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Georgia

Georgia coaches harp on 'process over results'

On3 imageby: Jake Rowe09/03/25JakeMRowe
Kirby Smart Georgia
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart before Georgia’s game against Marhsall on Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga., on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025. (Tony Walsh/UGAAA)

ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia dominated Marshall in the season opener, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Before the Bulldogs emptied the bench in the fourth quarter, Marshall had 72 yards of total offense. The Thundering Herd had just 40 yards at the half.

But Kirby Smart isn’t focused on results. The stats and score may indicate dominance, but the Georgia head coach isn’t convinced unless the play, discipline, and overall process match up.

“Well, we talked a long time about process over results,” Smart said when asked specifically about the play of starting cornerbacks Daniel Harris and Ellis Robinson. “That’s probably the message that goes to every position group. Not them, not directed at them, but did they do the process right? Were their eyes in the right spot? Did they play with the correct leverage? Did they play the right technique?”

In speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Smart indicated that he was not pleased with the process. When it comes to the questions he posed, Smart said, “There were a lot of those things we didn’t do right.”

In fact, as odd as it sounds, Smart seemed more pleased with the way things went down in the fourth quarter when Marshall almost doubled its offensive output from a yardage standpoint. Smart didn’t say he was happy about his Georgia defense surrendering 135 yards in the final 15 minutes, but he understands that it happened because young, inexperienced players were in the game. That’s part of the process as well—the growth process.

“I think of those opportunities as development opportunities,” Smart said. “It’s why we’ve been really one of the better programs at turning players over in terms of what we put into the draft and lost early outs and having someone ready to go. I think that’s, number one, we develop and recruit. Number two, we practice our guys more as twos and threes. And number three, when they get an opportunity to go in the game—which we didn’t last year but in years past we have—we put them in the game. And if it costs us a shutout, then that’s a great lesson learned. I’d much rather that kid cost me a shutout in that game than him cost me a touchdown a year later in an SEC game.”

It all goes back to the idea of ignoring the scoreboard, something Smart has uttered some version of many times on record. It’s a message that is preached to every Georgia position group and applies to all three phases of the game.

Sometimes guys execute and play at a high level, but they do so against a team that does the same. The scoreboard might not show dominance in those instances, but Smart and his staff understand their own demands and evaluate accordingly. Other times, like Saturday, the score and stats show complete dominance when he knows that it could have been better.

“It doesn’t matter how it came out,” Smart said. “It matters, did you go about it the right way? We didn’t do that a lot in a lot of positions in terms of process.” 

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