ATHENS — Arkansas has previously voiced its displeasure with the start time for its game against Georgia.
The Razorbacks had a late road kick against Utah this past Saturday. It now has an early, 11 a.m. local kickoff against the No. 2 Bulldogs.
Kirby Smart was asked about the previous comments made by Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek about the start time assigned by the SEC.
“Everybody’s going to play the same number of away games, everybody’s going to play the same number of home games, for the most part, within one or two. You have to navigate that. It’s certainly challenging. I wouldn’t like it either. It’s a tough situation to be in.”
Smart didn’t just discuss the start time, as he touched on a number of areas as it pertains to the Georgia team.
Below are Smart’s full remarks from Monday’s press conference.
Kirby Smart expects Georgia to be tested against Arkansas
Opening statement...
We’re onto the SEC playing Arkansas, but before I get to that, I would like to congratulate 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. I know his parents well. I played with his dad and roomed with his dad here in college, and he obviously got his intelligence from his mom. Just kidding, Paul. He’s just a great kid and honored to be on our team. I really enjoy Will and his work ethic and the things he does, so that’s a big time award.
With that, we’re onto Arkansas. Playing on the road in the SEC, 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. They’re really tough to play in. Tougher earlier in the year than later, and as they go along, they get harder and harder. This is a challenge anytime you go on the road, especially with a group you haven’t been on the road with yet, so with that we’ll be focusing our attention on them.
On Tyriq Green and Xzavier McLeod...
“Strange question. T-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 able to play or not. Status of Xzavier McLeod is he’s not with the team.”
On Ryan Silverfield’s previous comments while at Memphis...
“That’s much ado about nothing. He made a choice to talk about what he wanted to talk about. He apologized about it. 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.”
On evaluating a team like Arkansas with so much turnover...
“A lot of them came from Memphis. Quite a few came from Memphis. Everybody we play, I mean, every team we play has a ton of turnover. When I was first talking to coach Helton, I want to say they had 65 or they had 70, so that’s the norm. You have two games at least. That’s more than we had previously on these other ones. When you start out, you don’t know much about them. 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.”
On effort and energy through two weeks defensively...
“Well, you said it, you answered your own question, it hasn’t been really tested in terms of it. Effort, great effort when you play four series or five series. The heat, it’s been warm, really in both circumstances, but especially the first one. It’s expected to be warm over there this Saturday. I think it’s still to be seen.”
On mass substitutions and experience gained through two weeks, and three-on, one-off practice changes...
“Three on, one off? You talking about practices? I don’t know that we can judge that. There’s no measure for that. It’s really a more important decision is how are we practicing right now and how are we practicing six weeks and seven weeks from now, in terms of health and number of players. In terms of the number of snaps guys play, I don’t really get too into it and overthink it and say they gotta play more snaps. The number of exposures you have, our kids have never had the exposure they’ve had because of a nine-game SEC schedule. It’ll be greater this year than it’s ever been before, playing a nine-game schedule. I think with that thought in mind, 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 forget that we played 50, 60-play scrimmages that are almost a full game against an SEC opponent in fall camp.”
On KJ Jackson...
“Very accurate passer, throws a great ball, anticipates timing of throws. He’s got a really strong arm, live arm. He gets the ball out there. He’s a good athlete. He’s got size that makes him hard to tackle, but he eludes, scrambles, makes some plays. A lot of respect for him.”
On Khalil Barnes’ addition...
“High level of maturity. He was well-coached where he was. Very scheme diverse. Very intelligent picking things up. He’s been a good leader and a constant for us and consistent in his performance.”
On Chauncey Bowens as third-down running back option...
“Ability to catch the ball. Protect. Wisdom. Age. Experience. I think of all those backs, 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 most high school kids don’t come naturally with, so you’ve gotta work at it. All those guys have achieved that.”
On North Oconee’s program sending so many players to Georgia...
“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 Oconees do a great job of developing young people, football players, high-academic, high-character. They practice hard. They do it the right way. Football in the state of Georgia is the best in the country. That’s seen as a micorcosm of that is Oconee County where the education system is so high. They’ve got great education and they’ve got multiple schools and options to play at and they do a great job producing good football players.”
On Talyn Taylor’s involvement...
“He’s had more opportunities. No. 1, he’s been healthy. He would’ve been doing what he’s doing now if he’d been healthy the whole time. He was an up-and-coming player. He was rising. He runs good routes. He’s explosive. He takes pride in his blocking. Takes pride in his performance. He works hard at things 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. I’m pleased with where he’s at. We’ve done a good job of keeping him healthy and continuing to grow him and be scheme diverse.”
On what you’ve learned about front seven and learning more...
“Just happy that they played hard, coached hard. They were receptive to our coaching and 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. 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, Mudita. The success of the other guys in the room. Who gets credit for the tackles for loss and sacks doesn’t matter. 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, internally, very pleasing to see guys that they don’t have an ego.”
On Arkansas disspleased with kick time turnaround...
“I don’t know. 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 going to play the same number of away games, everybody’s going to play the same number of home games, for the most part, within one or two. You have to navigate that. It’s certainly challenging. I wouldn’t like it either. It’s a tough situation to be in.”
On Jaden Reddell viral play from Week 1...
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Online discussion about what? That he had a touchdown? That he had a face mask? I don’t really follow that, so I don’t really know what you’re asking. We don’t go put it up in the meeting and say, oh, it got 8 million views. Maybe it happened outside of our building, but it doesn’t change anything for us. 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 pay attention to it.”
On importance of playing on the road, specifically for a quarterback....
“It’s more valuable than not.”
On expected adversity against Arkansas and trying not to run Gunner...
“I don’t know if I can say anticipating 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. As far as being intentional about not running him, sometimes that’s not dictated by us. That’s dictated by the defense. Ryan Puglisi’s not someone we’re designed to run the ball. The defense dictates that sometimes. Some of that’s controlled by the setting and different factors that we don’t control.”
On what JJ Hanne has brought...
“Reliability, consistency, buy-in, and a PFE. He embodies that room of really high energy, loves football, kinda changed positions a little bit. He’s growing and evolving as a player, maturing. He’s one of the most positive outlook, positive attitude guys I’ve been around.”
On how much you learn about first road game...
“Depends on who you play and how you play. You 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 enviornments when maybe we haven’t played our best, or maybe you get in one of those hornets nest games, and you’ve gotta fight your way out of it.”
