Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart discusses team heading into spring

Mar. 5—After going 8-2 in a 2020 season that concluded with a win in the Peach Bowl, Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs began work toward bigger goals in 2021.

The Bulldogs came up short of the SEC Championship Game last season, but they expect to challenge for the conference title and more with a talented team back. They begin preparations with spring practice, which begins March 17.

Smart spoke with the media this week ahead of spring practice. Here are some highlights of those sessions.

On the start date of spring practice and how the perspective changes since not being able to practice last spring due to COVID:

"No, our objective never changes when it comes to spring practice. Us having spring practice last year or not doesn't control what we do this year. Obviously the objective is to get each and every player better. We had a team run and I asked everyone to stand up who had not been through a spring practice at Georgia and I'm going to venture to say it was 65-70 percent of the team that stood up. That's a scary thing. It just shows you the youth you have, the lack of practices and experiences your team has. Sixteen midyears, a lot of new walk-ons, nobody that was here last year for the first year had gone through that. So when you look at all of those things it kind of combines and you say, 'Wow, we have a really young group from that perspective.' We plan to start two weeks from today, which I think is March 16, to start spring practice. We will follow the model we've always had, but we could change that based on weather. We can change that based on a lot of different things- injuries- but that the plan that we currently have in place."

On how valuable a spring practice will be for JT Daniels and how he looks this offseason:

"Everybody needs spring practice, let's be honest. There is nobody on our roster- you could even say our returning fifth-year guys- it's important that they get the spring practice they have. With the quarterback position, the continuity of the offense, that's critical. You want to be able to get some relationships built there. Continuity towards the end of the year began to improve, obviously offensively, we have a lot of a guys that are coming back but that doesn't mean that you're going to have success because they're coming back. I think the more that the mantra or message out there is that you're going to be great, the tougher our job becomes internally to motivate and have guys. There have been off seasons here where we've had returning quarterback, returning backs, returning these guys, two great tackles — did that equate to instant success? Not necessarily. What you do and what you earn is what you get in the offseason. Nothing is given to you, there's no entitlement. I think JT understands that. I think the rapport with the receiver group for all of the quarterbacks is going to be extremely important in terms of developing our offense and getting timing in the passing game."

On if winning a championship is preached or if the focus is on what is here and now in the process:

"You have to be careful when you make things just about that. I realize the standard of excellence that's been created here and the expectation. We never shy away from those expectations but that's not going to get the end goal. The end goal is to have a net sum gain of positives and you're trying to constantly move people from over here, who might be on the negative side and then on the positive side bring more guys along. As you do that, the end goal is that you get more results — that you're able to win championships. We never shy away from that being our goal, but it's not something we have to talk about everyday. Why would you talk about that everyday because you're focusing on the wrong thing if that's the case. You need to focus on how you're going to do that. How do we get that net sum to positive over negative and that's by pulling everybody in the right direction. That's our goal."

On improving trends of COVID and if there's encouragement of protocols that might change this summer:

"There's not a lot of talk from the SEC. I know Ron Courson and his staff constantly get updates from the medical group that he's in charge of. They do a tremendous job of staying up to date on whether its variance, the different variances that come into the country, or testing methods, going from swab in nose to saliva. There are all kinds of updates for us but not necessarily enlightening. Only time will tell. The indicators and the numbers have been positive lately that things are on the decline and it's certainly been that way for us as well."

On balancing the line of wanting his players in the NFL and knowing their skill level:

"There is no line, I really don't think there is a line. I tell our players all the time, that we are going to be honest with the NFL. They're going to find out, they're going to go talk to the academic people, the trainers, they're going to talk to the strength staff. We are not in the business of lying for anyone. We be as honest as we can and be as transparent as we can when it comes to our players. I think our players have a lot of strengths and I think any person, any NFL evaluator, anyone who comes into evaluate our players understands that there are no perfect players. There are no perfect players, they have flaws. We as coaches, we have flaws. They are trying to get the information so they can rank one guy against the other guy, and they will peruse that information regardless of where they go to school. If a guy is not accurate and forward with hem that discredits their voice almost immediately. But I am excited to see those guys work out. It will be a very different format it seems like in terms of Pro-Day and being able to work out and getting a chance to perform in front of these scouts. I know it is coming rapidly. I am just happy that the players are going to get an opportunity to do that. Last year that group never really got that chance."

On what he does personally from the end of one season to the beginning of the next:

"Yeah, I don't want to say that we are changing our DNA, I think we are defining our DNA a little better. Every team has its own DNA, right? You're not going to have the same exact team as you did the year before; the personalities are different. It doesn't matter if you are talking about running or throwing the ball, but the makeup of what is between the ears of your players, that dynamic changes. I think defining that every year is really critical. Know who you are. Know your strengths and weaknesses and be intentional about that with your players where they can set the standard of demands of what it is. But yeah, me personally I go through that every off-season. Going into a season you cannot get comfortable and say, 'I am just kind of comfortable with this.' No, sometimes being unformattable is good. Guys we have brought in on our staff have brought new ideas and different things we can do to get our players attention and not just be comfortable. We have a lot of new players too; they don't know how we do things. Trying to create the standard of what they know as excellence is really important for our older players. So, we are always in search of define your DNA that season."

On the development of the young cornerbacks on the team:

"Yeah, the cornerback position is completely open. To name to guys is probably not smart of me. We have a lot of guys that could be working at cornerback. Every guy on the team is a potential cornerback right now. We are in search of finding guys that can play that position at a high-level in a really tough conference. You look across the SEC throwing the ball has gotten better and better, and we want those guys to get exposed. We are one of the conferences' that plays more man-to-man than anyone else; so, you need have guys out there that can function. That position is up for grabs. There are no guys that are proven returning starters. And every guy is working hard to learn the techniques and details that it takes to play winning football at that position."

On the receiver position:

"No, the receivers are not my concern with practice reps. We have got — we are over our number of guys that you would call quota that you need to have the practices we have. DBs are the concern there. The guys we had leave, the guys we had come out early, and guys coming in; we had two different receivers come in midyear, that has really helped our numbers there. We also got some guys that signed last year that we think are good football players, we got a good group there. So, the defensive back will be the limiting of the two spot, if anything from a standpoint of numbers. Especially if you consider dime, which is six DBs and to go two spot you must go more than two to have backups. At wideout, you are going to have three or four on the field at the most. So, we feel comfortable with he wideout depth we have."