Kirby Smart recaps UGA football scrimmage: ‘You get to rub their nose in it’
ATHENS — Kirby Smart knew things would be difficult for the Georgia offense in their first scrimmage.
The Georgia defense could well be one of the best units in the country, with stars at every level.
Add in the brutal heat and it’s understandable why the Georgia offense didn’t have the day it desired.
“Sometimes you grow from those and you get to rub their nose in it and you get better from it,” Smart said.
Smart liked the effort his team played with, even if the execution wasn’t where it needed to be.
In addition to recapping the scrimmage, the Georgia coach spoke on a number of topics as the Bulldogs are a few weeks away from the start of the 2026 season.
Below is a full transcript of Smart’s remarks.
Kirby Smart explains ‘tough’ showing for Georgia offense
On Justice Fitzpatrick….
“Yeah, he’s cleared. He’s working every day. He’s doing indy. He’s in all meetings, does all walk-throughs, does movement skills. He has not done live tackle yet like some of our other guys have done. But I don’t have a true timeline on that.”
On the WR group so far in fall camp….
“Yeah, they work tremendously hard each day. I think they’ve had a good camp as a group. The quarterbacks and the O-line a lot of times will make your receivers. So there’s not – receivers don’t get to just go out and have success on their own. They have to have a lot of things happen to have the success they’re going to have. They have to take advantage of opportunities they get and they have to go against good people in competition. But it’s more than just them in order to have success. But if you said, am I pleased with their work habits and what they’re doing, absolutely I am. I wouldn’t say anybody in the room is dominating by any means. There’s young players that are coming on fast. By young, I mean first and second year. Then there’s older players who are leading well and doing a tremendous job for us. So very pleased in that room.”
On Drew Bobo and his finger injury…
“He practiced yesterday all day. Took every rep. He’s doing great.”
On if the scrimmage showed that the defense can consistently affect the QB with four rushers…
“I don’t know if Saturday showed that. Saturday is hard to say anything showed. I mean, it was 114 degrees on the field. It showed mental fortitude, mental toughness. It showed how we practice in our program, not like everybody else’s. I mean, we go out in the heat probably more than most, and we condition our team that way. I don’t know that I could say anything done Saturday, I mean, I’ve been through 33 first scrimmages. I’ve seen it all. I’m not ready to say that the defensive line is ready to rush with four and get there every time. I certainly hope they can, but I didn’t see any indication that that was the case from what I saw Saturday.”
On Gunner working more on layering the ball over the middle of the field and his improvement….
“Yeah, Gunner’s improved immensely. I don’t think it’s in one area. I don’t think it’s confidence. I think it’s basically his mental capacity to handle a lot of information at once, process that information, and yet still make good decisions. Confidence in the pocket, his movement skills in the pocket have improved. His awareness of protections have improved. His ability to handle the pressure of the shot clock, a nine-word call, the defenses we’re throwing at him, and getting people lined up has improved. But he’s done some good things this camp. You can see his growth kind of in a lot of areas because some of it’s leadership, some of it’s mentorship, and some of it’s just throwing ability and getting the ball downfield. So I’m pleased with Gunner’s growth and really pleased with his work ethic.”
On Craig Dandridge after the scrimmage…
“Craig’s great. Craig’s continuing to work and get better and continues to work day in and day out. He’s a pleasure to work with.”
On the reports of Cole Speer returning to the team…
“Well, there’s a lot of assumptions in what you just said. So I wouldn’t make any assumptions right now with the NCAA and the rulings and the things going on. So he is not officially back with the team. We’ve had conversations with he and a lot of guys, but nothing’s official yet.”
On replacing Cash Jones…
“Yeah, I want someone that’s a really good pass receiver, really intelligent. Savvy and instincts are more important. You know, you’d say protection is the number one thing, but, you know, of all the third-down snaps we have, I bet 10, 15 percent of them end up having to block somebody on. So it’s not the most important thing. It’s more important that you catch the ball. You understand the routes. You know the protections. You can get yourself out when the quarterback changes the protection. There’s a lot that goes into being the third-down back, which is why Cash was so good at it. We’ve been a pretty good third-down team over the last five years average. We’ve been good, and we want to continue to be good at third down. That starts with being in third and short and medium and not third and long. But as far as who that back’s going to be yet, nobody has stood out. Nobody has taken that role and said, okay, I can do this, you know, to the level Cash did or better in terms of protection, catching the ball out of the backfield, instincts. There’s so much that goes into that. That’s still an open position grouping really, not the whole back but the third-down back.”
On what he saw from the quarterbacks in the first scrimmage, especially Ryan Puglisi and Ryan Montgomery…
“Yeah, I’m pleased with both their growth as well as Bryson [Beaver] has done a good job for a guy that’s new and then Buddha [Hezekiah Millender] as well. They’ve all gotten good work. They’ve got quality reps. Gunner’s probably taken fewer this year than he did last year. He still takes substantially more than most, but he’s been able to kind of delegate some of those reps out to other guys, which has helped us develop them.
“The conditions in the scrimmage the other day were tough. They weren’t conducive to being able to throw the ball all the time. I’ve experienced enough being 50 years old that there comes a time in the scrimmage when it’s hard to throw it because there’s so much humidity and moisture in the air.
“We didn’t stop because of that. We kept doing it. It’s good to be able to overcome some of those hurdles that you get. Sometimes you grow from those and you get to rub their nose in it and you get better from it.
“All in all, I was pleased with the effort in the scrimmage. There’s a lot of areas we can improve on. We’re not near where we need to be yet, but I was pleased with the effort the guys.”
On Jontae Gilbert…
“Yeah, Jontae’s working really hard. He gives us a big, physical presence. He’s got great size. He plays probably more boundary corner than field, which he tends to get more contact and touching on the receivers and more physical aspect of it. He’s a silent worker. He works really hard, and that group has really competed hard during camp. They’re just trying to get better. We’re trying to get better each and every day in that room, and that room’s no different than the other rooms. I’ve been really pleased with Jontae’s progress.”
On Juan Gaston…
“Just the camp window, I would say his stamina needs to improve. Somewhere out in you guys’ world it became this great offseason loss of weight and this great physical specimen, but he has to be able to play more snaps. He’s got to have better stamina, and I’ve addressed that with him. I’ve told him. I said, ‘You can do one of two things: You can read what people write about you, or you can listen to what your coaches tell you and listen to the truth.’
“We’re very honest with him. To be able to start and play down in, down out, he’s got to get in better shape and be able to sustain. Not only him. Several guys have got to to be able to play winning football. You’ve got to be able to play for an eight-, ten-play drive in a row, and part of doing that is putting the pads on and going out and doing it. You can work out with Coach Sinclair all summer. You can run all summer, but that doesn’t mean you’re prepared to go out in Sanford Stadium and play a 10-play drive when it’s 110 degrees. We’re not where we need to be in regards to that, and that’s not directly at Juan as much as it is everybody as a group.
“I enjoy coaching Juan. Juan loves football. Juan goes out to work each and every day. He’s got the flexibility to kick in from tackle to guard. He’s a good athlete. He likes practice. He likes football, and he’s fun to be around. But we’ve got to keep getting better.”
On Cortez Smith…
“Yeah, he’s in a really tough competition for he and Malachi Toliver for the backup center spot. They both have had goods and bads, and they both got to keep improving. Drew wasn’t able to make it through the year last year with the tough injury he had, and those guys had to step up and play.
“We need him to be ready to go this year. He’s got the flexibility of kicking out and playing some guard, and I think that’ll make him a better center.”
On how he’s had to adapt his practice style…
“Yeah, there’s a lot of information there to cover. I don’t specifically think that we’ll be changing how we practice or the intensity with which we practice. We have changed our format some. We took a different approach this year with three-on, one-off, three-on, one-off, three-on, scrimmage, one-off, three-on, three-on, one-off. You know, we’re taking a little bit more of a, and when I say one-off, it’s a practice walk-through, corrections, slow it down. But some of our practices have been, you know, just like they have in the past and some of them have been dialed back in terms of trying to load twos and threes with more reps. But, you know, there’s not one camp we’ve had that’s been the same. We don’t do the exact same thing every camp. We try to cater it to what we need in terms of the position groups, the depth, the development, the season, the order of the season, the number of SEC games, who do we play first. So there’s a lot of things that change within that and I just think you have to change how you do things sometimes for these kids because they can get bored with monotony.”
About the viral UGA player Olympics…
“And then the comment about the Olympics, it was not really position groups at all. It was just skull groups. Skull groups are represented by equal number of each position group. So it’s a cross-section of the team and they were asked to deliberate separately and come up with their choice of who did what events. We chose the events, they chose who did them, and there is some strategy and there is some task cohesion within choosing who does what in order to give your best chance to win. And I think that’s important because they have to make decisions that coaches have to make in terms of what does this guy do better than that guy. And not necessarily doing what you want to do but doing what’s best for the team. And they were fun. I’m glad we did them. I’m glad that the NCAA put a mandated day off in there that we had to acknowledge and that we were able to do something team building in that day as opposed to practicing. And they did a good job of that. Players did a good job of that.”
On the women’s soccer team beating Georgia in pks…
“Well we did PKs which I expected them to win. They went 10 for 10 and our guys shockingly went 7 for 10. So we had three times that our guys didn’t get it in by way of their kick or by way of the block, which is rare. And talking to Keidane (McAlpine), they’re about you know 94-95% success on PKs and our guys were about 70%. But they hit all theirs and then they did a little one-on-one soccer tennis that they did. They beat our specialist and we didn’t let the specialist kick. We didn’t think it was fair. So we made them do the soccer tennis and they lost that. And they had an ultimate punishment for that.”
On Chris Cole…
“I mean his leadership is what we need most. I mean he’s one of the few players that I think can sustain right now and the way he practices. He practices with such max effort that he conditions himself through practice to the next day he can go further and he’s just you know like a rubber band which keeps expanding and he’s got more elasticity as he goes and he can stretch himself longer. And you know we’re trying to be smart with him too because he’s played winning football and you know we want to number one keep him healthy, number two we want to keep him fresh. We want to keep the weight on him but he’s been a tremendous leader and he works really hard. He’s one of the hardest working guys on the team.”
Who won the long drive contest…
“Man, I should know. My mind just went blank. It was not Gunner, as expected. It was Beaver. Bryson Beaver. You guys know the answers to your own questions. So that was yes, Bryson Beaver won the longest drive and I can’t remember what it was but it was a long drive. I think the odds-on favorite was Gunner and he got upset in that.”
About Braylon Conley, Ja’Marley Riddle and Gentry Williams…
“About the DBs, I mean the guys that have come in have done a great job acclimating. I think the players here have done a better job teaching them the standard. I don’t think each one of them has played to the toughness level in terms of thudding and striking and doing the things we want to do but we’re trying to integrate them into our culture with that. And they’re getting better at it. They’ve all been through spring. I think every one of them’s been here through the spring and into the fall now, 10, 9, 10, 11 days, whatever it’s been we’ve practiced. They’re getting better to meet that standard and they’re certainly going to provide us much needed depth and a couple of them will have chances to play in roles that we have in our defense.”
On Ellis Robinson and what he needs to do to be great…
“Consistency. I think the number one thing for Ellis is Ellis. Sometimes Ellis is so competitive and I put Demello in the same category that they get down on themselves. We’ve talked a lot about the mental training, the mental dynamic of giving up a pass play whether it’s a touchdown or a hitch. They get the same frustrated and you can’t do that this day and age. People can throw and catch the ball well. They’re going to hit some back shoulders. They’re going to hit things on you so it’s good for them to experience some failure and have to overcome that because I’ve never seen a corner that just shut everybody out.”