ATHENS – Hey everybody, it’s everyone’s favorite time of day: Parsing Kirby Smart’s comments about the quarterback situation.
On Tuesday morning, Smart was near the end of a long (24 minutes) radio segment (“The Front Row” on 680 The Fan), when host Steak Shapiro tried to pin him down at least on when he’d name a starter.
“I have no idea,” Smart said, drawing out his sentence, either exasperated about having to deal with all this, or about not having a quarterback emerge yet, and now that we type that sentence we can see it’s clearly both. “We’re going to name a quarterback when we get a quarterback who we think’s going to be the starter.”
And, shockingly, that didn’t come Tuesday morning.
Smart also didn’t provide any major clues during the segment, though he did downplay incumbent starter Greyson Lambert’s experience. That happened when Shapiro pointed out that Lambert had started a lot of games.
“Yes, for (Brian) Schottenheimer, and for the guy at Virginia,” Smart interjected.
So does he have better command of how to run an offense, Shapiro asked?
“I think he has a better command of how to run a offense. But I don’t know about this offense. It’s new to both of them,” Smart said, meaning Lambert and junior Brice Ramsey. “He’s a senior. He’s been around the game. He’s been a lot of places, he’s played in a lot of systems. So obviously mentally he’s going to be ahead of some of the other games because of the experience he has.”
The inference there is freshman Jacob Eason is in good shape to catch up to the veterans, but that’s only inferring if you’re overly parsing. Or something. Anyway, Smart of course was asked about Eason, but said much of what he has before, about Eason still learning the offense, etc.
There was something mildly new in the interview: While Smart said there wasn’t any “major change” in how reps are being distributed this week, after Saturday’s scrimmage, that they’re not rotating as much now.
“Before it was almost all equal, now it’s not exactly equal,” Smart said. “Now it’s going to be a situation where every guy gets a chance to work with each group but not at the same reps.”
Speaking with beat writers after Tuesday’s practice, Smart said watching the film off the scrimmage hadn’t led to anything earth-shattering.
“I kept thinking I’d be able to come back and tell you more, but there was still a couple bonehead decisions, and that’s frustrating,” Smart said. “It really didn’t lead us to any more direction, as far as where we’re going.”
The scrimmage is set for Saturday, after which it’s expected the competition will be cut down to two, or at least two will get the majority of practice reps. That’s operating on the same timeline as Georgia’s competition last year: After the second scrimmage, Lambert and Ramsey received the most reps the following week in practice, with Faton Bauta sliding to third team. Then Lambert was named the starter the following Monday, which was the week of the opener.
Smart may or may not follow that timetable. Stay tuned, perhaps for a decision, but definitely for more parsing.