Kirby Smart explains how Georgia's young players stay hungry

Underclassmen at Georgia are in a bit of a predicament. Most Bulldog freshmen come in as four and five-star recruits. The problem is that they backup older and more experienced four and five-star recruits. Now that Kirby Smart and staff have stacked a number of top-10 classes on top of each other, there’s blue-chip talent oozing out of every orifice of that program. So freshmen, sophomores and even some upperclassmen are stuck waiting their turn.

So how does Smart keep his gifted youngsters from becoming too restless in the stable when they aren’t running the actual race, per se. One reporter asked him that exact question at a press conference this week, and the Georgia coach had an immediate answer before going into a longer one.

“Oh, the tape does that,” Smart quipped in response. “I mean there’s there’s success to you guys and statistics. There’s not necessarily success for us. And you watch tape and you cut a guy free. You watch tape and I got into a guy’s job. He didn’t strike the right guy so we gave up a gap. I mean, again guys, there’s no perfect defense or perfect offense that we’ve played.”

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Smart’s being pretty harsh right there, you think? Either way, he continued on the topic, expounding on his goal for his team and his players to get better every single day, and take every day of practice as serious as the last and as the next, regardless.

“We know that the winner will ask what we did in the fall. And what we’re doing now is preparation for what is to come. And that includes getting better every day, regardless of who our opponent is, you know. We’re not out there just getting ready for Kent State. We’re getting ready for the entire schedule. We want to get our players better, you know. We’re trying to get guys better for the first game next year.”

For those young guys: stay locked and loaded during practice and just be ready for whenever Kirby Smart calls your name.

“Because we’ve got some guys that may not play this year. So we’re in the development business and we do that really hard. We’re not caught up in statistics or where we are right now. Because it really doesn’t matter, you know. They may get it outside from you guys and read it. But they’re not hearing about it over here.”