← On Texas Football
On Texas Football
Kirby Smarts NOT HAPPY With WRs Being Questioned | SEC Media Days Press Conference
00:24:54
Kirby Smart’s SEC Media Days audio carries the weight of a coach trying to hold two truths at once: Georgia is still built for championship expectations, but real pain is sitting right beside the promise. The most emotional moment comes when Smart...
Loading summary
Transcript23 lines
- [00:00]
A
Thank you, Greg. I appreciate that warm introduction and so proud of both my young children getting ready to head off to college. That'll be a new experience for me that I am looking forward to. I can't say that my wife, Mary Beth, is. She's very concerned about emptying that nest a little bit with two leaving, but I'm excited to have one in Athens and then one in Chapel Hill. So I'm proud of both of those young ones. About Greg Sankey, I want to say a couple comments about him. First and foremost, I think I've talked before in this setting about the cost of leadership and shared that with many people a couple years ago. I think nobody embodies that any better in this country in terms of college athletics than Greg Sankey. I think in terms of leadership, the role he's taken on for our conference is incredible. He takes sometimes bullets he doesn't deserve. He stands in front of a challenging group between presidents, ADs and other administrators and football coaches and basketball coaches and in a changing landscape and does an incredible job of holding down the fort, keeping people combined, and has to make really tough decisions for all of us. And we know there's costs with that. I'd like to thank you guys. Thank you for the job. You do an incredible. I mean, you guys make this the best conference in the country, probably in the world. When you talk about competitiveness and. And how our conference is strengthened and really across all sports, I don't want to isolate that just to football, but the coverage that this room gives our conference makes it really uncomparable to others. And you guys do an incredible job for us. I'm actually excited to be in Tampa. I don't know how everybody else feels about that. I get all these texts from different coaches, but I'm excited to be in Tampa. My mom is from Plant City. I spent my summers in Plant City. If you don't know where that is, it's right down the road. I got to go to Reds spring training, watch Pete Rose when I was a little kid and see the Reds in spring training. Also go to the Strawberry Festival. So if you don't know, you don't know. And if you know, you do know. The Strawberry Festival is special. And I grew up coming down here for probably two weeks out of the summer. And some of the best memories of my childhood are right outside Tampa. So excited for that. I also want to thank our administration. I know everybody brags on their administration, but mine has been completely aligned for quite a long time now. Have an incredible President who is very involved. President Morehead, if you guys don't know, sits on a lot of committees. He helps try to improve the future of college athletics. He sits in a lot of roles that most presidents don't want to be a part of. I know he cares about athletics and he cares about the University of Georgia. He's made it into a premier institution with the standards he's created and the rigor he creates academically and how challenging it is to get into to be a topic 15 top 20 public institution. And then our athletic director, Josh Brooks has made it one of the best athletic departments in all the country. We were top 10 in Learfield sports in Learfield cup, which I know he's proud of. I'm proud of. I am a college sports enthusiast and I love the University of Georgia and I love it when our other athletic programs do an incredible job. Commissioner Sankey mentioned that the College World Series, Wes Johnson's team, baseball team, to win our conference and be the football and baseball champions of SEC for the first time. One school did that in over 15 to 20 years. Whatever it was, it's an incredible feat for us. I'm proud of his staff and all of our athletic department with what they've done. I also want to mention Derice Griffin. She is a superstar in athletics, a rising star and we've been saying rising star for a while now. So she's a veteran star and she's senior deputy director, athletic director within our department. She does an incredible job for me. She's there for me during tough times and good times and really proud of the work she does. So our administration is second to none. The other thing I want to talk about real quick is our staff. You know, not enough is made about the University of Georgia staff. When people talk about roster retention, I like to talk about staff retention. We have been blessed to retain our staff and stay intact almost completely for three to four years now. I think that matters. I think the growth, the biggest challenge you have when you retain your not only your roster, but your staff is you have to be willing to grow. You have to be willing to experiment, try new things. You can't sit back and just be the same old thing and do the same old things and expect to get the same return. My job as the leader of this organization is to challenge our staff to make sure we're thinking outside the box, make sure we're exploring other alternatives. And I've got a staff that has been just incredible. We got three or four guys that have been with me for nine to 11 years. And those guys are the rock and glue that makes our place go. And I support the support our administration gives us to keep them and retain them, because a lot of our guys have had opportunities to go on to other jobs, maybe pro NFL opportunities, and they've chosen to stay at the University of Georgia. That's because of the support we get. It's because of the school systems in our community and the way you can raise a family in our family environment. So I'm proud of that. I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about our three players here. And, you know, one's a returner. It's very rare you get a second. SEC media days. Gunner Stockton is doing that. He embodies what leadership is, and he doesn't do it through his mouth. You know, we can't get the guy to talk half the time, but when he gets around, the players, they know, they see the toughness he plays with. He embodies our program. Just love everything he stands for. Quick story about Gunner. We took a leadership group to go whitewater rafting this off season. We went up into North Carolina to go whitewater rafting, and they. They said, okay, who's going to be at the front of the boat? They explained that this was the most risky position that you got to get on the front of the boat. You may fall out. When you go over a rapid, you'll be nose down, and you're the first to go down into the water. Obviously had a life jacket. Obviously, we made it as safe as we possibly could, but he chose to jump into that seat, and I think that says a lot about who he is. He leads from the front, he takes hits. He embodies everything our program's about in toughness and culture and the love for his university. So I'm glad he's here to share with you guys today and be around you guys. Another young man near and dear to my heart, Raylan Wilson. Raylan Wilson's and I'll say this, all three of our players have graduated, and they all graduated this spring or the previous spring. They're four years or longer in our program. And Raylon is from down in, he likes to say Monticello, Florida. Most of you don't know where that is, but I say he's from Tallahassee, but it's really where he's born. And his family background is Monticello, Florida. And Raelyn has grown up a lot in our program. He started and played a tremendous amount against Alabama four Years ago in an SEC championship. That was a really tough game for a freshman to start and play in. And now he's a veteran leader. He and a couple other players are the voice of our defense. And I'm proud of what Rayland stands for and how he leads. And then last but not least is Drew Bobo, son of our offensive coordinator. He is tough. He has been through a significant injury and he is back from that injury. He also embodies the toughness that. That we want to have within our program. This guy's a position that gets no credit. It's most of the blame. When you're at center, only things can go wrong and he owns up to it and reflects the University of Georgia in the right way. So we're proud to have those three guys here, and I'm certainly proud of those guys and all the guys that aren't here. We got one of the best leadership teams we've had all along. So a couple accolades this team's coming into at our highest spring GPA we've ever had at an academic school that is one. One of the toughest in the country. Very proud of our spring work we did as a team and continue to do with that group of men. I think this time in college football, the landscape of college football, that's all the talking heads want to talk about. Everywhere I go, tv, media, everybody wants to talk about the landscape of college football. And it's sad that what's forgotten, what wins games, maybe that becomes boring, maybe that becomes mundane. But not at our place. I've had questions about expansion, more SEC games, portal college and federal legislation to navigate the NIL era. We're in players leaving, coaches leaving. That's all people want to talk about. But what we focus on at Georgia is what wins football games. And that's my passion and energy. That's what we love to do. We love to grind it out, play physical football, be explosive in offense, be explosive in defense by how you create turnovers and what you do to create sacks. But at the end of the day, I don't enjoy talking about all these things that are the landscape of college football. I enjoy talking about what wins and what allows our team to have the best chance. The consistency and performance is probably what I'm most proud of over the last 10 to 11 years, including this season. And the consistency and performance is what Georgia's been built on. Can we repeatedly do and be successful regardless of who comes in and out of your program this season? Like many others, we just, we chose to study a successful brand or team or follow someone. And this year, the reigning NBA champions at the time when we studied them was the OKC Thunder. And they talked about being uncommon and how you can be uncommon in today's world. And our guys took a week by week section of being uncommon. Believing in the success of others is greater than the success of yourself. In a day and age when that's not normal, that is uncommon. To be more proud and have a little bit of mudita, we call it that we enjoy the success of others more than the success of ourselves. And that's what our team and program is built on. So with that, I'll open it up for questions.
- [10:01]
B
Thank you, Coach Smart. If you have a question, we have Patrick, Aaron and Ellie will get a microphone to you. Please give your name and affiliation. So we'll now open it up for questions for Coach Smart. Okay, we'll come up here to our left hand side, third row on the aisle.
- [10:19]
A
TJ French, WUG Radio, Athens, Georgia. Of course, who's one player on both sides of the ball that people might not really know about now but will be a household name and in, let's say, mid October? Yeah, I wish I knew that too, TJ If I could answer that, I promise you I would be. Well, no, I can't sports wager, but I would be much better off if I knew that. I think that's going to play itself out. I could give you some guys that had really good spring practices and have stepped up and grown. I'm excited to see what some of the young freshmen that played defensively have done. I'm excited to see one of the best playmakers we've had over the last two years has been KJ Bolden on defense. And he's done a really good job. I think back to a play he made on the Texas overtime game that people don't talk about where they ran across screen to the back and he came out of the top. One of the most instinctive plays I've seen a player make. And he made that as a true freshman. So I'm excited. And I know he's not a. That's not your question. Because you want guys that aren't household names and, and those guys have got to earn it. And you earn it by what you do in the fall, not what you do in the spring. So I'm excited to see those guys grow.
- [11:26]
B
Coach will go to right down the center aisle. Barry. Barry Trammel, Tulsa World. They'll have my hide in Oklahoma if I don't expound on the Thunder stuff, two questions. How does the football coach at Georgia have time to even know what somebody like the Thunder is doing? Number two, are there similarities in that you had a powerhouse going? Sort of. The college football was hit with a rampant change three or four years ago. You've stayed great, but your dominance has slipped just because of so much parity. How difficult is it to maintain what you want to do with the changing landscape of what's going on with parity? Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Texas Tech, all kinds of new. Indiana, all kinds of new people are able to compete at a very high level.
- [12:10]
A
I think it's great for the sport. You know, I think having everybody competitive and having everybody to have more guys can be invited to the party and. And get to the party mainly through the portal in a lot of ways, because, I mean, let's be honest, there's some footprints in some states that don't support their program through their own state. They have to go find other ways to do it. Right. They've got to be great in the portal. They got to be able to recruit nationally. And we're very fortunate in our state that we can still stay within our footprint. But each team that finds a way, it seems to be okay. They did it through age. Okay. They did it through quarterback play. They did it. Everybody finds a way to what's their niche, and that's. That makes the stories more interesting for you guys, right? It's not a one team dominant program. It's really everybody. And then to your question about the Oklahoma City Thunder and the ability that we study successful programs all the time. So if you're not studying how other people are doing it and you're just fixated on your own team and your own roster, I think you're missing out. You know, we're always trying to grow in our program. We don't want to stay the same. So you need to study how other people are doing it and maybe the ways they're doing it and creating roles for players. It's very unique what the Thunder was doing, especially when they won the championship in terms of leading in so many categories, but most importantly, selflessness. And that's what we try to emulate.
- [13:26]
B
Coach, we'll go in the section in front of me, right in the middle. Kirk, it's coming from your right.
- [13:32]
A
Kurt Bowles from the Houston Chronicle. Kirby, you talked about, you know, want to talk about how to win. Are you all a little bit of the exception or outlier in the way y' all stress the defense and more running Game. It's such a passing game trend now in college football. Running back hadn't won the Heisman since Derrick Henry in 2015. Do you feel like in some ways you are an outlier against that trend? Those would be your words, not mine. Because I like to think that we play good defense, we play good offense. Statistically, over the last five years, we've got the second most explosive play plays in all of college football and that's on offense. So, you know, I think there's a misnomer probably because of the position I coach in my history and the defensive philosophy that it's like this. Oh, okay, we're just going to. No, we believe you have to run the ball in the fourth quarter. There were probably four games last year that if we didn't run the ball for a first down and they knew we were going to run the ball because of the clock management, that you lose games or you give them another possession and we're going to be. Our identity is going to be physical. You can be physical in the past game, you can be physical on the perimeter. We pride ourselves in those things as well. But I don't think that we're a anomaly or an exception. We just follow the rule of the book that when you have to run the ball, you have to be able to run the ball in games. There's going to come a time where every team has to do that. Doesn't mean you can't be explosive and we certainly need to be more explosive. But when you do a five year study, four year study, you look at the numbers. Georgia's been in the top five of all those categories. So I like to think that our success has come from both offense, defense and in special teams.
- [15:08]
B
We'll go back down that center aisle, five rows back.
- [15:11]
A
Coach Nicholas of WOG in Athens, Georgia. Has there been a moment this offseason, whether on the field or off the field, that you think is a reflection of his team as a whole? I wouldn't say one moment. No, I would say a collective group of practices. You know, we have 15 tough practices in the spring. We have really good off season workouts, conditioning early in the morning. I'm proud of what those guys and leaders have stepped forward and put out there. We've got a lot of guys in new positions, a lot of guys on defense having to step up and take on new roles with a couple of defensive players that left that were maybe bigger personalities. I think offensively we got a good core group back. And the best part is the continuity we're able to keep through our retention and people say, well, are you just a retention team and you don't believe in the portal? Absolutely. Our most explosive offensive player last year was out of the portal. Our second most explosive player on offense was out of the portal. So we still have guys that we need. We still believe in the high school philosophy. I think when you look across the state of Georgia and you look across the NFL per capita, you know, the state of Georgia is by far and away the greatest producer of NFL talent in my opinion. And really a five hour radius of our university, which includes some other states. So I don't think we have to go outside that all the time to get it. Until we need a special player or we have a special player who has interest.
- [16:32]
B
We'll go over to our far right section on the front row. Over to our right. Hey, coach.
- [16:37]
A
Steve Moulton, 977 ESPN the zone out of Huntsville. Hope you're doing well. I wanted to ask about the wide receiver room in particular. One of the bigger question marks, at least that I have. How do you, how would you assess the wide receiver room heading into fall camp? I'm just very thankful for people like you, Steve, that keep questioning them because the more you question them, the more it helps me motivate them. So everybody says that we don't listen to you guys. Well, the wide receivers are listening, so they'll have a new challenge issued based on your question.
- [17:07]
B
I will go in the section in front of me, right about four rows back.
- [17:11]
A
Yeah, Kirby, Kevin Brockway, Gagelson, getting the Florida Georgia game in Atlanta this year, what do you sense for the enthusiasm for kind of the players, the coaches, the fan base? And having played a few regular season games in there, what's the regular season environment like at Mercedes Benz, you think? Yeah, I'm excited for that opportunity. It's a change in venue, excited for our fan base. And you know, Florida's got a large contingent in fan base in Atlanta. So, you know, I think that's more of a media and fan deal than it is players. I don't think any of the Florida players or Georgia players are sitting back going, okay, we're playing in Atlanta this year. What does that change? I mean, it doesn't, let's be honest. It's just the venue we're playing in will be different. You know, sometimes down there, winds a big factor, heat's a factor and all those things. We're going to be indoors in an incredible stadium, an incredible venue that we've gotten to play in multiple times. So I'm excited for the opportunity, the change, you know, and then we'll be back down here the following year in another environment.
- [18:09]
B
Go back over to the section in front of me on the aisle.
- [18:12]
A
Hey, Coach TJ French, Wu G Athens. Looking at that schedule there on your right, looks like there's no Tennessee, which I'm sure is extremely bizarre for you. Just what are your thoughts on not playing them and does that kind of feel like it's one less win being taken away off the schedule? Yeah, you said that, not me. It's a tough place to play and tough team to play. I got a lot of respect for Josh and their staff. I mean, they're a tough prep. They're really hard to prepare for. And I'm glad other teams get an opportunity to do that because they get some new teams to play and then we get some new teams to play. So very unique scheduling. Looking forward to the new format and the matchups that are created through the new format.
- [18:58]
B
If you have a question, raise your hand. We'll get a microphone to you. We've got one back behind us. Patrick, if you'll go back and get that one on the right hand side on the aisle.
- [19:08]
A
Hey, Coach Eddie Pelz from ap. I know you said you don't want to talk about the landscape, but given the landscape, how that impacts program building and predictability, does that make your. What does that do to your job? I guess, yeah. I want to be clear. I'm not avoiding the talk about landscape. I'm only saying that I think it's the position I'm in. It's the veteran SEC remaining coach. I don't mind talking or speaking to it. All I'm saying is at events like this, it eats the air and takes away from what actually wins and loses football games. I respect the fact that the landscape matters and I do think that it matters the position that the senior veteran coaches across the country take. Okay, now with that, I need that question again. Well, talk about the landscape however you want, but how does it impact a coach's ability to produce a program? Basically, you know, especially when you don't know what's going to be going on in three years or three months. Yeah, I don't know that we knew that 10 years ago. We didn't know it was going to be going on three. It's changing more rapid. Yes. Okay. But what wins football game has not changed. Has the role of the head coach changed? If you want it to, it can. You can be as involved in offense defense and coaching and remove yourself from all this changing landscape. Or you can dive over here and spend your time over here in the changing landscape and try to navigate it better and let your coaches coach. Each coach has to decide within their own program what they want to major in. Because you cannot sit back, let's call it eight years ago, six years ago. Pre Covid I would say and say that I'm just gonna do this, okay? I'm gonna focus on this and just do this. You've got to be able to wear multiple hats more than I ever imagined, okay? But you gotta choose which hats you wanna wear the best. And maybe that's dictated by the strength of your staff, right? Like, you've got really strong continuity and coaches and X and Os and schemes and recruiters. Then you go focus on the relationships with the players. You go focus on maybe raising money and doing things with donors. You go. You have to choose what you want to. And I think that's the strength of our program. I'm not afraid to change what we need to change to be successful. And if I need to spend more time with one player because he plays harder and less time with the offensive staff or the offensive coordinator, the defensive staff or the special team, I'm willing to do that. I don't have an ego that says you have to do it my way. I want to hear how you want to do it, and let's find the best way. But what I am worried about is what kind of product do we put on the field in terms of physicality, toughness, all those things, how we practice that. That's non negotiables for me. The landscape piece, that's kind of over here on the side. And if you get really lost and caught up in landscape and you're constantly arguing and fussing and complaining and tweeting and doing all that, guess what? You're not worried about what matters, and we're going to worry about what matters first at our place.
- [22:08]
B
Coach will go back in the section in front of me about three quarters of the way back.
- [22:12]
A
Mike Griffith, Atlanta General Constitution Coach, you've won the last two SEC championship games, and yet there's a perception that maybe Georgia is not where it used to be because of the College Football Playoff. How do you put into perspective your conference success measured against how people are now evaluating college football based strictly on the playoffs? Yeah, I don't know that I can't put that in perspective. I'll leave that to you guys. I think you forget that we also lost to an SEC team within the playoffs. So it's another tribute to the fact we won the SEC because we beat that team and then we won the SEC championship and then we turned around and lost to an SEC team that was a really good football team and obviously one of the top four teams in the country, especially at the end of the year with the way they were playing. So I don't get hung up a lot on just the finish. I like to look back and say, okay, what do we do well in those games and what do we do poorly and how do we improve on it? But that's no different than I do week five, week six, week seven. So I would love to see, and I don't make it as an excuse, but I would love to see the flow of the season go like a football a week to week, maybe a bi week somewhere in there, but a continuous thing. No sport that I know of shuts down for 25 to 30 days between performances. And you know, we have not had our best performances when we needed them most. And I don't want to blame it on that. I would love to see the flow of a season be like, okay, which team is the strongest continually playing and going week to week. And we've got some opportunities to do that in the future. I hope we can get to that point. But the, the format we play with now is great. I have no problem. When it was a two team format, I was part of it. When it was four team, I was part of it. You can always argue the opposite, especially if it doesn't go your way. That's not who I am.
- [23:55]
B
We'll take one final question in this section in front of me about 3/4 the way back.
- [24:00]
A
Kirby Connor O'.
- [24:02]
B
Gara.
- [24:02]
A
The OG kickoff with the next round and non landscape question for you. How should in the media talk about Mike Bobo? You know, I don't think that's my decision. I look at things through facts and I look at things through what I see with my own two eyes. I was blessed to work for the greatest college football coach in the history of all of college football. And I don't even think it's arguable. Arguable. I don't think you can even debate it. But I learned from him that you evaluate things from inside out. And I do think football intuition is one of my strengths. And knowing that I know we got the right offensive coordinator. What you guys want to write and talk about is completely up to you because I look at the production, he's had, the success he's had the team success where he doesn't worry about stats, he worries about winning football games. And the way he coaches our players day to day is unmatched in this country.