Everything Georgia coach Kirby Smart said about Notre Dame football Dec. 23

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart held his first pre-Sugar Bowl press conference since knowing his opponent will be the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Monday. Here is everything he said about the Irish, the matchup and more.

Opening statement

“Excited, obviously been in prep now for the Sugar Bowl for I don’t know how many practices, several practices. We’re excited, very honored to be playing a really, really talented Notre Dame team. I have so much respect for Coach Freeman, his staff, everything they’ve been able to accomplish this year. I remember watching them early in the year when they got to play at A&M and had a huge win in a night game in our conference. So I have a lot of respect for them.

“We’re looking forward to getting down to New Orleans, always one of the most traditional bowl games, or in this case playoff games, that there has been. So we’re excited and ready to get to work.” 

On extra time helping Gunner Stockton prepare

“Well I would say just experience, right? Just practice. He got lots of reps prior to these practices but he’s getting much more now. I do think knowing that when you get ready for an opponent like Notre Dame, you need time. We haven’t known who we were going to play for you know, I guess now what, 24-48 hours we’ve known, 72 hours. There’s certainly a lot of time in prep you can do to prepare for that. We prepared for some of that prior to that because we knew it would be within two opponents. But I think the biggest thing is just the competition at practice. The situations we put him in, all those things allow him to get better as a quarterback.” 

On differences and similarities between this Notre Dame team and others he’s faced while at Georgia

“Yeah, that’s a tough one because I don’t really remember the other ones. I don’t remember them as a team. The games obviously stand out, one score, fourth quarter, really physical games. The physicality I see when I watch Notre Dame play is pretty incredible on both lines of scrimmage. The way they play, the style of play they have.

“So I mean comparing those teams is hard for me because there’s so many years in between, but this is a really good, solid, fundamentally sound, don’t beat themselves, play good defense, great defense, and really physical on the lines of scrimmage and they’ve got a really athletic quarterback. So there’s a reason why that they’re at the point the season they’re at.”

On juggling playoff prep and the transfer portal

“Yeah, it’s becoming the new norm. December is absolutely just tough. I don’t know a good way of saying it. I wouldn’t say it’s unbearable. I wouldn’t say that it’s unfair. There’s a lot of words you can use for it. It’s just it’s not probably the best thing for the college football game. 

“Individually, you can make a case it’s good for some players, it’s good for some teams, it’s good for some coaches. But the calendar’s really challenging. And if we had the solutions, I think somebody wise, somebody smart would fix it. But when you intertwine all the working parts of academics and being a student athlete and the timing of the playoff, timing of the portal, timing of signing day, it’s incredibly challenging. And it’s been that way this month.”

On the Notre Dame running game

“Well, they have unbelievable backs first off. Who you hand it to does matter. Those guys are tremendously talented and do a great job. I mean, (they) use all of them, too. And then when you throw the skill set of Riley (Leonard) in there, the quarterback, it just makes it that much tougher to defend because they have multiple weapons, multiple options, and they’re really physical. I mean, they’re committed to it. They’re very committed to the run.”

On how Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman is handling being a young head coach

“Yeah, I can definitely appreciate the job he’s done. He was an up-and-coming riser for a long time, and to get that job, I mean, the national exposure, the national brand of Notre Dame is really incredible.

“For him to take that over at that age, manage that, and have success, and really go through some tough times, I mean, it doesn’t come without criticism to be a head coach. But to do it at that age at Notre Dame is pretty special, and he’s obviously done a great job. He’s got great presence and command about him, and I think that’s what makes him a great head coach.”

On allowing some transfers to stay through the end of the season

“I think philosophically it’s a choice that you make, right, that you can have. We’ve had that done before. We’ve had guys stick around and play and be part of the portal, and we’ve had guys that want to go and leave and get to their new place and prepare for that. So, I mean, a lot of times it’s the preference of the player, and then sometimes it’s the preference of the coach, because the coach obviously does not have to allow that, but he can.

“A lot of coaches would not mind doing what Coach Dillingham is doing, but the player chooses not to because at the end of the day they may not want to practice. The reason they’re leaving sometimes is they’re not playing. So, I’ve seen a lot of stuff out there about that. I don’t think that’s that big of a deal.

“The bigger issue is the school starting at a new place while you’re in playoffs because you can miss the window of school starting, hypothetically, January 6th, and a team’s playing further into that, and you can’t be two places at once. You can’t be in school and playing at a different institution. So, that makes it tough.” 

On quarterback Carson Beck

“The only thing I can update is that they’re still going through those deliberations in terms of decision-making, process time, all the kind of decisions they have to make as a family.”

**It was announced by the school that Beck had surgery sometime after Smart’s press conference.

On Notre Dame’s pass defense

“Well, they play great defense. They have a great pass rush. They’re physical up front. They affect the pass rush with how hard they play, and they got really good defensive backs. I mean, they play man-to-man. You know, they get up on you, put their hands on you. You can tell it’s a great brand of football between Coach (Al) Golden and Coach Freeman, they have done a great job. So, they play really good football.”

On Stockton’s willingness to run

“I think we are who we are in regards to that. I mean, we’ve played an entire season offensively. Gunner’s a good athlete. I think Carson’s a good athlete. So, it’s one of those deals that I don’t know how much that changes things.” 

On Georgia’s long layoff between games

“Well, last year we played in the SEC championship, and I think we played on January 1 or maybe December 31. I think the last few years we’ve played in the SEC championship, we’ve played our next game around the same time. Am I saying that correct?” 

More on the long layoff

“Alright. So, it’s not — I wouldn’t say it’s uncommon for us. I do think it’s a long time off, but I don’t know that it’s uncommon, right? It’s really just hard to manage, hard to deal with in terms of that space and how you keep your players in shape, but in football shape and game shape. That’s the bigger dilemma. Do you lose rhythm? I mean, you watch it most times in ballgames. People that have those long breaks, it can affect how you play, and we’re trying our best to manage that.”

On Notre Dame along the line of scrimmage

“Yeah, watching Notre Dame all year and the game the other night, physicality, they’re really physical up front. They play really hard. You see it on tape. You see them dominate the line of scrimmage. That’s why they win football games. That’s where the game is won and lost. So I’ve seen that. I mean, it kind of showed the other night almost what they’ve done all year.

“In terms of our offensive line, I think, you know, you say the progression, we’ve had a mixed starting lineup. I don’t feel like it’s been like this guy’s been out, he’s been out, he’s been injured. I mean, we had more rotating changes and lineups than probably any year since I’ve been here. So I’m very proud of the fight, the toughness, the grit with which they play with and pushing through the injuries that pretty much every one of them’s had.”

On the Georgia punting competition

“Yeah, that’s a day-to-day competition, to be honest with you. I mean, we get a lot of guys reps, the guys that punt, and we’ll decide, you know, probably closer to the game as we finalize that, but that’s been, you know, going on since we started back.”

On Georgia’s punting situation, specifically on Drew Miller

“Drew’s been great. He’s done a good job. He’s taken the majority of those reps, but when the job’s open we let everybody punt. So we’ve got them all out there punting. You know, Gunner can punt, Puglisi can punt. We’ve got some wide receivers that can punt. I’ve had to punt a couple times, so we’ll just keep going until we run out of punters.”