Kirby Smart, Bulldogs preview 2026 Alabama football game

Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart and two players, senior kicker Peyton Woodring and fifth-year offensive lineman Earnest Greene III, spoke with the media on Monday about their upcoming road game against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Second-ranked Georgia (5-0, 3-0 SEC) and sixth-ranked Alabama (5-0, 3-0 SEC) will square off on Saturday, October 10 at Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The game will be televised by ABC beginning at 7:30pm ET (Buy Tickets).

Chris Fowler will call the play-by-play, Kirk Herbstreit will provide analysis, while Holly Rowe and Laura Rutledge will report from the sidelines.

Below is a transcript of the Alabama press conference which was provided by UGA.

Head Coach Kirby Smart

Opening Statement…
“It’s Monday in Athens. So we start our prep today for Alabama who’s got a tremendous team. I have a lot of respect for Coach DeBoer and the way they go about things. They have an extremely physical football team. They’re playing really high-level football right now. I just got to start watching them yesterday. I was super impressed with both sides of the ball and special teams. Their quarterback is playing amazing for them. The guy is really talented, fun to watch and you’ve seen the growth just from the first game all the way through. The talent this guy has is pretty incredible and they have a really good scheme around him. So it’ll be a great challenge for us to go into a really tough environment to go play, and our players are looking forward to it.”

On Alabama’s secondary…
“They’re very talented. They have ball hawks, guys that make plays on the ball. They have a lot of length in the secondary and play physical. A lot of that is brought on by their front because they create pressure situations. They stop the run. When you stop the run and force people to throw the ball, sometimes it can make you one-dimensional. They’ve been really opportunistic as well when they’ve gotten them, running them back and scoring. So anytime you score on defense it’s a big, huge momentum swing and they’ve got players that can do it.”

On WR CJ Wiley…
“He’s doing really good. He’s had a couple of his better weeks of practices the last couple weeks. He continues to grow and become more physical, and I’m really pleased with how hard he’s worked these past four or five weeks.”

On Alabama QB Keelon Russell…
“I knew about him in high school and watched his high school tape. I knew he was an elite player, probably the best quarterback in the country coming out. Then he kind of goes away and disappears for a year and reappears. He’s unbelievable, savvy, arm strength, pocket awareness. People will make him out to be a runner. He doesn’t run unless he has to and he can. He scrambles to throw scrambles to run. He’s accurate and smart. He’s very talented.”

On S Rasean Dinkins…
“He’s been opportunistic. He’s done a good job with opportunities he’s had. He caused a fumble. He’s a huge player in the game. His ability to make plays has probably allowed him to start. He’s made plays on the ball in practice. Part of being a good safety player is doing your job and having good eye control. He and Kyron [Jones] both battle that out, and they’re both good physical, tough tacklers. Creating turnovers, doing your job, having good eye control, all of those things help.”

On the variety of offensive playmakers…
“I think to be a good offense nowadays, you’ve got to be dangerous. You’ve got to have multiple weapons. You’ve got to have multiple ways to get those players the ball. I think every good team scores points. They have different ways to beat you and not one-dimensional. That’s what good offenses have, and that’s what we want to continue to develop.”

On the run defense against Vanderbilt…
“There were some non-traditional looks where we didn’t play the run really well. Some of it was scheme-related and some of it was not. I said after the game, Vanderbilt’s a physical football team. They did a good job with the game plan they had and took advantage of some of the looks we were in.”

On QB Gunner Stockton’s experience…
“I don’t know that it’s an advantage. It is what it is, is what I like to say. They’ve got a tremendous quarterback that doesn’t have a ton of experience, and there are advantages in that. I’m certainly very happy and pleased with where Gunner is as a player. I think experience helps. I think experience matters. I think how people play around you matters. I think game plan and what you’re asked to do, not asking the quarterback to do more than he needs to do is important. Gunner’s done a tremendous job of that. He played a really, really good game the other day, and I was really happy for him because of how hard he works at it. He’s got to continue to get better to give us a chance to get where we want to go.”

On offensive line continuity…
“We have kind of always been an older offensive line unit. In the last two years, I feel like we have been younger than we have ever been. I think that’s the trend. Kids are less apt to wait and develop. We’ve got kids who were in our program who chose not to wait to leave, and that happens. It is what it is, but I don’t think it’s as traditional as it used to be. It’s great to have veteran leadership, but honestly, veteran leadership is veteran leadership. I love the fact that they’ve been in our program, and I love Drew [Bobo] and Earnest [Greene], so I don’t want it to sound the wrong way, but if Drew and Earnest were from the portal and they were veterans, they would still be good leaders.”

On how linebackers have changed due to modern offenses…
“You just have to have them. It allows you to defend them. You can’t defend them if you’ve got a 6-4, 250-pound linebacker that plays ISOs. You’re not going to be able to play as well in space unless you’ve got Superman out there. You just can’t do it. You’ve got to be able to do both. You’ve got to have physical toughness; you’ve got to be able to play in small spaces. You’ve got to be able to strike people, get off blocks, and you’ve got to be able to play in space. The eye control and the play variance you see nowadays have come so far that they demand leverage, striking, and eye perfection, and it’s hard to sustain that. You make one mistake, it’s an explosive. It’s hard to come by to find people that can play all those things and have that size and speed.”

On any operational effects from the President attending the game…
“Nothing is different for us. That’s how I understand it, or I’ve been told. It’s just more security and checking and doing things before we go to the stadium.”

On Alabama’s defensive front…
“Size and physicality. They’ve gone and recruited, or however they go about getting players, and they’ve gotten more size and more strength at the point of attack. They are very physical, which is something Alabama has always had.”
On Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer bringing any new elements to the SEC…
“There are a lot of similarities between our offense and theirs. But there are some different things that they do that other teams in our league have done, but maybe not in a few years past. I think guys overlap in ideas. Certainly, when you look back at all the times we’ve played since he’s been there, all the Washington cut-ups are in all our stuff. There are a lot more similarities to what he did there, but a lot of that has morphed into SEC pictures now because he’s been in our league so long and does a tremendous job offensively. They are really hard to defend because you don’t feel like there’s a play they don’t have. They’ve got all of them in terms of the plays you have to stop.”

On PK Peyton Woodring’s impact on the program…
“He’s been a model of consistency. He really has the perfect mindset for a kicker because he doesn’t get really upset over positives or negatives whether it’s a miss or a kickoff. He reassesses things, puts himself in a good place and he keeps working at it and I respect his work ethic, his process to preparation each week, and the consistency he’s been for us. We’ve been very fortunate.”

On Georgia and Alabama building primarily through high school recruiting…
“I don’t think it had anything to do with where we were. It usually has to do with what we need. I don’t know that the perception out there is that there’s a portal program and there’s a traditional high school program because I don’t think there’s a hit rate going around on these teams that are portal teams of how many times they actually hit. You only know Trinidad Chambliss; you only know the guy that goes and plays. What about the 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 percent of players that they got that didn’t play, that didn’t have an impact? I just like to think that we’re going to do what we need to do to win. If that includes getting 50 portals, then that’s what we’re going to do. If it includes getting 10 portals, then that’s what we’re going to do. I think when someone says Alabama and Georgia, compare to others, based on where we started at has nothing to do with where we started in the process. It has to do with what you need and ultimately can you develop better than you can take somebody else’s development and try to make it your own.”

On the impact of weather on the kicking game…
“We’ll just assess it based on the situation we’re dealing with. Weather obviously can be a factor. This time last week, we thought there was going to be a monsoon for the Vanderbilt game. So you know you have to plan based on it and you’ve got to change the plan based on future forecast. I don’t get too much into the kickers and talking to them about it because they practice against it, they work in it. We do that in the offseason, we do it in preseason camp and we do it every week.”

On DB Braylon Conley and DB Demello Jones…
“Braylon’s been a great addition to our program. He’s a bright kid. He loves practice, brings the energy and a joy to be around. He’s competitive, smart, instinctive, understands leverages and how to play the ball in and out of phase. I’m very pleased with him and DeMello [Jones] and Ellis [Robinson IV] as well. Those guys work really hard every day out of practice. I’m pleased with their work ethic and continuing to get better.”

On Thomas Blackshear’s status…
“He has an upper body injury.”

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