ATHENS — Georgia will have its first ranked game of the year on Saturday when it takes on No. 6 Alabama.

This will be Smart’s 10th time taking on the Crimson Tide as Georgia’s head coach. Most of these matchups have been for a championship of some kind, whether it be SEC or national.

And while Saturday’s game won’t have those kind of stakes, the result will still shape the national college football conversation.

“It’ll be a really great challenge for us to go into a really tough environment to go play, and our players will be looking forward to it,” Smart said.

Smart touched on a number of topics heading into Saturday’s game, which is set for a 7:30 p.m. start on ABC.

Below are Smart’s full comments following Monday’s news conference.

Everything Kirby Smart said as Bulldogs begin prepping for Alabama

Opening statement...

“Monday in Athens, so we start our prep today for Alabama who’s got a tremendous team. A lot of respect for Coach DeBoer and how they go about things. They’ve got an extremely physical football team. They’re playing really high-level football right now. Just got to start watching them yesterday. Was super impressed with both sides of the ball and special teams. Quarterback is playing amazing for them. Guy is really talented, fun to watch, and you’ve seen the growth just from the first game all the way through. The talent this guy has is pretty incredible, and they have great scheme around him. It’ll be a really great challenge for us to go into a really tough environment to go play, and our players will be looking forward to it.”

On Alabama’s interceptions and four returned for touchdowns...

“Very talented. They’ve got ball hawks. They’ve got guys who can make plays on ball. They’ve got a lot of length in the secondary. They play physical. A lot of that is brought on by their front because they create pressure situations. They stop the run. When you stop the run and force people to throw the ball, it sometimes can make you one-dimensional. They’ve been really opportunistic as well when they’ve gotten them, running them back and scoring, so anytime you score on defense, it’s a big, huge momentum swing, and they’ve got players who can do it.”

On CJ Wiley’s development...

“He’s doing really good. He’s had a couple of his better weeks of practices the last couple weeks. Continues to grow and become more physical. Really pleased with how hard he’s worked really these past four, five weeks.”

On Keelon Russell’s ability...

“Really all over. I knew about him in high school and watched his high school tape. Knew he was an elite player, probably the best quarterback in the country coming out. Then he goes away and kinda disappears for a year. Re-appears, and is just unbelievable. Savvy, arm strength, pocket awareness. People will make him out to be a runner. He doesn’t run unless he has to. He can. He scrambles to throw. He scrambles to run. He’s accurate. He’s smart. He’s very talented.”

On Rasean Dinkins’ start and growth...

“He’s been opportunistic. He’s done a good job with opportunities he’s had. He causes a fumble, a huge play in the game. His ability to make plays has allowed him to start. He’s made plays on the ball in practice. Part of being a good safety player is do your job and have good eye control. He and Kyron both battled that out. They’re both good physical, tough tacklers. Creating turnovers, doing your job, having good eye control. All those things help.”

On Alabama’s second-half defensive dominance...

“I don’t know that I have an answer for that. I don’t know that, I think that would be their choice of how they feel about that. For us, it’s about us executing and how we play, not really about them. Maybe because they were so far ahead, they had other guys in. We’ve had some games where you play a lot of players in the second half, so not something that I’m really worried about right now.”

On variety of playmakers in Georgia’s offense...

“Well, to be a good offense nowadays, you’ve got to be dangerous. You’ve gotta have multiple weapons. You’ve gotta have multiple ways to get those players the ball. I think every good team scores points. They have different ways to beat you, and not one-dimensional. That’s what good offenses have, and that’s what we’ve gotta continue to develop.”

On struggles stopping Vanderbilt run game...

“There were some looks that, non-traditional looks, where we didn’t play the run real well. Some of it was scheme-related. Some of it was not. But I told you after the game, Vanderbilt’s a physical football team. They did a good job with the game plan they had and took advantage of some of the looks we were in.”

On Gunner Stockton’s experience in a game like this...

“I don’t know that it’s an advantage. It is what it is is what I like to say. They’ve got a tremendous quarterback that doesn’t have a ton of experience. There’s advantages in that. I’m certainly very happy and pleased with where Gunner is as a player. I think experience helps. I think experience matters. I think how people play around you matters. I think game plan and what you’re asked to do. Not asking a quarterback to do more than he needs to do is important. Gunner’s done a tremendous job of that. He played a really, really good game the other day, and I was really happy for him because of how hard he works at it. But he’s gotta continue to get better to give us a chance where we wanna go.”

On offensive line continuity...

“Yeah, it’s great, but we’ve always been an older offensive line unit. The last two years, I feel like we’ve been younger than we’ve ever been. I think that’s the trend of kids are less apt to wait and develop. We’ve got kids that were in our program starting in other programs that chose not to wait and leave. That happens. It is what it is. I don’t think it’s as traditional as it used to be. It’s great to have veteran leadership, but honestly veteran leadership is veteran leadership. I love the fact they’ve been in our program. I love Drew and Earnest, so I don’t want it to sound the wrong way, but if Drew and Earnest were from the portal, and they were veterans, they would still be good leaders.”

On modern offenses influencing what linebackers you go after...

“Well you just have to have them. It allows you to defend them. You can’t defend them if you’ve got 6-foot-4, 250-pound Mike linebacker that plays isos. You’re not going to be able to play as well in space. Unless you’ve got Superman out there, you just can’t do it. You’ve gotta be able to do both. You’ve gotta be able to have physical toughness. You’ve gotta be able to play in small spaces. You’ve gotta be able to strike people and get off blocks. You’ve gotta be able to play in space. The eye control and play variance you see nowadays that’s come so far that it demands levearage and striking and eye perfection that it’s hard to sustain that. You make one mistake, and it’s an explosive. It’s harder to come by to find people that can play all those things and that size and speed.”

On Donald Trump attending the game...

“No, nothing different for us. As I understand it or been told, it’s more security and checking and doing things before we go to the stadium.”

On Alabama’s defensive front...

“Size and physicality. You know they’ve gone and recruited, or however you want to say it, portal, however they go about getting it. They’ve got more size and more strength at the point of attack. They’re very physical, which Alabama’s always had.”

On whether DeBoer brought anything new schematically to the league...

“It is. It is a lot of similarities between our offense and theirs. There’s some different things that they do that other teams in our league have done, but maybe not in a few years past. I think guys overlap in ideas and things. Certainly when you look back all the times that we’ve played since we’ve been there, all the Washington cutups are in all our stuff. There’s a lot more similarities to what he did there, but a lot of that has morphed into SEC pictures because he’s been in our league so long. Does a tremendous job offensively. Really hard to defend because you don’t feel like there’s a play they don’t have. They’ve got all of them, in terms of plays you have to stop.”

On Peyton Woodring’s role the last few years...

“He’s been a model of consistency. He’s really a perfect mindset for a kicker. He doesn’t get real upset over positives or negatives, whether it’s a miss or a kickoff. He reassesses things and puts himself in a good place. Just keeps working at it. I respect his work ethic, his process to preparation each week and the consistency he’s been for us. We’ve been very fortunate.”

On philosophy behind building rosters through high school vs. portal...

“I don’t think it had anything to do with where we were. It usually has to do with what we need. You’ve gotta be careful. I don’t know that the perception out there that there’s a portal program and a traditional high school portal because I don’t think there’s a hit rate going around on one of these teams that are portal teams on how many times they hit. You only know Trinidad Chambliss. You only know the guy that goes and plays. What about the 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 percent of players that didn’t play, didn’t have an impact? I just like to think we’re going to do what we need to do to win. If that includes getting 50 portals, that’s what we’re going to do. If that includes getting 10 portals, that’s what we’re going to do. But I think when someone says us, Alabama and Georgia, compared to others based on where we started at has nothing to do with where we started in the process. It has to do with what you need. Ultimately can you develop better than you can draft? It’s not really drafting, but it’s going and taking somebody else’s development and try to make it your own.”

On weather forecast and kicking range...

“It’s just assess it based on the situation, what we’re dealing with. Weather obviously can be a factor. This time last week, it was going to be a monsoon for the Vanderbilt game. You’ve gotta plan based on it, and you’ve gotta change the plan based on future forecast. I don’t get too much into the kickers and talking to them about it. They practice in it. They work in it. They do it in the offseason. They do it in preseason camp, and we do it every week.”

On Braylon Conley and Demello Jones...

“Braylon’s been a great addition to our program. He’s a bright kid. He loves practice. He brings energy. He’s a joy to be around. Competitive. Smart. Instinctive. Understands leverages and how to play the ball, in and out of phase. Been very pleased with him, and Demello and Ellis as well. Those guys work really hard every day out at practice. Pleased with our work ethic and continuing to get better.”

On Thomas Blackshear’s health...

“Yeah, he’s got an upper-body injury.”