Kirby Smart dunks on Pro Football Focus evaluations of Georgia players

Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart took a moment to rip Pro Football Focus, one of the nation’s leading football analytics groups, on Monday. When asked for thoughts on cornerback Derion Kendrick’s season so far, Smart knocked PFF’s methods, while corroborating their take.

Pro Football Focus charts and grades players’ performance on every snap in every game, providing detailed breakdowns that go beyond the box score stat sheet. Smart, however, doesn’t put much stock into their evaluations compared to his staff’s evaluations. Many DI programs highlight their players’ high PFF grades in social media graphics but Georgia is not among them.

“I don’t know what analytics you’re going by… I think those things are a joke really, personally,” Smart said. “When we go talk to NFL scouts, they laugh at PFF, or whatever the source may be. What they do, they use them to pull up and evaluate guys. A lot of times, PFF is a guy that works at another job during the day and that’s just his secondary job to chart whether or not (Derion) or Nakobe Dean or Travon Walker or Warren McClendon or Jamaree Salyer do their job. Their evaluation is probably not as supportive as ours.”

Smart, PFF praise Derion Kendrick

Pro Football Focus shared on Monday that senior cornerback Derion Kendrick has played 233 snaps in coverage this season with 23 targets coming his way. According to the analytics group, opponents caught eight passes in the first eight games for 113 yards versus Kendrick with no touchdowns allowed.

PFF ranked the Clemson transfer as the No. 1 transfer in the country leading up to the season, though he was not in their top 5 cornerback rankings. Also according to the analytics group, while with the Tigers, Kendrick allowed 15 yards or fewer in 18 of his 24 starts at Clemson.

Kirby Smart agrees with PFF’s evaluation that Derion Kendrick is doing a great job, he’s just not going to give them credit for saying so.

“With all that said, I’m very pleased with what (Derion) is doing, but I’m not going to base it off what a statistician says,” Smart said. “I think statistics are for making decisions on whether you go for it or you don’t or whether you do this or do this, but not evaluation of the players. I’m going to reserve that for the people in our building that have laid eyes on people for a long time and (Derion) is doing a really nice job, doing a phenomenal job of practice, taking notes, and understanding importance.”

Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs travel to Missouri to face the Tigers on Saturday. The kickoff is at noon E.T. on ESPN.