Kirby Smart sheds light on Georgia's first scrimmage

Kirby Smart noticed a difference in Georgia’s first scrimmage of 2025 preseason camp.

During an unusually mild August in Athens, Smart felt the lower temperatures made things just a bit easier on his Bulldogs as they hit the field in Sanford Stadium on Saturday.

“The temperature made things not as trying, not as mentally tough,” Smart said. “I thought the speeds were good. You look back over the years, and the first scrimmage there’s always a lot of heat. And also, they’re coming after hot practices, so it’s not just that day — it’s what’s happened the previous three or four days. And the totality of practicing in 110, 105 heat index a couple days in a row can take its toll on that scrimmage. That wasn’t the case this time. I don’t think that’s any indication that we’re in any better shape. I think it’s just an indication of the weather.”

Smart also had plenty more to say on what he saw in Georgia’s first scrimmage. Here’s what he thought after seeing the Bulldogs in action.

General takeaways

“Really competitive drives, several long drives,” Smart said. “I was pleased with the effort for the first scrimmage. We didn’t tackle exactly great, which is the first time we really tackled live. We’ve done a little more live tackling than we have in the past, so we did do some prior to the scrimmage. But I was really pleased with the effort on special teams. I think that’s where we set ourselves apart in scrimmages because we do the special teams within the scrimmage. We have guys competing for spots on those units, and I thought they competed really hard. So I was pleased. Some silly procedural penalties both ways, but pleased with the effort of both groups. We’re just not where we need to be yet.”

On Ryan Puglisi’s performance…

“He makes mistakes, which they all do, and he learns from them,” Smart said. “He generally knows when he messed up. He’s walking off the field in the scrimmage and didn’t change the protection on the play that he knew he should have. And he knew it messed him up, but he knew it right away, which is different than where he was this time last year. He’s still trying to figure that out. So he’s made some really good throws. He’s more comfortable in the pocket than he’s been. He understands things much better, and he has a confidence about him that has helped him.”

On the running backs…

 “At running back, pleased with where those guys are,” Smart said. “That scrimmage is where we got to tackle live. All those guys continue to compete. The biggest thing is staying healthy so we can develop depth at that position.”

On the receivers…

“In the scrimmage, some good, some bad, right?” Smart said. “We had a couple explosive plays. A couple plays I thought the receiver should have made, but I was very pleased with their effort.” 

On the tight ends…

“I look at the tight ends as a whole in that room and each one of them did some really good things in the scrimmage. And then each one of them did some really poor things in the scrimmage,” Smart said. “And that includes (Jaden) Reddell, and that includes Oscar (Delp), and that includes Lawson (Luckie), and that includes Elyiss (Williams), and that includes Colton (Heinrich). And that includes, who’s the last one there, Ethan (Barbour). So they all had some positives and some negatives when it comes to that. So I’m hoping they continue to get better and have more positives than negatives. And I hope that they contribute on special teams, because we need those guys to be able to help us in special teams.   At the end of the day, you get judged at tight end not on a play action pass where you’re wide open. You didn’t do anything. Like, what did you do? You get judged on, can you break tackles? I don’t know that we had any tight ends break any tackles. Like, I don’t know that we had any, there’s not probably one tight end that broke a tackle. So when you break tackles, it’s something that, it’s what great players do. Good players just catch the ball and go down when they hit you.”