ATHENS — Kirby Smart knows that people want to know about the newcomers on the Georgia team. Whether that be 5-star defensive tackle Elijah Griffin or wide receiver transfer Zachariah Branch.
But when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, he stressed there wasn’t much he could share, as he had yet to see any of them actually practice.
"You guys will have a lot of questions, I’m sure, about new guys," Smart said. “I don’t know because I haven’t gotten a chance to really see them. I can tell you what they look like in shorts and running around at workouts, but we haven’t done a lot of football work until we start up today, so that’s what we’ll be doing today.”
Georgia had plenty of new faces at practice on Tuesday, with Smart estimating that a third of his roster turned over this offseason.
The Bulldogs will have 24 early enrollees on hand for practice and welcomed another six players from the transfer portal.
Two of the bigger names to know include transfer wide receivers Noah Thomas of Texas A&M and USC’s Zachariah Branch.
Smart did at least detail what he hopes he got out of those transfers.
“I’m excited about both those guys. Both really good players. Both have been successful in their organizations where they’ve been. They’re both talented pass-catchers,” Smart said. “Both those guys are high-caliber athletes, but they’re high-caliber people. I’ve enjoyed working with them.”
Not everyone was able to hit the practice field though in a full capacity on Tuesday. Smart said that nine Georgia players will be out this spring due to offseason surgeries.
“We’ve got five shoulder surgeries that happened at the end of the year,” Smart said. “Those are all rehabbing right now. They’re in really good progression in terms of getting back: Monroe (Freeling), Gabe (Harris), Colton (Heinrich), Christen Miller and Jaylan Morgan all had labrum repairs, which is very common. I had it when I played here. That’s five of those -- we’ve averaged 5-6 every spring. Then we’ve got Ryan Montgomery whose had the ACL repair, Branson (Robinson) who had the PCL repair, Rod Robinson who had the ankle repair, and then (Brett) Thorson who you know had the ACL-MCL repair. Those are all guys that are working through things. They may be available for maybe some things, like walkthrough type things, but not in practice spring.”
Georgia will have a new quarterback taking over this spring, as Gunner Stockton and Ryan Puglisi compete to be the starting quarterback.
Stockton finished out the 2024 season when Carson Beck went down with an injury, starting against Notre Dame. Puglisi will look to make up ground this spring, getting plenty of first-team reps he wasn’t afforded last year.
Tuesday was the first of 15 spring practices for Georgia, with the final one being Georgia’s spring game. G-Day is set for April 12.
Smart looks forward to seeing his team get better between now and then.
“We’ll find out a lot about them this spring,” Smart said. “We do a very, very intensive study of, not only ourselves, but other people. When you go back and watch everything you watch, you take into account, who are you playing against? What is the caliber of the opponent you’re up against? What did we do well? What did we do poorly? What do we have to do better? There’s just a lot there, and I could sit up here for days and talk about that.”
