ATHENS — Georgia does not have a game this weekend but that doesn’t make this week any less important for the Bulldogs.
Georgia is focused on both itself and its future set of foes and aims to use the off week to work on both.
Below is everything Georgia coach Kirby Smart had to say about his team during its off week.
Everything Kirby Smart said as Georgia football looks to get the most out of its off week
Opening statement...
“Yeah, we jumped into working on ourselves yesterday and got back to work. For an off week, we had a good practice yesterday, got a lot of reps for our twos and threes. And today we’ll get a lot of reps for everybody. That’s a work day, and work the rest of the week towards starting on our next opponent later in the week.”
On if the run game wrinkles were inspired by John Lilly/Phil Rauscher’s time in the NFL...
“Well, some of the looks were just copycat looks that other people have done, that we admire. That’s what everybody does offensively and defensively, is plagiarize from somebody else and take other ideas. It came from Coach Bobo and Coach Searels’ background, as well as Coach Lilly and Phil’s. So a lot of different areas pulled from for those.”
On how much a bye week can help young linemen like Juan Gaston and Michael Uini...
“Well, any work helps them, growth. Walkthroughs help them, meetings help them. I mean, they’re just, the ceiling is, they’re so far from their ceiling because they haven’t had the same amount of work. But we also have to be healthy, which makes it hard, because you’re balancing health and reps and trying to get guys back healthy.”
On adjusting to Tennessee’s tempo on offense...
“I’m not sure I understand the question. Tempo, Tennessee’s a tempo team. They go fast all the time. So, I mean, I don’t know if you’re asking, were we prepared for it? I certainly thought we were. It didn’t look like it, but we practiced it really hard, and it didn’t, it didn’t come to fruition. like the practice plan. Things we practiced didn’t play real well, and they did a better job.”
On Dwight Phillips Jr.’s injury status...
“He seems fine. He did some work yesterday. He’s got a midfoot that’s bothered him some, but he didn’t hold him back for much yesterday.”
On what he saw from Juan Gaston against Tennessee and if he could help at right tackle...
“Well, Juan is trying to get healthy. He came in, Donnie got a little banged up, and he came in and helped Donnie out there for a period of time. Then he had another ankle that was bothering him, and he came out, and they just kept going back and forth. But he’s not completely all the way healed and trying to get well. So we’re just trying to get all those guys back so they can get better.”
On the challenges of getting right tackle squared away without Earnest Greene being healthy...
“Yeah, I don’t know. With Earnest, we took some time there in the Austin Peay to try to get him better and do some things with him rehab-wise and try to get him back. He certainly was not 100 percent and tried to go out there and go and give us all he could. I think his endurance and the stamina part was hard in that kind of game, to go out there and just jump back in and play. Then you need to work on it and try to figure out what the best lineup is for everybody.”
On how he’d evaluate how the secondary played against UT...
“Yeah, both. I think you said it, there was some good and there was some bad. There’s probably more bad than good, obviously, but they’re not things that aren’t correctable. There’s some eye control things.
“We played Tennessee with the motto of, we’re not going to give up explosives and get the ball thrown over our head, and we played well. And then when you get the ball thrown over your head and give up explosives, you don’t play well. It pretty much comes down to that. There’s 35, 40 plays in the game — there’s 35, 40 plays in a window of the game where we were in control of the game defensively, but it didn’t start that way and it wasn’t that way late when we gave up the explosives. So there’s good and bad. But I mean, all those DBs, they’ve all made that play before, but they didn’t make it when we had to make it.”
On how Noah Thomas is fitting in and how he’s playing...
“Yeah, he’s a guy that’s been really good for us in terms of winning one-on-ones, practicing really hard, team concept, knowing that it was important to him that he started on a special teams. So he has really competed on punt block and PBR to help our team, and I think it’s gonna help him in his future in terms of being able to be a special teams player.
“He’s made plays for us in practice. He’s done great. It’s really been unfortunate because there’s been some times that his shot or his number was called, and we didn’t necessarily protect it well or something happened or something came in the way. But he has not been phased by it — at least he’s not shown it to us. He works hard, he buys into the team morale and concept. In this world of football, you never know when your number’s going to be called. I mean, London’s probably never called a ball on that route in his entire career, and that was the first time we’ve thrown it to that route. So you just don’t know when it’s gonna happen, and I think Noah will continue to work to get better for our team.”
On drills and techniques for one-on-one coverage or if it’s more of an instinctual kind of thing...
“There’s certainly drills, and we work on those year-round. I mean, it’s not like we go, ‘Oh gosh, we’ve got a problem, let’s fix it.’ That’s a daily must. I mean, one of the three characteristics of defensive backs that you must have is play the ball in the deep part of the field. And it’s a critical factor, and it can be improved. Some people are inherently better than others at it, and we try to put them in those situations every day. I mean, you can’t do that enough to simulate it.”
On the outside linebacker room in terms of rushing the quarterback...
“Yeah, they’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do. They haven’t been in a lot of the games when we’ve had leads. We’ve subbed out a lot of guys, and they’ve done a tremendous job of that. The Tennessee game was certainly a very different game because their offense creates a style of play, of run. We didn’t get a lot of third downs. When we got people to third down we usually get off the field, but we didn’t get them to third down a lot.
“So that group has worked really hard. They’ve closed and played our edges better. Gabe and Q particularly have played the edge game much better than we have in the past, and I’m excited to see what opportunities they get in the future.”
On approaching this bye week after playing a ton of snaps on Saturday...
“Yeah, that was an approach yesterday, certainly. There were very few guys that played 95 snaps. We didn’t have many offensive players that played 95 snaps. We had a few, but defensively we platooned and nobody had a large amount. And the guys that had a large volume, we cut back their volume. That’s the way we try to look at it from a GPS standpoint of getting recovery, getting their legs back underneath them. But at the same time we have to train to get better, and there’s a lot of things we can get better at. That’s our target area for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.”
On Micah Morris...
“Yeah, that’s one of the best things Micah does. He’s a good puller. He’s powerful. He’s done it a lot. From a conditioning standpoint, he was a guy that played 95 snaps. I told him I was proud of him for that. I’d like for him to play with more effort and cover down and more strain for longer, like some of our other linemen are able to do. But he has done a great job of getting his weight down. He’s been a rock for us and understands leverage, protections. He’s experienced. The biggest thing he can do is help those younger guys grow and get better with how he works. What’s his work ethic? What kind of example does he set for them? And what kind of attitude does he have to daily work to improve those young guys? And that’s a big ask of Micah for us.”
On Chris Cole...
“He’s been great. He’s taken on three roles. He takes on a role as a sub pass rusher, a normal down inside backer, and a normal down regular personnel sam-backer. And that’s three pretty different, very distinct roles that he takes on. And we have to find ways to keep utilizing Chris’s strengths. He has strengths that we have to utilize, and he’s a good playmaker. So I’m proud of the way he’s practicing and playing.”
On Gunner Stockton being a dawg...
“Well, I think it brings you wanna play hard for players that make sacrifices and that you like. I mean, ultimately, when you like someone, you love someone, you endear yourself to someone, you play harder for them. And the players love Gunner, they wanna play hard for him. He doesn’t complain, he doesn’t point fingers, he doesn’t lay blame. He takes hits on the chin and takes some pretty vicious ones, and he gets up and goes on to play the next play. And I think there’s a lot of respect in that humility that the other players on offense and really the whole team have for Gunner.”
On Peyton Woodring...
“Yeah, it’s tremendous confidence, number one in him because he’s been there, done that, he’s been in some really tough environments. Don’t think he’s affected or swayed by emotions. But I think he’d be the first to give a lot of credit to Beau (Gardner) and the guys that he’s involved with in terms of snapper, holder, kicker. It’s a three-part deal that he gets credit for, but I think those guys with him are very elite as well.”
On the benefits of getting back to Athens quickly...
“I think the recovery is not much difference. I think it’s a lot more about when you play than where you play. The night game, getting back has a much more impact. Getting back at 2, 3 AM than how far you travel. I don’t think that plays a significance. I think it’s a more significant night versus day.”
On prepping for future foes this week...
“Yeah, our off-week strategy has always been to look at opponents furthest away first and back into the team that’s most recent. So we work on everybody that we would play before the next bye week. In terms of coaches, we may not work on the players, we don’t have enough time. We work on ourselves on the field and the coaches work on every team we have upcoming.”
