missed some practices. He had fall camp last year, he missed some practices. I explained to him, if you want to have a really good year, you want to have a really good camp. He’s kind of bought into that. Practicing good makes you better. It’s not his fault, he’s been injured. But you can’t play good if you don’t practice. I thought that he had a really good spring from a standpoint of leadership, toughness. He didn’t get a ton of reps. The guy’s been a two-year starter. But it’ll be a chance to get Ty more reps when we come back in the fall, continue to increase Joseph Jonah-Ajonye, and then Justin Greene. We’ve got some defensive ends that can spell him. He was a factor today.”

Kirby Smart on Colbie Young…

“First and foremost, I think all across the board, our wideouts may be our best leadership group. O-line maybe and then receiver. They have some really good core leaders. He has integrated himself into that group really well. He’s not the alpha leader, he’s a quiet kid. What impresses me about him is he’s showing up on special teams. I’m like, when you show up on special teams and you show a commitment to blocking and holding people up, he’s been a really good special teams player. We sold him that if you came here, you had to buy into those values. It’s made him tougher, more physical. He’s a big body, he’s a tough matchup for all teams. I’m pleased with where he is. He still has work to do in terms of learning. I look at him like RaRa last year. This time last year, RaRa didn’t understand the offense. He couldn’t line up and execute all the time. RaRa’s a lot further along. We didn’t have to give him as many reps, we didn’t have to give Arian as many reps. Colbie did a nice job.”

Smart on Trevor Etienne…

“He’s a good back. He’s quick in and out of the hole. He’s different than what we’ve had. I think the Swift analogy is good. Cook’s analogy is good. He’s really taken a lot of personal pride in working on his protection. He had a nice pick up today. He’s learning the offense. Look, the guy’s been a good SEC player for two years. It’s not like he’s a freshman. He’s a really good player and a really good kid. I’ve been proud of the way he’s his deal.”

Smart on Roderick Robinson…

“He keeps getting better. He’s got toughness. I enjoy coaching Rod. He takes coaching well. Big, physical guy. You want to get more out of him, and he’s giving us what he’s got. He’s got to continue to work on his pass protection. He’s become a better route runner. I’m pleased with where Rod is. He needs to be even better for us next year.”

Kirby Smart on Carson Beck…

“Carson had a great spring to me. He’s got a quiet leadership, a lot of confidence. When things aren’t going well, kids and players and the o-line turn to him. He’s got really good moxie out on the field. He never got pressed or frustrated even today. He drove the team down, made some really elite throws there at the end to get us a chance to tie the ball game. Taking today out of it, I don’t even go off of today, he’s had a good spring. He knows how to navigate a pocket, he knows where to go with the ball, there’s nothing he hasn’t seen on defense. I’m happy with where he is. I want him to continue to grow as a leader.”

Smart on Beck falling down, if that scared him to see…

“Yeah, it did. He got rolled up a little bit. But he’s a durable kid. He’s an athlete, a good baseball player. Got rolled up on a little bit, and I got scared.”

Smart on DBs this spring…

“We’ve got a long way to go. We lost three really good football players there. We’re thin. David Daniel wasn’t able to go today, Malaki was out, Justyn Rhett was out, Demello was dealing with a little bit of a hamstring. We got better in the secondary, but we’re not where we need to be in terms of being able to make plays on the ball down the field and be able to affect the quarterback.”

Kirby Smart on JaCorey Thomas…

“He’s a tough guy. He’s smart, plays really hard. He showed up last year on special teams, and I always say, if they can do the things we ask them to do on special teams, then they’ll be good defensive players. He got caught in a little bit of a pickle because he was competing at STAR and had a chance to start at STAR, well we had to work him at safety with the injuries. He played 50/50 safety/STAR but he had to play more safety today.”

Smart on LBs this spring…

“Growth. I really thought Raylen and CJ would be further along because of how much they played. I don’t think you give them enough credit for: they really shouldn’t have been out there last year and they had to go play. They didn’t play bad, but they didn’t play great. Well, I expected this spring to be this huge jump. They’re still freshmen. CJ and Raylen got better. They’re going to be really good leaders for us. I think the fact Smael was out was good for them, and Jalon missed a lot of time this spring with an ankle injury. Today was his first day back. It doesn’t say enough about our team that kids are trying to get out of spring games all around the country. This guy was mad that we were thinking about not playing him. He wanted to play. He wanted to go out there and compete and get better. Really appreciate Jalon’s leadership and the way he handles things.”

Smart on a deeper WR group…

“I don’t know. I know that the first level, let’s call it the first four, five guys deep, it’s very experienced. After that, it’s like, I’m still trying to figure out what we’ve got. There’s young players that are talented. Sacovie and Nitro are going to be good players. The portal guys are still coming along: Mike Jackson and London. Colbie has factored in and made some plays. Colbie’s made plays like that all spring. When you throw RaRa, Dillon, Arian, and Dom out there, it gives you, what they are is the bullies. They bully you on special teams. They lead, they show toughness. That’s usually your defensive back group. For us, right now it’s our wideouts.”

Kirby Smart on Lawson Luckie’s spring…

“He’s had a great spring. We gave him a lot of reps, a lot of chances to grow with Pearce being out. He’s shown great toughness, great maturity, durability. That’s what Oscar Delp has been. Oscar Delp is the one guy, when Darnell was out Oscar took all the reps. When Brock was out, Oscar took all the reps. So Oscar’s taken a lot of football reps and gotten better for us. Lawson stepped up and took on a larger role of that. The Reddell kid and Heinrich, they both came a long way from the start of spring. They’ve got a long way to go, but they came a long way. Jaden missed half the spring probably with a hamstring. It was good to have those two guys get better.”

Smart on Christen Miller…

“He went back in I think, I thought I saw him go back in. He had a shoulder there and then I heard him say he jumped back in.”

Smart on Ryan Puglisi and his crutch…

“The knee injury, it’s a stress, it’s a small stress fracture. It’s not a break or a significant injury. It’s a shut down injury and let it rest. We listened to what the doctor said and did that. But it’s not a long-term problem. But it did affect us in terms of reps. It probably gave Gunner more growth than ever because he took twos, threes. Gunner just took a ton of reps.”

Kirby Smart on an overview of the upcoming transfer portal window and possibly adding a fourth quarterback…

“Oh yeah, I always want to have, our goal is to have four and a really good walk-on. That’s the goal. We think we’ve got a preferred walk-on kid that’s a really good player that’s coming in, excited about him. We thought he was a really good player in our state. We’ll see what happens. I can’t predict the portal, I won’t even try to. I’m worried about our guys and the retention of our players.”

Smart on the secondary having a chip on its shoulder and attacking opportunity this spring…

“Well I don’t know if I’ve seen them attack it. I want to see them attack the ball better. We gave up a lot of plays in the spring. What I call 50-50 balls, we didn’t get a lot of them out. What you saw a microcosm of today was a really good quarterback throwing really good touch passes. The throw to Dom, I mean, I’ve seen that 20 times this spring. It’s like, we’re right there. We just couldn’t quite get it out. When you have a good thrower and catcher with people that protect, it’s dangerous. I want to see more out of the secondary. I want to see, yeah, Malaki’s out but that’s okay. There’s other guys out there that have scholarships that can make plays too.”

Smart on Gabe Harris this spring…

“Man. I thought he had a good day today. I can’t say his whole spring was like that, but he was disruptive today. He’s twitchy, he’s hard to block. I love the way he plays. But he sometimes plays out of control, which can be a good thing and it was good today on some plays. But it also, first play of the game he screwed up, went the wrong way, didn’t line up right. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re getting with Gabe. But you do get great effort and you do get great toughness. I love that.”

Kirby Smart on Troy Bowles play this spring…

“Troy has done a good job. Troy has got to get better. I’m going to be honest with you. He’s got to get better. He’s in the same two class with those other two guys [CJ Allen and Raylen Wilson], they’ve got an extra spring on him. He needs to, you know what I’m saying, catch up. He’s a bright kid. He’s a really good special teamer. He works hard. I expect him to be at a higher standard being a coaches son. My expectation is when you learn the defense and you understand it and you execute at a high level, he’s got to do better. Now he’s an athlete and he can play in space and I think that’s what a linebacker is now in football. I’m not happy with where he is but I can’t really judge how he played today. I was thinking of CJ’s interception.”

Smart on what’s next for Georgia in the offseason…

“Lifting. We’re going to go Monday, we’re going to get after it, we’re going to workout. We’re going to target some guys’ weights, get some weights done, lift. We’ve got to get our bottom half of our roster to the top half. You’re not gonna get there watching spring game tape. You gotta go and get to work. We’re gonna work really hard on those guys. We’re gonna keep meeting and talking to our players. Tell them the job’s not done. We’re not where we need to be. We just don’t get to practice anymore. You get to do other things. We’ll get back to work on Monday.”

Smart on the final result and steak and lobster…

“It told him it was beans and weenies for a tie. It’s kissing your sister. The guys that played both sides of the ball, we had a couple of guys change over teams. I was going to let them eat steak for changing teams and being selfless. They didn’t approve.”

Kirby Smart on not going for 2…

“Well I didn’t want to put a 2-point play on tape. We did that last year, or the year before. We did that and I was like ah, we want to keep those things in our pocket. We won’t show off those. Figure the kickers need the work.”

Smart on Xzavier McLeod…

“He’s flashed. I wish he would play with more consistency. Meaning, like he did today, all the time. He had some good plays and some bad plays. I look at as he’s really still a freshman. He’s worked hard. He’s going against a really good offensive line. He’s taking on some fercious offensive lines. He’s a really good athlete. If we continue to grow him and get him stronger and get him tougher, he’s got a chance to really help us.”

Smart on his level of concern with the transfer portal…

“I’m not. Can I control it? I can’t. If I concern myself with things I can’t control, I won’t live long. There’s just too much out there. It’s really one of those things of, ‘do you want to be here? Or do you not?’ Because they know how we do things by now. They all know. That was the easier practice we’ve had all spring. They enjoyed it thoroughly. Guys want to be somewhere else, I have no control over that.”

Kirby Smart on Jake Pope…

“He did a good job. He carried over well from his last school to here. He’s got to continue to get better and understand our defense. Make plays in space. He needs to help us on special teams and be able to play faster and do some things. I do think he made some nice plays.”

Smart on the young players on defense…

“I’d feel better watching the tape then commenting on it. I did think they had fun out there and it was a lot of mid-year defensive players out there, kind of running around. You see the athleticism on a Justin Williams, Kris Jones, Chris Cole, Ellis, KJ. Like so many of them they just got here. And that’s going to pay off for us when they have to go play.”