Georgia Football coach Kirby Smart Gives Big Updates Before UGA heads to Arkansas for First SEC Game

Georgia Football coach Kirby Smart | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

ATHENS - Georgia Football opens league play at Arkansas this Saturday, and coach Kirby Smart gave a full rundown of the challenges UGA has before the SEC opener as well as Bulldog injuries heading into the game.

KIRBY:  We're on to the SEC play in Arkansas, but before I get to that, I would like to give a quick congrats to our long snapper, Will Snellings for being named male winner of the Joel Eaves Scholar-Athlete Award for having the top GPA of any senior entering his final fall. He's the first football player to do that, I think, in five years to win that honor.

So I'm certainly proud of him and know his parents well. I played with his dad (Paul) and roomed with his dad here in college and he obviously got his intelligence from his mom, but just kidding, Paul. But he's a great kid, and he's a honor to be on our team. I really enjoy Will, and his work ethic and the things he does.

So that, that's a big-time award. And then with that, we're on to Arkansas. Playing on the road in the SEC is - humility is always a week away. It's a tough environment regardless of where you play in the SEC. There are no bad environments in the SEC. There are only raucous environments in the SEC, and they're really tough to play on; tougher earlier in the year than later.

And as they go along the games get harder and harder. But this is a challenge any time you go on the road, especially with a group that you really haven't been on the road yet. So with that, we'll be focusing our attention on them.

Q: Saber, can you give us an update on Tyriq Green, and what is the status of Xavier McCloud?

KIRBY: Strange question. Tyriq Green, we're finding more and more out on. We'll see what the deal is with him as the week goes if he's gonna be able to play or not.

Status of Xavier McCloud is he's not with the team.

Q: Coach Silverfield said he spoke to you about the comments he made I guess it was a year ago (about UGA driving arrests). Do you recall the gist of what he had to say, and did you appreciate him kind of reaching out to you about that?

KIRBY: Yeah, that's, that's much ado about nothing. I mean, he made a choice to talk about what he wanted to talk about. He did apologize about it. He wasn't really... I think he was talking about generalities. All coaches, we show things other schools do to make mistakes to try to educate our team. He's trying to educate his team, and said what he said, but that’s over and done with for me.

Q: Kirby, along with the new staff, they have 81 new players on that roster. What are the challenges of evaluating a team with that so much turnover?

KIRBY: You’re talking about their team? Challenging for us evaluating them? Well, a lot of them came from Memphis, so quite a few came from Memphis. Everybody we play, every team we play has a ton of turnover.

So I don't know. First talking to Coach Elton, and I want to say they had 65 or they had 70. Uh, so that's like the norm. You have two games at least. That’s more than we had previously on these other ones when you start out and you don't know much about them. So the evaluation is of our team.

That's what I spend my time worrying about is our team. You spend too much time worrying about their team, and you won't have a good team. So I'm a lot more worried about what we do than what they do.

Q: We’ve got to take the, the quality of competition into account the first two games, but from an effort and kind of energy standpoint, what has impressed you most about what the defense has done, especially that, that top line unit in the first half?

KIRBY: Well, you said it. You answered your own question.

It hasn't been really tested in terms of it. And effort - great effort. When you play four series or five series in you know, the heat, it's been warm in really both circumstances, but especially the first one, so expect it to be warm over there this, this Saturday. So I think it's, you know, still to be seen

Q: Kirby, the first two games have given you an opportunity to, to be somewhat liberal substituting. When you reflect on the number of snaps your guys have played, are you pretty happy with the experience that your starters have gotten, one? And then two, you mentioned that you'd experimented a little bit in your fall drills with three on, one off. Has that worked out as you thought it would? Three on, one off.

KIRBY: You're talking about practices? I, I don't know that we can judge that. I mean, like, there's, there's no measure for that. It's really a more important decision right now is how are we practicing right now, and how are we practicing six weeks from now, and seven weeks from now in terms of health and number of players.

But in terms of the number of snaps guys play, I really don't get too into it. I don't look at it and, and overthink and say, "Oh, they gotta play more snaps." I mean, the number of exposures you have is, you know... Our kids have never had the exposures they'll have because of a nine-game SEC schedule.

It'll be greater this year than it's probably ever been before playing a nine-game schedule. And I think with that thought in mind, you're not, you know, you're not counting snaps in games. You're counting conditioning reps and snaps in practice, and what gives them the opportunity to be able to play a game.

You know, you forget that we played 50, 60 play scrimmages that are almost a full game against an SEC opponent in fall camp.

Q: And just what are your initial impressions of KJ Jackson for Arkansas and, and just what he brings to the table? Yeah, very accurate passer; throws a great ball; anticipates timing of throws. He's got a really strong arm, live arm, and he gets the ball out there, and he's a good athlete.

He's got size that makes him hard to tackle, but he, he eludes and scrambles and makes some plays. Um, a lot of respect for him.

Q: Coach, we're going talk to Khalil Barnes later - just what has his addition been like to the team, bringing him back to Athens, and what have you seen from him in his, obviously, two starts so far?

KIRBY: A high level of maturity. He was well-coached to where he was (Clemson). A lot, very scheme diverse; Very intelligent, picking things up. And he’s been a good leader and a constant for us in terms of very consistent in his performance

Q: What has Chauncey Bowen shown to emerge as a third down running back option for you guys?

KIRBY: Ability to catch the ball protect, wisdom, age, experience. That's I think of all those backs, just they're all capable of third down backs. If you've been in our program three years, you've been through three years of blitz pickup, three years of pass pro, three years of catching the ball out of the backfield.

So it comes with experience. That's something that most high school kids don't come naturally with, so you have to work at it, and all those guys have achieved that.

Q: Coach, over here, in the last two recruiting classes, you've had three players sign from North Oconee. You added Khalil Barnes. Just what does that say, that program down in Bogart that Coach Arendt's running?

KIRBY: Well, it's high quality football. I've lived it and seen it now, having lived here for so long, from the youth programs all the way up. They do a tremendous job of the youth programs all across Oconee County, not just North, but both (schools) do a great job of developing young people, football players, high academic, high character.

They practice hard. They do it the right way. I mean, football in the state of Georgia is the best in the country, and that's, you know, seen as a microcosm of that is Oconee County, where the education system is so high. They've got great educations, and they got multiple schools and, and options to, to play at, and they do a great job producing good football players.

Q: Coach, obviously Talyn Taylor’s been more involved in the passing game this year. Obviously, he's been healthy. What have you seen out of him from the blocking standpoint and just being more, you know, having the effort, trying to make plays down the field in that, in that part of his game?

KIRBY: Well, you said it. He's had more opportunities. Number one, he's been healthy. He would've been doing what he's doing now last year had he been healthy the whole time. He was a up-and-coming player. He was rising, runs good routes. He's explosive. He takes pride in his blocking, takes pride in his performance. He works hard at things that he still needs to improve on.

He's got a lot of energy. He's a ball of energy. He's always wanting to celebrate and be excited. He loves the game. He has passion for the game, and you don't want to take that out of anyone. And I'm pleased with where he's at. We got to do a good job keeping him healthy and continuing to grow him and, and, and be scheme diverse.

Q: What do you feel like you've learned about your front seven on defense through these first two games? And is there anything you feel like you, you still have to learn from them just by facing a, a higher quality SEC opponent?

KIRBY: Just happy that they play hard, coached hard, that they're receptive to our coaching.

Been pleased with their effort and their buy-in to each day's practice. I don't know that there's a measuring stick of on-field performance that, that any... You can't really measure that with the number of snaps they've had. I look at it as day-to-day interaction, work ethic, buy-in, the success of the other guys in the room who, who gets credit for the tackles for a loss and sacks.

Doesn't matter. It's, a lot of times the picker doesn't get it, and the wrapper gets it, and the picker did a better job than the wrapper, and you guys all talk about the wrapper, but the picker did the work. So it's, for us, it's internally very pleasing to see guys that are they don't have an ego

Q: Arkansas had a late game at Utah on Saturday, have an early kick this week. Their AD wasn't happy when that, those times were announced. From your experience, how does you know, kick times and travel affect a team week to week? You've dealt with some of that, I imagine, since you've been here.

KIRBY: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's to each his own in terms of the way you maneuver the week and how you manage the week from a standpoint of recovery. Everybody's gonna play pretty much the same number of away games. Everybody's going to play the same number of home games, for the most part. I mean, within one or two.

And you have to navigate that. (It is) certainly challenging, and I wouldn't like it either. It's a tough situation to be in.

Q: Yeah, in first game of the season, Jaden Riddell had the touchdown catch that was negated but went very viral. When something like that happens to a player, what does the conversation look like with him after, when everyone, it seems like, is talking about a specific play?

KIRBY: I don't even know what you're talking about

I don’t... online discussion about what? That he had a touchdown? That he had a face mask? I don't follow that, so I don’t really know what you're asking. Like, we don't, we don't go put it up in the meeting and go show it and say, "It got eight million views." So I, I don't... I mean, maybe it happened outside of, of our building, but I don't...

It doesn't change anything for us. It's I've seen him make a lot of good plays. I've seen a lot of kids make a lot of good plays. So we don't, we don't pay attention to it.

Q: After the game on Saturday, Gunner talked a little bit about going on the road in the SEC and having that experience from last year. How valuable do you feel like that is for a quarterback compared to, like, this time last year, all you guys could really do was tell him what he was getting into, the fact that he's had that experience before?

KIRBY: It's more valuable than not

Q: You kind of qualified, well all of your team's success, but specifically Gunner's when we asked about the success, and you said, "It's fun when you score every drive." Do you anticipate that much more adversity, one and two, do you think there'll be m- like, without giving the game plan away, you purposely tried to avoid him running the football through the first two games?

KIRBY: No need for it. I don't know if I'd say anticipating adversity. I think adversity - I think you have to as a coach anticipate adversity, because I don't know when it's coming. I have no control over when it's coming. Nor do you, nor do the players. So, to not anticipate it would be failure. We try to anticipate it.

We try to create it every day in our practices in some kind of way. But as far as being intentional about not running him, that sometimes that's not dictated by us, that's dictated by the defense. I mean Ryan Puglisi's not somebody that we've designed to run the ball. That wasn't his - the defense dictates that sometimes.

So some of that's controlled by the setting and and different factors that we don't control.

Q: What’s your evaluation of what JJ High has brought to the defense so far this season?

KIRBY: Reliability, consistency a buy-in and a, and a PFE. Like he embodies that room of like really high energy, loves football, kind of changed positions a little bit. He's growing and, and evolving as a, as a player and maturing, and he's, he's one of the most positive outlook, positive attitude guys I've been around.

Q: Coach, in your experience, how much do you learn about a team after that first road game compared to, you know, a couple at home?

KIRBY: Depends on who you play and how you play. You know, you'll learn a lot about them if they have adversity. And I've learned a lot about our teams in the past from going and playing in SEC environments when maybe we haven't played our best, or you get in one of those hornet nest games, and you got to fight your way out of it.

So just depends on how the game goes.