Kirby Smart talks Georgia-Clemson rivalry, ready to see Bulldogs begin preparation for 2024 schedule

Intro all right yeah we finished up scrimmage uh to Saturday and uh players had Sunday and Monday off um and it's big recovery time for us we kind of finished what we consider to be training camp on Saturday afternoon and uh we are still working on us and focusing on us and getting better um we're going to work on uh opponents for a couple days uh before we uh dive into Clemson um later this week What he learned from fall camp yeah coach real simple what you learn about your football team this fall Camp yeah um that we've got good mental toughness we're in a good spot in terms of physicality um theyve grinded uh we were not where we need to be by any means but we have made progress I mean scrimmage one to scrimmage 2 progress was good I saw things that I needed to see in terms of um tackling uh playing better without the coaches on the field um all the things you look for uh in young players to see them grow you know there's a there's a small body of guys that have played a lot of football here that I know can go out there and execute then there's a a larger body of new players that have to prove that and I thought we had more guys execute without the coaches on the field Saturday and push through the heat which is mentally tough that you you have to be able to get through that to grow and get better and I'm pleased with where we are coming out of Camp Kirby is there any injury updates Injury updates that you can provise for uh who like what's your question on uh Robinson running back Bron status which Robinson R yeah rodri's uh dealing with a little bit of a turf toe and um don't know uh when he's going to become or or be available um but we had a good group of backs really do good things Saturday um who else you ask about Warren Bron yeah Warren has been working his way back he's hitting uh I think around 75 85% on his GPS he has uh improved each and every day he's been dealing with a little bit of Achilles but that was coming into Camp it was something we were aware of and um and actually today he's supposed to get back and and do a lot more work with us uh coach what have you seen from the three transfer receivers Kobe London and Michael so far um Kobe's been dealing with a hamstring some so he hasn't been 100 % London had a big jump from scrimmage one to scrimmage two uh and Michael Jackson is a guy that's been really reliable for us uh hard worker competitor uh continues to improve and get better and um I'm pleased with all three of those Cornerbacks guys Kirby how many cornerbacks do you think can play winning football I guess that's the term you guys use and and is Ellis Robinson in that group well we've got uh probably five to six guys operating and repping there and um you know we've got some guys that work at both uh go inside and outside and so Chris peele's a guy that's that we've used at safety and at corner um dalen plays some star and Corner uh Julio Daniel Ellis Dello all have uh grown gotten better Andre Evans is is continuing to grow uh and get better and all those guys they work really hard and and really pleased with the camp that that all really six of those guys have had yeah I know Jared's been dealing with a Center little bit of in kill's injury you've moved Tate over to Center how has Tate handled playing Center G and I think in March he had said he had never done it before and how you seen him grow and develop and add that sort of skill to his back yeah Tes not great he's a really good athlete you know he's a tremendous athlete he can move do things Drew Bobo's done really good things there Jared's been back and practiced in scrimmage Saturday and done some good things we've been controlling his volume but he's he's been out there working and and getting some continuity that he has a the largest body of work over the last two to three years at Center of anybody um Drew has uh continued to impress and done a great job and Tate's gotten a lot of work there you know through our uh OTAs training camp days walkthroughs um Tate has has had a lot of reps and he's been right next to the center making all the calls so uh the mental part of it been great and his snaps have been really good too so he's just creating value for himself and that he can play uh multiple positions now Xavier McLoud can you give me an update on Xavier McLoud at smile Mond their he and do you expect them to be able to play against them um Xavier McLoud has uh been dealing with a little bit of an injury he's been pushing through and working through we're trying to get him back don't know when he'll be back um smile has practiced uh every practice this Camp um he's had some days of higher volume some days of lower volume but smile's been out there doing everything yeah kind of along that line uh I smile his charges dismiss Kobe had some charges dismiss too I know you've been dealing with this stuff off the field or any of these guys Trevor as well um looking at any first game suspensions uh as a result of all of that yeah we'll deal with all that when it comes time chip you've talked a good bit during Inside linebackers Paul came about how relatively young these inside linebackers are you been with CJ and raand playing some last year what have you seen as far as the leadership and room from smile being that older guy and helping those guys well it was hard for smile because he wasn't able to do everything last year um he was dealing with a nagging injury then he had the same thing in the spring so I feel like he's been a little more assertive now that he's um back working operating at every practice getting reps even though his reps might one day be 80% and then another day 40% and then he goes up and down with the volume he's been out there so he's been able to be a leader CJ Allen's a natural leader who does a really good job and you don't really see him like a uh a sophomore out there he's he plays like he's a little bit older and and raan's done a good job the guy that has really stepped up Terrell Foster who's probably been here longer than any of them I don't know if he's been longer than smile but sure seems that way so Terrell's done a great job for us uh he is a a warrior in terms of competitive toughness special teams and and makes plays so that that room has no uh has no shortage of talent it may have a shortage of experience but they uh they rely on each other and there's there's several good leaders in there the Freshman are are great leaders Chris Cole and uh Justin Williams are going to be tremendous uh leaders and players in our organization as they get older coach what um far as another Running backs running back question far as Branson goes what is what stood out about the way he attacked his rehab here and you know his his this injury last year and as far as uh TR Trevor goes you mentioned last week he's become the leader of the room I was wonder if you can maybe just an example of how he G about doing that yeah Branson is a really hard worker first of all he uh he came in with some tendonitis um and so he was really hard for him as freshman year to push and get through there was times at Camp he couldn't even run he never complained he's he's just a tough mentally and physically kid you know he's got great parents they pushed him um he's a great leader and he's from the time of the injury he never pouted cried and he was he just understood that was part of the game and he's it was a significant injury so for him to come back and not even get to really go through spring full speed he did some things in the spring but he didn't get to go full speed it's been great having him back from a physical toughness standpoint a reliability standpoint ball security third down pickups special teams he's just a really good football player so I love the way he went about doing things um etn is a he's a natural he's a natural leader he's been that way uh since you know he was even in Florida he was that way he's a very confident kid um he leads by example he gets up there first um he's hard on guys what he needs to be he speaks up in front of the team and um he's a tremendous asset yeah coach that defensive tackle room seems to be pretty banged up I'm curious if there have any young names that have flashed in the absence of some of those over um they're working hard I I wouldn't go as far as safe flashing I mean they're they're working hard they're getting better um Jordan Thomas small Jarrett ND all those guys n Johnson the the quality of work they've gotten and the amount of work they've gotten um has been inordinate based on years past where a guy like that would not have gone against maybe the one line much he would have gone against maybe the three-oh line well they've been forced to go against twos threes ones they've gotten a lot of work um Nas has who's been a state for us Christian has um Zade McLoud has and U uh so has Warren Bron in terms of that so those guys all getting back and getting back healthy is has provided us an opportunity to build depth with the younger players want to ask you about a couple other young guys Justin Williams and Justin Williams and Joseph Johnson Joseph jier how two big talented kids out of Texas what can you tell us about them um both working they're both uh getting through their first Camp which is not easy here and u i don't set real high expectations like you guys try to do for these kids I tell them that if they can help and contribute I want them to and I think both those guys will help us and contribute this year to what extent maybe based on injury um uh how many snaps we have to play what packages we play um Justin's probably going to help on special teams before anything else um Joseph has done a tremendous job you feel like they're older than that cuz they went through all spring um and and Joseph has asserted himself as a physical presence he's a good uh sub rusher he's really physical on the edge and uh he's gotten matched up a lot of times against our our older offensive tackles and he holds his own so we're looking forward to being able to play those Christian Miller guys yeah with Christian Miller entering his third year in the program now where have you seen him improve the most this off season and what does he need to continue to show to be you think an every down player in that defensive line yeah I think he is an every down player in that room I think he's he's shown that even last year we we we had the luxury of some depth so we didn't have to play him every now we got to rotating and playing but um he's been much more dependable reliable uh available might be the best word because he's been uh doing a good job of staying healthy and uh and and working he's had uh some nagging injuries the last couple years that he didn't get all the way through Camp so availability sometimes is the best ability and he's been that Kirby is is gonner Stockton your Tanner Stockton backup quarterback and and how has he look this preseason you know we have a group of quarterbacks that have done a great job I think we've got depth to the quarterback position that we're not used to having uh in terms of of guys that have experience some guys that are young um some guys that have played like gunar and and Jaden and they've done a tremendous job uh Gunner's had two of his his uh better scrimmages and um I had probably his best scrimmage since being here in the last one I'm really pleased with where all those guys are speaking of quarterback what kind of Chemistry chemistry are you seeing Carson develop with some new new faces at receiv receiv and tight end you know he had kind of had his go-to guys but what kind of chemistry is progressing through camping as we get ready to closer to the bre season well I think that's a work in progress because we don't have a complete uh full deck out there and I would Adventure sure to say everybody in the country is that way cuz youve got you know one wide out out maybe a tight end out maybe a back out the next thing you know you don't have everybody out there you're you're really trying to to develop two things is chemistry with your number ones more important than developing your number twos and at the expense of chemistry we want to have depth and we've done a really good job pushing the envelope with London uh Michael Jackson zovi Nitro Rell Colton Hinrich making sure they're on the same page as Carson and sometimes when you do that you might lose a little uh continuity or or Rhythm uh cuz you don't have your your top guys in there we we've got to force guys to get ready to play that are going to have to play throughout the year and then then try to really get that continuity here in the next week or so to my question there was about soobe white Nitro tle and what can you tell us about Co spe um I can tell you all three of those guys are really hard workers very intelligent extremely athletic uh Cole's been a dominant special teams player and he's going to take on more role this year at receiver on top of being a good special teams player um he's a core product of our system you know he came in probably under recruited not highly talented he's gotten better every year he's really tough he's really physical he's really fast um he can dominate on all four phases of special teams but he's also created a role for himself at wide out soob Nitro are still learning um they need to play football they need to go out there without coaches and have to execute um but they're talented football players but I don't know that they're 100% reliable right now we have to we have to get more reliability out of them kby what has stood out to you about Jaylen Waddle Janelle in his second year in the program yeah his ability to process information faster I mean everything was really fast on jonell last year in terms of get the call get lined up execute get the call get lined up execute that was tough man I mean it was like he's going from a system where he never had so many words he didn't have to learn things he had rules he had to get and um he he took a lot of lumps last year you know he learned from ta he uh he got frustrated at times but it's paid off this year in terms of he understands the defense we're still challenging him to communicate a little better meaning verbalize things to people in front and behind you but he does a really good job with SE ball hit ball uh cover people strike people he's he's a he's a good football player yeah what's Dylan fairchild's Dylan Fairchild best attribute and how does he help this offensive line yeah toughness character uh what he stands for just as a man um have a lot of respect for Dylan and the way he's gone about his approach he stood up in front of the team and told his story and he talked about you know the years he spent on the scout team and how much it meant to him to to earn what he's gotten here and how hard he's had to work for it so a lot of respect for him his his his greatest attribute is probably his toughness or his power yeah CU you mentioned taking a look earli this week at Future opponents Future opponents Are there specific matchups you guys are previewing or what does that process look like over the next couple of days we're just looking at Future opponents and things that we don't see from ourselves so if we don't play a certain coverage certain front we're going to look at it and work on it and and try to expose our team to it you got to be careful about you don't get programmed into playing us we don't play us this year and uh same thing on offense there's teams that do things we don't do offensively that you know we just try to explore and that's probably 10 15% of practice it's not the majority it's a small small piece and uh we continue working on fundamentals P wood R worked through some stuff last year how valuable is it to have a guy who's Kicker competition kicked for a year and how's he kicking right now um he's been great um it's it's it's you know relieving that we don't have that stress of trying to figure out who that is this year so I feel great about that we do have good competition going on for kickoff battles and um Payton's consistent he's been good all Camp coach can you give a set update on Anthony Evans how Anthony Evans is coming along and maybe other potential return candidates yeah Anthony's done a good job uh he's very consistent back there he's done it in a game sovi continues to grow and get better sov has a lot of potential um other return candidates would be Michael Jackson who's done it uh Malachi tolero has done it all through high school he's he's done it since been here um etn does it in terms of kickoff Dylan Bell Nicole spear cash uh we got a lot of guys Nate Frasier we got a lot of guys back there that that that that catch kicks and Fs coach retrospectively that 2021 match Georgia Clemson rivalry up with Clemson open the season was was was huge mon Monumental you know for the whole year I guess but just looking back uh all the way back your career what can you say about the Georgia Clemson rivalry and I'm sure you guys are constantly running into each other on the recruiting Trail you don't play every year but I'm assuming there's a competition every year with Clemson yeah I I we don't see them on the road recruiting as much as it seems like we used to I don't know um it's died down some I mean there's a lot of overlap they recruit our state hard we recruit their state hard um a lot of respect for their players their teams their coaches for what dabo's built there I had a good relationship with Brent when he was there and he's in our league now um they've been one of the Premier teams in college football in terms of the last 10 years you could say I mean it's probably longer than that but they've done a tremendous job so um we we do see them on the road some recruiting but I think the matchup is more about our fans just uh getting a that caliber of a matchup to start the season is is important but you know we got we got issues on our hands to today we're trying to deal with over the game time for one more question I want to ask you about your Freshman defensive backs three red Shir freshman defensive backs Rett PE and Jones what have you SE for them in year two for those guys yeah growth um Rhett has gotten better with each and every practice uh he continues to improve um he's gotten better this Camp from Spring um Peele has been dealing with the shoulder surgery that he he missed some time at the end of spring and so he was not clear for the start of Camp he's just now getting cleared as in today he's been practicing he just hadn't been completely cleared to to do full contact so he'll get to do some of that and then Kyon has had a good camp he's really fast he's really physical he was a running back in high school that had really never played DB so we told him it's going to take a while it's not overnight you just snap your fingers and he's starting to show up more on special teams as a uh really competitive and dominant player he's still working uh at DB to grow and get better because it's it's not something that you just click your heels together and get it right thank coach