Everything Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart Said During Fall Camp Media Availability

Everything Kirby Smart said during Georgia's fall camp media availability.

Kirby Smart and a list of coaches met with the media on Wednesday to continue discussing fall camp up to this point. Here is everything Coach Smart had to say during his time.

On how practices have been up to this point:

"They were good. They have all been really similar. They've been spirited, lot of energy. I told them, the pom poms are out one through six, and then after one through six all the funs off. You gotta, you gotta get ready to go. And that's where teams separate themselves from this point. Moving forward, very easy first day in pads, but practice seven through 14, or, you know, they'll do a lot more to define our camp than one through six."

On how Georgia can be more effecient in the run game.:

"Not as many third and longs, right? More than five yards per rush, which is a lofty goal, if you rush the ball more than five yards per attempt, you'll be one of the top teams in the country. And that's a goal for us. That's what it looks like now. How does it help Gunner? I think that's obvious. You know, he doesn't have to have the pressure of third, seven to 10 every down. It frees things up. It opens up your play action. I mean, all the obvious things, but there's a lot that goes into running the ball better, and that's what we're working on right now."

On running back Josh McCray:

"He's good. He was a little sick, under the weather, and we're trying to get him back out there. So he's been dealing with some sickness stuff, and he's, I think he's going to be fine, and hopefully, with the weather conditions we've had, he'll be back even faster. It's not been as hot out there."

On the growth he wants to see from the quarterbacks:

"I've seen a lot of growth in the six practices [Gunner] and Ryan [Puglisi]. Both Ryans have done well, and they're both growing up and doing a good job. I mean, he's getting more opportunities at decision making process, two minute drives. He hasn't had that many, he's getting more now every day in the red area. He's just getting more opportunities to make good decisions, and he continues to do that. I think avoiding the catastrophic moments is what's important."

On the team's conditioning and the environment of practices so far:

"Well, they've been blessed. And I've tried to make it a positive, you know? I think that it's easy to sit back as a coach and say, Oh no, no, no. We haven't had the heat. Haven't had the mental fatigue or the the tough moments in camp from a temperature standpoint that we typically have. I'm trying to use that as a positive to say, You know what, we can play faster. We can get timing in the passing game. We don't have to worry about mental exhaustion mistakes, because they shouldn't be heat exhaustion. They might be mentally tired from practice, but not the same as it would be. So the conditioning level may not have been tested like we want to, but it has allowed us to take more reps and do more two spot and get more guys development, which has been good this first scrimmage on Saturday, be any different, any previous from the previous year? For what you want to see? Nope. I mean, it's gonna be pretty similar. We're gonna try to introduce kick and gain, see where our freshmen are. Give everybody the opportunity go out there and play play three groups. I don't see it being, you know, different. The outcomes have always been different, but not terms of format."

On the benefit of coaching a young team:

"Energy, enthusiasm, non-complacency. That's not to label old teams. Ask that, but you don't have that problem with young teams."

On where fire, passion and energy came from:

"Yeah, it's a big part of what we do. It just came from feeling like we had four DNA traits, and we stuck with those for three or four years, and we still got them. But we felt like of the four DNA traits we had those, we checked the box on all four every year, but there was something missing, and we felt like maybe that was what was missing, and maybe that's missing all over college football, or not all over just in pockets. And if you don't have that, then you may not have success. So we wanted to reward it, talk about it, and make it a DNA trait, because it wasn't in our DNA traits before."

On what fire, passion and energy looks like in between whistles:

"Relentless effort, connection, rewarding a teammate, hand on a helmet, body language. You know, it's more than just how you play. It's what you do between the snaps."

On if fire, passion and energy was lacking in previous seasons:

"No, I don't know it was lacking in previous years. I just know that we want it and more rewarding. We've always had some form of it, but it's the analogy of small campfires. You can have all these little, small campfires, or you can have a burning inferno. And we want a burning inferno. We want all those campfires to come together and be 11 burning fires, not a couple little burning bushes over here and over there. Thank you guys."