Kirby Smart on Georgia after Clemson win: 'We have so much to improve on' | Georgia football

yeah um excited to be here excited to get moved on to uh pursue getting better um be open with Tennessee Tech practice today and uh we'll start uh attacking these guys they played a really hard fought game with Middle Tennessee uh the other night had a great comeback and um got a lot of respect for the way they played in that game for sure and uh our guys will start getting prepared on them uh today yeah coach when we spoke to you last week you kind of talked about Clemson and Carson talked about Clemson being a manto man football team that likes to send a lot of pressures as a defense when that's the identity of a football team they come out playing a lot of Zone covers to start the football game I'm curious how you guys adjusted as a staff and did that kind of Catch You by surprise uh not necessarily they they they've been a pressure team but they're not necessarily man demand pressure they play a lot of forms of pressure very similar to what we do in terms of uh Zone uh Sims and two traps uh mixed him with some manto man and uh they probably played a lot of more single high uh man and Zone than they have in the past to to load up on the Run um but I I wouldn't say anything our offense gets surprises us because we we have a huge volume of Defense so um they typically get exposed to a a lot of defensive structures um but that's NE here nor there you can do a lot and be no good at it or you could do a lot and try to be good at it it's a lot more about the players you were talking about the the Green Dot helmet um philosophy on defense it's not necessarily the single color can you share who wore the Green Dot and and expound on that will it be the same every week or is that something that could change from week to week I hadn't really thought about it I mean we we share who uses it every day in practice uh I I'll be honest with you I don't even know I mean CJ had it some smile had it some uh ra might have had it some we have two helmets so deps it depends on which pairing of players are in U we have other players that have green dot helmets in case they have to play a position that they're not normally playing and we had a couple situations like that Saturday that we thought might happen with injuries so we had other guys ready and prepared to use the Green Dot but as far as I know we just had the linebackers using coach it looked like uh Aran Smith was you know very involved in the in the offense two touches of the game and not necessarily uh you know beat him deep situation he just talk about his development purely as a receiver and how much you guys are depending on them offensively this year yeah we want to depend on everybody because you don't want to be a onedimensional team so the idea is to ever since we've been here is spread the ball around we've had a lot of guys with a lot of touches U nobody with a ton individually and and aran's been a a great case study in that because he's touched the ball vert ly he's touched the ball sideways he's become a more complete receiver and Route Runner um I thought he made some plays out on the the besides the the rocket sweep things and the edge runs he made some plays catching the ball outside um and that's big for him that's growth for him and we need more guys to step up and and be able to do that and uh we got to be Innovative in ways to get touches um that make us hard to defend yeah Kirby any updates on Mel waren Bron Jan agero going in this week um jonell was close to being able to play worked out before the game um thought he might be able to go in emergency um I don't really know today anymore we just we just had to walk through he walked through and hoping he'll be able to to go this week U Warren uh got a little bit of an ankle SL contusion wasn't able to go we're hopeful he's able to go um Michel has a ankle sprain it's a grade two but it's stable um he'll be week to week probably questionable this week but but not going to be a longterm ankle we'll see this sort of an off topic question but I'm sure obviously so much of your time was devoted to today and this week and and that sort of thing but when you're thinking about this probably more the bigger picture direction of program whether it's how to navigate nil or the portal or you know Replacements at career coaches how what's your process for for making those decisions all of them maybe's pick out the N I guess us that was that like how do you how do you come decision here's how we want to do this just organizational glomeration of information I mean this I can't answer that question just uh I'm very process detail oriented we have a way we go about things we talk about it we visit with others we brainstorm we do what any good uh business would do and we try to make the best decision but I mean comes to to nil it's um you know what what what can we raise what do we have what do we have available um what's the best value and and and what kids fit our culture and and who's going to be unselfish and uh come here and play for University of Georgia not just for the money there there's a lot of things that go into that decision and those other decisions you talked about there's a ton especially You' had time to watch the tape what were your thoughts on how jerich um you know I I knock on W I don't think we had an errant snap and that was something that was really important we chart his snaps every day and he's SP about 95 96% uh snap accuracy and that's something that you can't afford to have it's got to be a hundred and I thought he did a good job of of doing that in the game um I think if you asked Jared there's some things that he should have done better he could have done better and he didn't play his uh best football game but like I tell kids all the time if you miss time in training camp it tends to show in the first game and he uh he missed some time he did some really good things some really athletic things and then he had a couple plays that uh that he didn't make and I think he was the first guy came up to me walking off the field and and said he screwed up a couple plays but you know that's that's that's football yeah what does it say about one home freeze abili to come and make those big third down catches after just transferring into the program this off season and even coming in for for Dylan Bell on Saturday yeah it's uh it's great he does a good job um he's probably more in relief for uh Aran and uh he did a good job he's got SEC experience I think that's what you know the the portal provides you to go get a guy that's been successful and played well in our conference and uh he he's done that he's proven himself as a guy that can make plays and and he was ready when his number was called and we talk about it all the time is your opportunity is coming are you going to seize the moment um when the moment jumps in front of you he did that Kirby after reviewing film what were your impressions of Malachi when he played the star and what kind of flexibility does that give you a person um he did a nice job when he played the star especially for a guy that didn't rep there but last week a few times I mean he he didn't get any reps in Camp there so he uh he did a good job jumping in and filling that role um flexibility it just depends on the depth of other positions be our best player at five positions so it's more a matter of what's around him and what's healthy working in in in what what are we going to do defensively you know like he plays a role at safety he plays a role at strong safety he plays a role at Star so he does a tremendous job it gives us some depth but um I'd rather not have to be relying on the depth and rely on the the guys that practice talk him Coach you said after the the game as far as the Jay goes coaches have had to get is uncomfortable using using him on the field I just wonder how many guys have you been around in your career can go inside out like that with ability that J has and what is about that skill that makes them able to do that successfully well we're unique in our defense I shouldn't say unique I don't know how many others do what we do defensively because I I'm not in their programs so we're very different in regards to what NFL Scouts and Personnel tell us that we still train you know outside backers to be Sam outside linebackers and um learned a long time ago that that you need to develop two skill sets because the game has changed and evolved to be more spread oriented so these guys that played outside linebacker against a twack I set they weren't finding homes they might have a home in the NFL they didn't have a home in college and we make promises that we're going to develop you in multiple ways I mean going back to NES Patrick he could play into the line back Tri backer and he could also play inside backer and he was used to rush and do things here Lorenzo was that way um Quay Walker started as an outside backer and inside backer and had flexibility so we think it's part of your growth we say all the time you're going to get 98% of your football reps in practice so why not experiment and grow and that 2% you get to play in the game you get to show off all these things you learned uh and then when the next level comes calling they've seen you do multiple things and it's really important to them that you can still play uh into the linebacker because their their style of football still has some traditional nature to it as opposed to to College is very different now so we're very I'm very proud of jayen because he's had to really grow and get uncomfortable inside backer he's more natural at his outside backer position har what were your impressions of KJ and his first game um KJ's very confident he's played more football than most seniors he's been playing since he was 6 years old uh in the heart of Atlanta one of the toughest leagues there is to play football and uh he's played up against older kids all his life um he's extremely athletic the moment's not too big for KJ he's just he's very gifted athletically but he also has great football instincts and intuition um he's been coached by his father uh and he's he's tough and um so I think I think that gives him a leg up on other guys coming in cuz he's just been playing football so long yeah having a chance to review the tap what you see at a Damon Wilson in his first game against Wilson effort like I did last year there's things he's got to improve on and do better he missed a couple opportunities to make a couple plays that that I thought he should have made um but he's you know I I don't judge Damon On th that body of work of those snaps I judge Damon on the body of work of the 1,000 snaps he's had in Camp and he's had a really good camp he's improved himself physically uh he can play more Downs now um he's got to continue to get stronger and maintain his weight but just the few snaps that he that I mean our guys didn't played any snaps I we had 56 or 57 snaps so you know we didn't have I think we had 18 guys that played over 28 snaps on the whole team so there weren't a large number of snaps played by anybody so that body of work is not real big coach you mentioned the snap count that Clon offense I believe led the nation last year 77 what was the key to limiting their amount of touches in football and were you surprised they huddled as much as they did I really don't know um what their decisions are for for their offense it's uh when you stop people on third down and you're hard to run the ball on you're not going to have a lot of snaps um and we were fortunate to get off the field on some third Downs um they were also unfortunate they had a couple drops early that would have gotten them rolling um so you know it is what it is as far as the snap account numbers um you know I think people with the headsets you may end up with less plays than normal because of people want to wait and talk coach he mentioned aran's Improvement and he talks about in Fall Camp just becoming more consistent I know it's only one game that how have you seen him prioritize that oh Aran works there's no harder worker on our team than Aron Smith I mean he's he's a product of a really tough physical program and he'll tell you today he stands front of the team and he is just completely different person he had never had to practice and strain like he does here and um he he has made decisions that he wants to be really good so he works really hard at it I mean there's not a play that I can find where ARA doesn't run hard to the ball or try to block somebody and do something extra and it's that way on special teams you know he made a huge special teams playing the game and uh continues to improve by doing those things K what kind of jump have you seen from Lawson his second year in the programs more confident in system healthy um tougher and More Physical but needs to improve on that and uh uh just a passion for the game he's really really uh football Savvy he understands football and leverages and has made a lot of plays you know in the passing game and continues to play more physical coach just want to ask about mik and didn't seem to get a whole bunch of snaps the other day and also I know the last couple know snaps game you're able to get your freshman rest fresh summer for the first time how big is that for kids like that get a chance um hopefully I mean the work they get every day in practice I me I know for you guys everything is about that small snapshot you see of the game but for me it's what are you going to do today what are you going to do tomorrow cuz you're going to get 40 or 50 snaps against a really good football player today and tomorrow and uh we really try to impress upon our guys there's so much value in our practice that it's held in higher esteem a lot of times by NFL organizations than the the game is and that's it's not understood by the common fan that practice is more important than the game but it certainly is here M too um didn't I mean Michel's got to continue to improve I mean it's one of those deals that we're going to play the guys that that practice the best and he practices better he'll get to play more comment ony EV and I'd agree about practice soce keep hoping what Anthony Evans on the returns importance he I thought he did a great job of Fielding uh the ball the ball hits the ground and it it bounces I watch all these games in college games where the ball bounces in 20 and 30 yards field position is getting flipped you know it takes a lot of confidence to go and judge the ball especially in that Dome and there were some some strange punts there were some balls doing some crazy spin it was a left footed uh punter so you one of the wins of the game for us was not letting the ball hit the ground and balance he did once and it went in the end zone which was a judgment call by him so I was very pleased with what he was able to do um in terms of K I mean pun return I have two questions for you Kirby one after your M photo was done after the game being able to talk to Carson what was the review of the whole headset thing did they like it could Carson here the other one is uh week one to week two what do you want to see is the biggest Improvement on your football team I can't pick one thing on Improvement I mean there's so many things that we got to do better I mean I all of it I mean there's just a lot there that that that we want to improve on and you know some of what you're doing is dictated by who you play and I don't people just think it's a stat game it's not a stat game is who you're lining up across from and and how good is that football player because that does dictate things the matchups uh in terms of crossing and Mike I mean we done it every day for 32 practices so it wasn't any different than the 32 practices that we did it it shuts off at 15 you talk before it it wasn't any different than our scrimmages it was exactly like we practiced and we've had probably 60 walkthroughs um so between the walkthroughs and the uh the games we've got some form of communication walkthrough is it can't be a helmet so it's a earpiece but he's heard he's heard it all coach just U from your perspective and your philosophy over the time here going from game to game where have you seen the growth among your players and that focus and mentality when you're going from opponent to opponent uh no matter where they play they are yeah I don't know that I have this year cuz we haven't done it you know like every team's different um in terms of in overtime they change like I can't compare 2018 to 2020 to 2022 I mean because the teams are different the maturity level The Experience level it does seem that every year we get younger so every year it's a greater burden and Challenge on the older players to uh set the standard and and hold people to uh how we go about our preparation and putting a game behind us and moving on to the next one but it's the same for the coaches and we don't change how we uh go week to week we have a protocol we have a checklist and we follow that have time for one more question if anyone has one all right thank you coach thank