Georgia Football Coach Kirby Smart Voices Coronavirus Concern
Georgia football head coach, Kirby Smart joined the Paul Finebaum show yesterday to discuss the hardships that coronavirus or COVID-19 has caused. This pandemic comes with a list of challenges for Smart, and a short time to adjust to this unmarked territory. And like all of the other coaches he's being forced to adapt.
Smart discussed a variety of topics, from recruits committing earlier than usual to the impact of the loss of spring practice.
When asked how recruiting in the early signing period be impacted, Kirby predicts commits will make their commitments earlier than normal.
“There are a lot of kids in the 2021 class who are already fed up with it (how the recruiting has gone so far during the pandemic). Because when you think about it, Paul, the recruiting has ramped up because we're not really spending any time with our players because they're not on campus. You talk to a 2021 prospect right now; he's averaging about 10 to 15 calls a day and he's about fed up with it. So, a lot of those kids are going to make their decisions maybe a little sooner than anticipated."
If this is true as Kirby predicts, then Georgia has more recruiting to do than most other teams and in a short amount of time, with only having four current commits in the 2021 class as of now. Though, they do stand on solid ground with several of the state's top prospects along with out of state stars such as James Williams and Tony Grimes.
Not having Spring practice might hurt Georgia more than most teams with the new offensive coordinator Todd Monken and transfer quarterback Jamie Newman. Kirby touched base on that and how it might hurt Georgia. Along with how some other programs might have received a lucky advantage due to an early spring practice schedule.
"I think if everybody didn't have it, it probably wouldn't bother me as bad. It certainly, you know, we've got a new offensive coordinator and a new quarterback coming in, whoever it's going to be, and to not get those practices, boy, that's tough. But not very many people got a lot of it. On average I think we got three to four practices, or some of the SEC teams got in before they shut everything down. In the grand scheme of things that's not a lot. I certainly think some young players, some mid-year guys that maybe came in thinking they were going to get a leg up on people, that may not be as big of a leg at all because they weren't able to have those practices. If you were fortunate enough to have spring practice early, like some programs do, I certainly think that helps. To get 10 more practices in is huge."
Kirby Smart and former Georgia RB, D'Andre Swift
Kirby’s response when asked what Georgia picks up from other programs:
“We did some good things this year, so you have to share ideas and you give and take. As long as you're taking more than you're giving, you're usually coming out on the upward end of that. We visited with some scouting departments in the NFL just for criteria. What are they looking for? How do they evaluate? Because the minute you think you've got it figured out, you're probably going to get passed by. We're always looking for a little bit of an edge."
As for when things in the football world will return to normal, Kirby isn't exactly ready to voice his opinion on something like that:
“I don't think anybody should be really thinking about that right now as much as if we could put all our energy into washing our hands and social distancing, we would do a lot better for ourselves than speculating on some of those things. We just don't know the answer to so many things right now. The best thing we can do is batten down the hatches so we can have a season."
Kirby when asked if programs will have to jump through hoops when things return:
"Absolutely, there will be all kinds of protocols put into place. They'll probably check everybody for fevers. They'll have ways of monitoring, quarantining guys. Are guys going to live together? Because football players tend to live together and if one goes down, is that the whole apartment? There may be all kinds of things like that.”
That's the discussion all of us are having at the moment. Even if this virus does taper off during the summer, if it's still around this fall what happens if it finds its way into a locker room? S
You can follow us for future coverage by clicking "Follow" on the top righthand corner of the page. Also, be sure to like us on Facebook @BulldogMaven & follow us on Twitter at @BulldogsSI.
