As we count down the days to Saturday, when Tennessee football hosts Georgia inside Neyland Stadium, Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart met with the media for a third-straight day. This time, it was a part of the SEC Coaches Teleconferences.
Smart touched on his time as a player at Georgia when the Bulldogs lost in Knoxville, picking off Peyton Manning, UGA injuries and more.
Here is what he had to say.
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“We’re on day three of our prep. Excited to be going to Knoxville. And they’ve got a great team. Josh (Heupel) has done an incredible job. Tough place to play, obviously, and it’s one of those road SEC games that you get every other year and it’s been a hell of a series for a long time and something I got to play in, coach in, be a part in. And this team gets its first road test.”
On injury updates for Georgia offensive linemen Juan Gaston and Ernest Green
“Well, this is not a game that you want somebody that’s not 100% healthy out there playing. It’s going to be physical, it’s going to be quick, it’s going to be violent. I mean, all SEC games are, but this one really is going to be that way. They play with really big physical guys up front. You need all the power you can get, you need all the stamina you can get.
“But both of those guys showed good progress yesterday. I really liked the way both of them looked. I liked the reps they took. They’ll take more reps today and just see where they are. We got to make a good judgement. And today and tomorrow are physical days for us, so we still get after it and we’ll find out where they are.”
On Tennessee’s new-look running back room, bringing different styles
“They’re well coached. Their backs have always done a great job of being patient. They read things well. They allow their blocks to happen. They are not a quick, just hit it and go. They really trust their blocking schemes. And they’re patient, which can be hard as they find holes and they look. They don’t try to go east and west all the time on you. They like to go north and south. And they get their pads set. They break a lot of tackles. So it’s a talented room. It’s a talented room last year. I think that’s a lot of what their offense is built around is the yards after contact and how those guys churn out extra yards.”
On if his interception against Peyton Manning is one of his favorite memories as a player
“No, we lost that game, so that’s not exactly the best moment for me.”
On the visitor locker room at Tennessee
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know many road locker rooms in the SEC that are convenient or nice. Most of them are older historic stadiums. Ours is not very big either. I don’t know the size comparison between ours and theirs because I haven’t been in ours in a long time. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t pay attention to that much when we play at this place because you’ve got a lot of other things to worry about.”
On his memories of playing at Tennessee as a player
“That we lost. It was loud. It was a great atmosphere. It’s the same way as a coach, all the years that I’ve been there coaching here and coaching at Alabama, we played there quite a bit. It’s a loud place to play. They got a great fan base. They got a great atmosphere. All those things are the case, but as a player, my memories are that we lost.”
On Georgia’s defensive rotations
“Well, we’ve played in two different type games in terms of who we were playing and what the scores were. Both those first two games allowed us to do that. We’ll do what we think is necessary to win. The objective is have the best players on the field during the game. And if the best players are not the best players because they’re tired, then you got to play other players. And certainly Tennessee’s tempo requires you to play multiple people across the front and across the entire field. But we’ve played them before without subbing some of those positions you mentioned, and we played before with subbing in those positions. It’ll just depend on how the guys are playing.”
