Linebacker Nolan Smith said he had two very good reasons for coming back to Georgia for his senior year as opposed to applying early for the NFL Draft.

"If you want me to be honest, I believe honestly in what Coach Smart is building here and the coaching here,” Smart said. “But at the same time, my mom wants me to graduate, so that's the whole reason I came back. If I don't give her a diploma, she couldn't care less about the NFL Draft."

Smart no doubt breathed a sigh of relief with the news.

Had Smith moved on, it would have placed some undue pressure on some of Georgia’s younger outside linebackers, as well as left the team without one of its best leaders.

The Savannah native also addressed his arrest back in January on two misdemeanor traffic offenses.

“I went out to Montana with my girlfriend after the national championship. My license was expired, and you’re not supposed to drive with an expired license,” he said. “I had to go to the DMV to get everything straightened out. You learn from mistakes like that.”

He’s also ready to make amends.

As a senior, Smith does not want his Bulldog career to end without making the best impact he can.

"Hopefully, my name is up there on that pillar behind you as be team captain one day,” Smith said. “I get to come back and show my kids that I graduated from here, I built a lot of things here in my little pond and I tried to make a ripple effect."

Smart on replacing four assistant coaches: ‘’We went through an interview process at every position. We interviewed multiple people at each and every position, think about what's the best overall for our program, for our culture we built here, take input from the coaches on the staff been here a long time, Dell McGee, Glenn Schumann. These guys have been part of our program. Tray Scott. They are the culture. We want people that want to be here and want to be part of that.

"It's very demanding what's required of college coaches. You've seen guys move on to the NFL, seen guys step out, you've seen guys go onto other places, but it's not going to ever change at the University of Georgia. The standard of excellence that you want to have in recruiting and spending time with your players, and these four people meet that criteria. They're also people I trust and some I've known, some I have not known. But the ones that we didn't know we did a lot of research on and felt like they were best for the job.’’

Smart not surprised with success at NFL Combine: “Yeah, we saw this coming two, three years ago. We even had the fear that we might have been replacing those guys last year had they not decided to stay. So that's been a preparation deal for us. We're always looking two, three years ahead sometimes, and, you know, where you maybe have a deficit or you're not as good or maybe better at certain positions. That's a focus we take on each and every year, so that will be a challenge for us. Lost a lot of good defensive players, some really good wideouts, so it's on to the next. You got to create your identity through who you have, and that's what you do as a coach.

"You know, you do the best job you can with it and try and get the most out of them. I’m certainly proud of those guys. Coming over here to this meeting, I ran into a bunch of them and they're getting to see new parts of our building they had not seen, and it's great to see them. Really happy for them."

Warren Ericson on new OL coach Stacy Searels: “He set the tone right away, just physicality and aggressiveness. That was his first thing in the meeting room. He wants us to play disciplined and know exactly what to do. So, I’ve really respected that. He wants us to continue the tradition of being a dominant offensive line that Georgia has always had. So, he has come in, stepped in, and done that really well so far. He also has different lingos and terms to be used on different calls. We’re having to adjust with that. He is having to adjust with our plays and our lingo as well. So, it’s a little bit of a give and take as far as what he is having to learn and what we’re having to learn from him.”

Smart on following up a national championship year: “Let's be clear: We won a National Championship because we had really good players who played well together, right?

"So, usually the team that wins the National Championship is a unified group. I can go through the last couple years. There is like this really great group of special players at LSU; they won a National Championship. Really good group, special leaders at Alabama; they won a National Championship. We had a really good group. So, we're trying to like to develop our team to emulate what is your identity. Is it going to be supreme talent with great character, great leadership? Is the leadership and character going to outweigh the talent? We're trying to figure out the team's identity completely independent of the previous years.

"There is -- when you look out there, there is not as much experience. There are good football players on this roster, but we’ve got to get those guys in position to be successful. Our job as coaches is to grow them.”

"I’m going to repeat: I am not worried about living in the past. That's our job, is to make sure these kids grasp what they do is in front of them. The wind blows a lot harder at the top, but we’ve been up there. So, it's not like we’ve been at the tip-top, but it's been blowing pretty good where we were, so we’ve got to do a good job continuing to develop our guys and get them ready to play.’’

Smart on the value of spring practice for early enrollees: “It's more important for their degree, right? They get an extra semester of classes. They get 15 hours towards their graduation. That is the most important thing to me.

"For five of them it's about getting the best rehab you can possibly get in the country, maybe the world, as opposed to sitting in Atlanta and having a surgery and not having the rehab facilities that maybe your high school has, you're getting that here. To get those guys and the care they need so they don't reinjure, don't have setbacks, we get to have them right here underneath our tutelage and our care. There is no value you can put on that.”