Kirby Smart, Bulldogs preview 2025 Tennessee football game

Opening Statement…

“Really excited about this matchup. One of the toughest places to play in all of college football. It’ll be as loud as it ever is. It always is. One of the loudest in the SEC for sure. They’ve done a great job. Josh has got a great team and program. They’re a playoff team from last year that we’ve had some really, really physical games with. It’ll be no different. They are built around toughness, running the ball and stopping the run, which they’re very good at both. I think people have a mistake about their offense that, you know, scores so many points, but they are very physical. You look at last year’s game between both teams, both lines of scrimmage were extremely physical. It’s been that way every time we’ve played each other, so it won’t be any different this time. Going to a tough place to play, first game on the road in the SEC. When you open up on the road in the SEC, it’s always challenging. It’ll be important that our players understand that, that the environment is something that you don’t have to worry about. You’ve got to worry about how you play and sometimes that’s easier said than done, especially with young players. We’ll prepare for it and we’re excited to go play. These are the games you come to Georgia to play in, so I’m excited for these guys.”

On Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar…

“He’s playing really efficiently. He’s got great arm talent. He’s a really good athlete. You can tell he understands the system. He gets the ball out quickly. He’s been very accurate. He’s had some really well-thrown balls. A couple they’ve dropped in crucial times, but he makes some good throws and he’s really a good deep ball passer. He puts air under the ball, gives the receiver the opportunity to run under it. He’s made plays with his legs, which you have to do in this league, at quarterback and he’s been very, very impressive in the two games they’ve played.”

On the Tennessee run game…

“They’ve always played a lot of backs, so they have multiple backs that come in the game. They’re very physical, they’re all 210, 215-pound guys. They run downhill. They don’t sit there and try to attack the sideline. They get vertical. They hit us last year on a vertical run, very patient runners, well-coached. They have a lot of schemes in their run game, because of the formation variation they use. They’re committed to it,  it’s physical within the trenches, and their offensive line play is extremely physical. They are very intentional with their bumps and their doubles. They attack you, and they try to get you out of your gaps, and they spread you out. They do a really good job in the run game.”

On balancing big plays and turnover plays…

“As we’ve learned, you can turn it over on any play, right? We had a running play that was a turnover, so nothing’s inherently perfect or safe. I think passing the ball down the field is not necessarily – it’s one of the lower turnover rates there is. In the past that we did get just a turnover was a short intermediate passing game that a guy fumbled after he caught it.

I do not really know what you’re asking. There’s a good and bad for both. You can’t turn the ball over in a good offense. You’ve got to prevent turnovers, but you also have to have the ability to throw it down the field and hit some shots and be explosive. I don’t think that would keep you from doing it and thinking about turnovers.”

On adjusting to Tennessee’s offense…

“I don’t know that there’s any adjustments made as much as the tempo of the game. Nobody prefers to start that way. They do a good job of attacking, start the game. They’ve had good plans, but it’s more about settling in and playing the speed of the game that we can play. I certainly expect us to do that from the start, but it has not always been that way. It’s very unique, the spacing and how much space there is when you play these guys. We certainly don’t want to spot a lead or give them a lead, it’s not our intentions.”

On the status of Juan Gaston, Earnest Greene, III, and Talyn Taylor…

“No, Talyn is fine. He played in different situations. He’s played all year in different situations. Both Juan and Ernest we’ll learn more about today and see where they are. They’re both coming off of bumps and bruises and injuries, but hopeful to get them back.”

On the Georgia win streak against Tennessee…

“Well, they’ve been really good games, right? When you play in the SEC and you’re in these really tough top ten matchups, top 25 matchups, they can go either way a lot of times. You know, at the end of the day, they’ve played us physical, we’ve played them physical. They’ve all been really, really tough physical games. I think being at home usually helps either team in terms of road versus home, but I don’t know that you can attribute it to anything because this year has nothing to do with previous years.”

On Colbie Young’s leadership…

“I think he knows what he’s fighting for and what he’s playing for. He’s got a lot of good intentions in terms of what he wants to get out of the season and that’s shown up in his special teams play. It’s shown up in his work ethic, in his demeanor, his fire, passion, energy and just the way he plays the game. He’s a leader out there and he wants it really bad. And that kind of rubs off on the rest of the offense in terms of his physicality and his catch radius. The players love being around him. He’s got a lot of energy.”

On the right side of the offensive line…

“A lot of guys played over there, which was the intent coming into the game with the temperature being as hot as it was and the weather. We felt like we would play some guys there and kind of see how the guys did and see how the guys played. It’s been a rotating kind of deal all throughout camp. We’ve had guys in and out of the lineup during camp. This made us kind of platoon that side. We even flipped Monroe and flipped Micah over to that side at times. So, they had bright spots and they had disappointing spots, which is probably true for every position group on our field. But we’ve got to continue to progress there. We’ve got to get the best guys in there and get them some continuity.”

On the team’s tackling…

“We worked hard on it, we’ve done some good things. We’ve had some missed tackles and missed some opportunities for turnovers. That’s one of the biggest learning things is you’ve got to get the turnovers when you get an opportunity. Balls on the ground, interception opportunities, hands on balls, you’ve got to get them. But through two games, probably haven’t been tested enough to really warrant and say where we are as tacklers.”

On preparing for physicality…

“Camp. Our preseason camp is extremely physical. We prepare during that time as if we’re playing each other. So, it’s what we do each day. It’s what we believe in. I don’t think you can prepare the next five days for it, no.”

On preparing to play at Tennessee…

“I think it’s a mental disposition, and it’s part of your planning. You know, there are certain things you can do at home that you can’t do on the road. You have to be smart as a game planner, what kind of situations you put your team in, and where the field position is, what’s the down and distance, and your approach to your game planning is defensively and offensively, you have to think about that. Me being in this league for a long time, it plays a factor in the ability to execute when you’re in an environment that maybe someone’s never been in. And you have to be smart about what you’re asking them to execute because at the end of the day, that’s what it is. Who can execute, who can block and tackle, and who can be physical.”

On Ethan Barbour’s status…

“He’s got a pretty significant ankle injury he’ll be dealing with, similar to [Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint] and [Roderick Robinson II] both had, and he’ll have surgery to repair it. So he’ll be out for a little bit.”

On the priorities in facing a fast spread offense…

“Not give them anything. You have to make them earn it and we say go the long, hard way. Make them execute. Make them drive the ball down the field all the way through the red area and just make them, you know, make it hard to score and that starts with stopping the run and not giving up big plays. Those are the two key ingredients to Tennessee is: can you stop the run, and can you not give freebies? They go with tempo, and they do spread you out, and it’s a challenging prep.”

On teaching young players about “positive plays” versus “correct plays”…

“I don’t know what you’re referencing. I like big plays, so I would prefer the big play, but correct play sometimes doesn’t always lead to a big play. We talk about result versus process, and we don’t want to get caught up in the result. Yes, we want a big play, but I want to go through the process of doing the right things and sometimes you do the right process, you don’t get the right result. Sometimes you do, and you don’t do the process right. And we’re very intentional on making sure they understand doing the right process leads to big plays and leads to more success than just checking results and that’s, I think, what you’re talking about.”

On Gunner Stockton’s first SEC road start…

“I think he’s going to be great. It’s something that we practice for all year-round. I don’t believe in waiting for the week of the game. We do it in spring, we do it all preseason camp. We put a lot of pressure on the players in practice to communicate. A lot of times it’s to keep both sides of the ball from hearing each other talk. I want them to hear the coaches talk. So, you have to crank it up and it almost becomes the norm to do that, but there’s also a defense over there that you’re trying to simulate. That’s hard to simulate because they are very good defensively, they create a lot of issues, very intelligent with their defensive staff in terms of protections, looks. They know what you’re thinking and they try to counter that. That’s the hurdle for us offensively that we all have to get over is making sure we understand what they’re trying to do and understand what we’re trying to do and do it better than they do it.”

On Stockton making plays in the downfield passing game…

“Success comes through throwing and catching it and getting opportunities to do that. We didn’t protect long enough in some of our opportunities to get a chance to do that. First thing is, what can we do. We ran the ball successfully and ran it down their throats for the most part. When we do take shots, we want to keep a clean pocket and he was able to do a lot of good things for us in terms of when the pockets not clean. Not being second-and-20 or second-and-15 and instead we’re second-and-eight, avoiding some really long situations or giving up sacks, but certainly we want to be able to improve the downfield passing game. I think that comes a little bit off of what we talked about before – how is a defense playing you and different defenses play different ways.”

On the team’s tight end usage…

“I don’t think that would be true to say that we didn’t target tight ends. There’s multiple plays that a tight end was the number one option, but he was either not there or he was missed or there might have been a misread. We had a tight end wide open where somebody fell down in coverage. He was targeted, but we ended up going to the check down. There were a couple other ones that we probably could’ve hit the tight end on, but we could’ve hit anybody because it’s called zone defense. So, you go with the read, but there’s no rhyme or reason – we can’t call a play where we say, ‘This ball’s going to the tight end.’ There is no such thing. There’s just plays where he’s one, two or three in the read. A lot of people think that’s an easier throw, but it’s really about who gets your touches and we base who gets the touches on who breaks tackles. That’s a big part of being explosive is who’s going to get the most run after a catch, where the space in areas of the field that are soft to get easy throws, I think everybody’s looking for that and most offenses do. If you get free access, you take the access.”

On the Tennessee defensive line…

“They play really hard and really physical. They’re penetrating upfield, low pads. They come off the ball, and make contact tough. They’ve disrupted the pocket in each game, and the interior pass rush lanes have gotten pushed back.”

On Gunner playing on the field as he does in practice…

“I don’t think it’s about him. I think it’s about the 11 people with him. When we say we want to see Gunner do that and see it carry over, it requires the 11 people doing exactly what they did in practice for him to have success. In an offensive unit, one guy can mess up, and that ruins that entire play. Typically on defense, one guy can mess up, and it may not affect the play if it’s not attacking that side. There are several instances, that one guy is off and not at the right depth or doesn’t protect, and maybe it’s Gunner. You can’t have an accumulation of those things and be effective, and we didn’t. We really were very effective outside of really one drive, but outside of that, we were very effective with what we’ve done and have to continue to do that. I have seen them execute well in practice, and we want to continue to see that.”

On Jaden Reddell…

“He’s a great size, speed guy and has helped us on special teams. He’s been physical, and he’s a weapon. He’s getting better and his growth is getting better. It’s hard when you come in from never being a true blocker or doing any blocking to having to do all that. He has improved in that through the weight room and through physicality, and he continues to improve. We’ll need him to step up and be able to play even more snaps.”