Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is sending mixed signals on the current state of the Bulldogs' defense.
Last week, in an exclusive Q&A with ESPN's Chris Low, Smart called out his defensive line for being weak and praised his offensive line.
"Either we're maybe a little weaker on the defensive line or we're really good on the offensive line," Smart said. "The glaring thing I've seen at practices is that the offensive line has done a really good job. That's not to say we were subpar on the defensive line last year. We just weren't great. We didn't have a dominant guy, but we're always going to be good on defense. I don't know that we're going to be great this year, but I think we have a chance to be great on offense."
It's easy to take those comments made by Smart concerning considering Georgia's defensive line is made up of a majority of the same players as last year while the offensive line is losing key players in Amarius Mims and Sedrick Van Pran-Granger.
Coach Smart Attempts to Shut Down Concern Around Georgia's Defense
This week, Smart attempted to shut down the narrative -- which he may have unintentionally created himself-- that he's "down" on Georgia's defense.
“Yeah, I'm not down. I don't know where this is coming from," Smart said. "Maybe there's a narrative out there that I don't know about. I have no idea what you guys are reading, saying, or seeing. But I'm not down on our run defense. We are not as good as we were that year, but we're better than we have been a lot of other years.”
The Bulldogs were blessed with back-to-back championship defenses in 2021 and 2022 before losing several dominant players to the NFL draft, making it hard to replicate that kind of success.
But with the help of the guys on the offensive line pushing the defense to get better at practice, Smart remains optimistic that Georgia's defense will be good enough this year.
“I wouldn't trade our group for any group in the country in terms of defensive line groups and a collective whole. We've got a group that can get the job done,” he added. “They're going against one of the best three or four offensive lines they'll go against all season each and every day. Iron sharpens iron, and we're getting better by who we go against.”
That's another wishy-washy response from coach Smart but if there's one thing about Georgia's defense that he's confident in, it's the necessary size to be great, and they have that in Nazir Stackhouse, Warren Brinson, Jordan Hall, Jamal Jarrett and several others.
“I am pleased with where we are, (but) we have to get better,” Smart said. “We have players on our defensive line who can get better. The worst feeling as a coach is when you don’t have players that you can get better. There are coaches all across the country right now on defensive line who don’t have one 300-pounder. We’ve got several. We just have to continue to get them better and execute at a higher level.”
Georgia's defense will be put on display for Bulldogs fans to make their own conclusion when G-Day kicks off on April 13 at 1 p.m. ET.
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