Georgia Football News and Notes for Tuesday

Georgia’s slow offensive starts have been a season-long story. Five games in, and it’s been the same thing heading into Saturday night’s game against Kentucky (7 p.m., ESPN).

Figuring out ways to reverse the trend has been popular message board fodder for weeks.

Head coach Kirby Smart was once again asked about a remedy after practice Tuesday afternoon.

"I would start with absolutely we need to improve it—but we look at everything, and I think we went three-and-out one time on offense (against Auburn),” Smart said. “Every other time, we moved the ball, which that’s what you want to do. Of course, you want to score, but you want to move the ball so you can create field position. On defense, we've gone three-and-out maybe once or twice. We did last week. So, it’s not the first possession, but it is the first quarter.”

Smart acknowledged there have been other circumstances that have contributed to the issues. Missed field goals and deferring the opening kick were noted by the Bulldog head coach.

However:

“Those are all just excuses. We’ve got to play better. There are a lot of reasons why it happens. I’ve been here years where you score every first possession and you stop them every time, and then for a while, we couldn’t get it started in the third quarter,” Smart said. “We could never get any momentum going, and we were awful in the third quarter. One of the years, we won a National Championship. It’s something you try to address and think about the way you start the game, but don’t overthink it, because we’re trying to plan for the whole game.”

Smart had mostly good injury news to share during his press conference with reporters.

Safety Javon Bullard is moving around much better, after limping off the field following Saturday’s win at Auburn.

"Unscathed. Sore. He had a long game. He hadn't had that much running, physicality, and use in two weeks, or whatever it was, 14 days. You get sore when you don't do anything for that long and then you go do that much,” Smart said. “It's just typically what the body does. He's been good. He recovered on Sunday and Monday. He's great. We had a lighter day on Monday and got after it today. He seemed good today."

Smart said running back Kendall Milton (knee) and wide receiver Ladd McConkey (back) have “been great” all week.

The lone Bulldog who still has a ways to go is defensive lineman Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins.

Ingram-Dawkins has missed the entire season with a foot injury, and per Smart has still not been able to return to the practice field.

There may be some light at the end of the tunnel, however.

"He's still the same deal. We're on non-weight bearing, waiting for some pictures to come back,” Smart said. “He had a four-week shutdown, and then after five weeks we will take another picture to see where it's at and decide whether or not we can wrap up."

… On preparing the defense for Kentucky's rushing game: "You go against our offense who runs some of the same runs they do. It's very pro-style-based in terms of what they do run-game-wise," Smart said. "They do a tremendous job of putting window dressing around all of their runs. They have really good people blocking it."

The Wildcats have plenty of players who have been through the SEC wars, too.

“They have very experienced tight ends on the edges. They have kids that have been there for two or three years blocking. They've got a great back. They've got a great run system that has all the ingredients to be excellent," Smart said. "When you have a physical offensive line, a head coach and an offensive coordinator committed to running it, a great back, several great backs, and then they've got weapons on the outside. They are a very talented group and got a lot of guys who have played a lot of SEC football in that group."

… Smart was asked about the progress of Jalon Walker: "He's grown in two positions. It's exactly what we talked to him about when we recruited him, and some of these other inside backers," Smart said. "A lot of kids don't play high school inside backer. Their coaches put them out on the edge so they can defend the grass, or they put them out at the edge so they can run and set edges. They don't get to play inside backer because there's probably another kid on the team that can play that."

Walker's talent allows him to do both.

"His skillset has grown because he's very natural on the edge as a rusher and get off and he has some of the best pass-rush moves in our group," Smart said. "He needs to be able to play all downs so he's continuing to work at inside backer.”

… Smart on similarities between how Mark Stoops built his teams compared to his teams: "I don't even know by the way it looks because I never talk to him about it," Smart said. "I don't know philosophically if they have a certain number of this position or that position. I don't know anything about how he builds his team to answer that fairly."

But he has an idea.

"I would think they are close, but I don't know that. I know that they play very physically, and our kids always feel like it's one of the most physical games of the year,” Smart said. “Just the size they have, the way they play the game, the game really shrinks when you play them. The clock is running. I mean, we had a drive in '21 that was the longest drive I've ever seen. I would think they are both built in a similar way, but I can't say how he builds his."

… Regarding similarities to Florida and learning from Kentucky’s matchup against the Gators: "There's some similarity there. I don’t exactly know what they are doing in some situations. It’s not complete overlap like some defenses I’ve seen before where we’re married up exactly the same. I don’t think it’s exactly the same, but at the end of the day, Kentucky played physical,” Smart said. “They had explosive plays, they got some turnovers, they started really fast, and once a back gets hot and gets rolling – he got really hot and started rolling, and he (Ray Davis) was hard to tackle.

"It doesn't matter what defense you play. It’s not about schemes. It’s about striking blockers, getting off blocks, and tackling. We’re not out there practicing schemes right now. We’re out there trying to strike a block and get off a block.”

… On playing the first ranked opponent of the season and other SEC teams on the rise: "I personally think every SEC team should be ranked. I guarantee you that there are some teams that don’t want to play them that are ranked. I literally have no idea what you’re referencing because every team in the SEC is good enough to beat us,” Smart said. “Whether they’re ranked or not, I could care less. I’m trying to be more physical than them and outscore them, and that’s the only thing I’m concerned with, not their ranking."

… Smart scaling back practice on Monday: "It's going to be physical [Saturday's game against Kentucky], but that's after our fifth week—our sixth week—we do that to recover a little better,” Smart said. “We want to give 48 hours recovery if we can, so we had Sunday and some of Monday to help them get their legs back."

… On if Brock Vandagriff and Gunner Stockton can mirror Devin Leary's running capability in practice this week: "Yeah, he's got the capability, for sure. They've done some quarterback run looks with him, and they did some last year against us, as well,” Smart said. “Brock and Gunner, I mean, we don't run them on quarterback runs in practice. It does us no good if we can't hit them, and we're not going to hit those guys. We have other guys do it."