GEORGIA FOOTBALL
ATHENS – Georgia hit the practice fields last week and started fall camp.
The Bulldogs suited up in full pads and started hitting on Thursday, Aug. 4 in Athens.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart wants his players to shift their focus to be fully concentrated on fall camp, especially after a long three months of player-led workouts.
“Our guys are ready to grind,” Smart said. “It used to be a time when you were -- didn’t do anything over the summer or had a long break over the summer or you might have a week off. But that’s not really the way it is now. It’s continuous. I talked to our guys last night about separating summer or what you would call a minicamp or what you would call summer practices and training camp.
You’ve got to kind of step out of your mindset/routine and refocus. I talked about some of the guys in the NFL currently and what they do in trying to transition our brain from one stage to the next stage. And we talked about locking in and locking out. You know, lock into what you got to do and lock out everything outside of it and the noise.”
The Bulldogs have a certain “hunger” surrounding the program, and it stems from last season’s success. However, for Smart, he doesn’t want his team to dwell on the past.
“Yeah, the defense is really -- really, (hungry). Both sides of the ball and special teams have been hungry up to this point,” Smart said. “We only spent a limited amount of time with them over the summer and over the last couple of weeks. But there are a lot of excited guys.
We talked to them last night about the number of snaps to replace. It’s remarkable the number of snaps, especially special teams, that we have to replace. I mean, a lot of your core defensive players make up your special teams. So there’s a lot of experience there that’s gone. So they’ve been excited and opportunistic. Some guys have changed their bodies a little bit and are in better shape. I’m excited to go see them practice.
They’re excited to get out there.”
Smarts expect his players to try to be better by not getting complacent. This season’s chapter hasn’t been written yet, and the success of the 2022 squad starts with fall camp.
Senior safety Chris Smith is one of a few returning starters for Georgia’s defense last season. He’s been around the block a few times and is now an elder statesman of the program.
Smith also knows a thing or two about learning how to fight complacency.
“I knew the work that it took for us last year,” Smith said. “We are going to have to put the same amount of work in this year to get back to where we want to be.
It’s not going to be handed to us.” Smith is a prime example of who can teach the younger generation of Bulldogs what Smart is preaching. He also knows how much work it took for them to win it all last year.
“Coach Smart does a great job of preaching not staying complacent, not being complacent,” Smith said. “The thing with our team is we either get better or worse. We want to choose better, so we can be better every day.
That is only going to come with hard work.”
Smith had to earn his snaps when he arrived at Georgia.
He went from playing in five games in 2018 as a freshman to competing in all 14 games as a sophomore in 2019.
Zion Logue is another model player who had to earn his playing time at UGA. Now, entering the upcoming 2022 season, Logue is primed to start for the Bulldogs.
“Sitting behind those guys and just watching those guys work throughout the week and throughout the years they were here, I took bits and pieces from them and put it into my own,” Logue said. “I’m kind of ready to see what I have to offer to the university.”
Logue was a reserve players for the past three year for Georgia’s defense. In 2022, he played in all 15 games, and registered 11 total tackles. The fourth-year junior defensive tackle had to sit behind 2022 NFL first-round draft selections Jordan Davis, Travon Walker and Devonte Wyatt over the last three seasons while in Athens.
Those two players, along with edge rushers Nolan Smith and Robert Beal Jr., are the highlights of Georgia’s defense entering its 2022 campaign.
All four Bulldogs will be tasked with mentoring the younger players while also leading the team as a whole.
Smart learned all of this under his former boss, Nick Saban, who preaches about not being satisfied.
“I don’t worry about it because we don’t have a reason to be complacent,” Smart said.
He’s right. In fact, the seventhyear head coach wants to keep his guys still hungry for more success.
Smart has engrained the terms ‘complaceny’ and ‘hunger’ in those players’ heads as a part of their vocabulary. Now, it’s time to teach the new pups old tricks and vice-versa.
“We have to keep the guys who have hungry,” he said. “It has nothing to do with complacency. It’s not that -- I mean, whether we win or lose every game this year, it’s not going to be because of complacency. It’s going to be because of the outcomes and what we did on the grass to make that possible, but it won’t be because of complacency.”
