Smart, Players Preview Alabama

GEORGIA FOOTBALL VIDEOS

Coach Smart

Q. Johnson

O. Delp

ATHENS – Head coach Kirby Smart, outside linebacker Quintavius Johnson, and tight end Oscar Delp met with the media Tuesday evening. They offered the following comments.

Head Coach Kirby Smart

On Opening Statement…
"Good news is we always get caught up in the business of the season, and we rarely get to make mention of things like this, but it's certainly something that I'm extremely proud of for our university. You know, UGA was ranked again in the top 20. We're actually ranked 19th in the recently released U.S. News and World Rankings of universities and colleges. It's the 10th straight year we have been in the top 20 national ranking, which I think is incredible. I think it's a credit to our administration, to our entire university. I just love it. I love the fact that we have an incredible academic institution, and we get ranked highly in that. It helps us recruit, but it attracts people all over the country to our university, so I love it. The bad news, I'm not going to continue to do these on Tuesday nights. I have my whole staff up there waiting on me now, and it ends up eating up my time, so I've told these guys they think that I'm an idiot for doing it, but I get to see you guys on Monday, and then I get to do the deal with you all on Wednesday. So, I won't be doing these unless they feel like there's a reason to do it one week or certain weeks every other week on Tuesdays, but I don't like my staff sitting up there waiting on me for 20 minutes while I'm waiting to get up there. So, that's the bad news."

On practice this week…
"It's been very spirited, trying to make sure we don't overdo it. It's the giddy-up whoa theory, and we've got to hold them back this week because there's a lot of chippiness. The guys want to play well. I would say it was not a great Monday, just because we come off two to three days off. We got to get them going some, and then today was good. They had good tempo, good practice, did some good on good, did some scout work, did some crossover work. Things have been good. We've got to execute the plan, and it comes down to players making plays."

On building depth…
"I want to build depth in the season, and we got a lot of reps for guys in the off week or the bye week. We had a lot of reps for guys, and we had a lot. We get a lot of guys' reps because of the way we do our scout teams. We make things, and we have coaches that know our terms, and we coach the players. So, if you're a scout team player, you're doing our defense. You're doing our offensive plays because they carry over. I can't say that you can develop enough depth in season or in 10 to 12 days to sometimes make up for what's missing. We're just trying to get everybody better, and it's not just one area. We're trying to grow guys. We got some talented young wideouts. We're trying to get better. We're trying to get them to understand where to line up, what to do. A lot of guys just don't know how to focus in meetings and carry it over to the field, and that's what we're trying to get. We want more guys that can play winning football."

On TE Oscar Delp's contribution to the team…
"He's got unbelievable physical toughness. He's had really good health, knock on wood. He takes a lot of reps, because even when Brock [Bowers] was here and those guys were here, he took a lot of reps and a lot of workload. He's really tough. His strength is probably his toughness and his point of attack blocking. It's hard to find guys that can block SEC type six techniques and nine techniques, and there's a place for that on our level and levels above. He's caught the ball really well. He made some really big plays in big times last year in the SEC championship and then even in the Tennessee game. So, I appreciate the way he goes about his work. He doesn't complain. He buys into the team. He and Lawson have been really consistent."

On what OL Juan Gaston and Earnest Greene III have done this week…
"Just working hard. That's all they can do right now is put their head down and grind and try to get better, continue to develop, and we'll continue to do that with all those guys. We've got a lot of guys who get work on right and left side. You've got to have guys that can swing and play both. You're constantly looking to try to find a niche for those guys to get better."

On balancing the tempo…
"I think that's my job to make sure that the tempo where we're at is the right tempo. You certainly can't go out there and not see fastballs and then go hit fastballs. You've got to practice against the speed of what you're going to play against. We've got to be careful about the volume and not leave it all on the practice field. It's been hot. I'm sure it's hot there, so it's one of those things we have to monitor because we're playing at night and we're not practicing at night."

On what RB Dwight Phillips Jr. has been able to do this week…
"He seems to be fine. He's rolling in there, playing special teams and doing things well. So, he's really had no limitations."

On Delp's growth…
"I would say his maturity is his biggest growth area. He was, I wouldn't say a knucklehead early on, but he had his moments. He had his days when he was, like all freshmen, struggling to make it through the practice. It was hard on him. We pushed him hard. You don't ever notice that with him anymore, really, since last year. He pushes through practice, he gives good effort, he has the physical and mental stamina to sustain through a good two-hour practice, and that's the most growth he's made. He was always physical, but he has become a better all-around tight end."

On Georgia's matchup with Alabama in 2015…
"Derrick Henry. It was wet. The run broke out late on us, and the D-line tried to fight the linebackers on the sideline because they were pissed that we gave up over 100 yards rushing. I always tell that story, when you have D-linemen that are mad and willing to fight when you're up 15, 20, 30 points, whatever it was, you know you've got a good team."

On the best players on the line so far…
"I think that depends on who's healthy. I could tell you who the best players are if they were all healthy, but the health brings that into doubt, right? A guy's 80 percent, another guy's 90 percent, another guy's 95 percent– it's hard to measure who's better. That's everybody across the league right now. Our left side's not completely healthy, our defensive line's not completely healthy, our back field's not completely healthy. And guess what? It's not going to get any better, not with what we've got coming down the pipe. It is what it is. It's part of being tough, and we instill that all offseason, and it carries over. It's next man up. We've got all kinds of linemen that go over there and play on the right side on the scout team, and they get better. And if we have to go to one of those guys, we'll go to one of those guys. We just want to get fighters."

On the response from the secondaries from the Tennessee game…
"I think they've challenged themselves. We've done a lot of things with them to challenge them in terms of competition, in terms of drills, in terms of changes. So, I'm looking forward to seeing those guys go out and compete, and they've got a hell of an opportunity because they've got a really good quarterback and skill group to play against."

On what Gaston and OL Dontrell Glover have shown as freshmen…
"Good instincts, good size. They both have good strengths. They came from good high school weight programs and opportunity. I mean, if they had been here last year or two years ago, I don't know if they would have. We've had a large group lead in terms of two things, draft, and we had several portals. And when you lose that in one position, it's hard to replace. I have seen this year coming for two to three years in terms of a gap. Just didn't know when it was going to hit because Dylan [Fairchild] and some of those guys had extra years."

On OLB Quintavius Johnson's growth…
"Confidence and leadership. He's very open to criticism. He accepts when he messes up. I love that about the kid. He's not one that makes excuses. He's not one that goes back and tries to weasel his way out of things. He owns up to it and says, hey, I can do better. And he has. He's grown as a person, player. He had a really tough injury at the end of the spring. He overcame that. Still, I don't think he's all the way back, but he's playing well."

On the impact that Alabama DT Tim Keenan has…
"He's a tremendous player. He's explosive. He's quick, twitchy, disruptive, hard to move. They move him around. He plays in different fronts, odd and four down. I've known him for a long time. He's a good football player."

On how they have adapted to an unbalanced schedule….
"It doesn't matter how you do the schedule. It's hard. It's brutal. And everybody's the same. I mean, we all got to play each other. It's really tough, highly ranked teams, physical teams. It's just going to continue to be a grind. Looking forward with the Nine's coming, it's going to be scary because you just don't have enough. Nobody has enough depth. But in terms of do you want to be your best at the end, I think if it was a playoff system like the NFL where a larger percentage of the teams made it, there might be decisions we made early in the season differently, knowing that we got to be at our best at the end. But if you don't get to the end with an opportunity, then do you regret what you did early? There's been decisions we've made and decisions we probably would have made this year if all that mattered was win the games at the end. But the games in the beginning have just as much value as the games at the end. And you can't put yourself in a position where you don't have the best players on the field."

On the status of RB Roderick Robinson…
"He's had a hamstring during camp, and he was not really 100-percent from the ankle. His ankle injury was very significant, and he's worked really hard to overcome that. Part of his strength, you know, he's a big guy. He's a big man like Josh [Mcray], and it's a burst. It's him having an explosion in that leg and a hamstring. I would say he's more healthy now than he has been since we started camp. He's closer to full speed, but he's still working on that. He's still fighting to contribute and help. He's very intelligent. He knows the offense inside and out, but there's a lot of depth in that room. As long as people are healthy, it's going to be a healthy competition."

On WR Sacovie White-Helton in his second year…
"He snatches the ball. He probably catches the ball as good as anybody in our group. He plucks it, natural hands, good route runner, savvy. He's been great. He works his tail off, and we've got a lot of confidence that we can put him in and he can execute."

On the fast start on defense…
"Stops. Don't jump off sides on third down. That was a big thing last year. We get them in third down, we jump offside. It snowballs into another drive. We've got to get lined up. They're going to play with tempo. They always have a tempo package. We've got to get lined up. We've got to play. We've got to cover people. You can't run and hide from covering people. There's nothing that you can do to help yourself sometimes in their spacing where you've got to put hands on people, and you've got to cover them. We've got to control the line of scrimmage, stop the run, affect the quarterback, and cover their people. If you don't do that, then they're going to score. They've got good players."

On what he has seen from DL Elijah Griffin…
"He's explosive. He's quick. I don't think we've seen his best yet. He's made some plays in camp and in practices that he hasn't made in the game. He'll get an opportunity to. I was proud of him going on the road in that environment to go out there and play. I'm sure he had some nerves, but he's going to be a good football player if he just keeps humble and hungry."

On what he's seen from the defensive line room…
"They're hungry. They're ready to get after it. They want a challenge. It was tough against Tennessee. We didn't have many third downs. We didn't get many passing situations playing from behind most of the game. They did a good job picking things up. I'm excited to see these guys go play. They want an opportunity to go play and get after it. It's going to be a fun game. They've got a really big, physical offensive line. They can maul you and bully you. They're big, and they're physical. They've got big, good backs, so it's going to be a great challenge for our front against their line."

Players Mentioned

Oscar Delp

Quintavius Johnson

Sacovie White-Helton

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