Georgia head coach Kirby Smart did a radio appearance with Atlanta station 92.9 The Game on Wednesday morning. Here are the news and notes from his roughly 15-minute interview.
Smart looking for players that love the game
Smart raised eyebrows on Tuesday when asked during his first spring press conference what he wants to learn about his team this spring.
"I want to see who wants to be a good football player, who really cares about this game. They care more about the game than they do about their NIL revenue stream," Smart said. "Like, if you really, really, really care about the game and you want to be good, it doesn't matter about any kind of money. It matters how I play the game."
Smart called it "ironic" that thought came up the day before Georgia's Pro Day, typically an event where he gets similar questions from NFL teams.
"One of the questions they used to always ask us was, well, how's it going to change him when he gets money? How's it going to change him when he comes into NFL-type money?" Smart said. "Is he going to have the same passion and desire? They used to frame those questions to us all the time, and I understand those questions much better now because we deal with it here and really across all college football."
Smart and his coaches look for that trait in recruits. They want to target players such as former Bulldog Kamari Lassiter, who always wanted to talk football over Zoom during his COVID recruitment, rather than players who worry more about taking pictures and looking at their phones during recruiting visits.
Smart hopes those criteria will continue leading talented and dedicated players to Athens.
"I try to find a common denominator," Smart said. "I'm always looking for what makes good players good, what makes great players great, and what separates the best players we've had from the rest. That's usually the common denominator. They love the game. They like to compete, and that rises to the top."
Gunner Stockton is his own man
Gunner Stockton goes about leading his own way.
Smart said the quarterback, who enters spring as the presumptive leader in Georgia's quarterback battle, isn't like former Georgia quarterbacks like Carson Beck, Stetson Bennett, or Jake Fromm. Instead, Smart thought back to a former Bulldog running back.
"He's got quiet confidence about him. I don't want to say, it's just quiet confidence. That's the way Nick (Chubb) was," Smart said. "You had to pull it out of Nick, and that's the way it is with Gunner. You'd say, well, I don't want my quarterback to be that way. I want my quarterback to be loud, boisterous. He is who he is. As he gains more confidence, he takes a greater role. He listens all the time. You might not think he's listening, but he's listening. He's taking notes. He's wise. He's a great kid is what he is."
Ryan Puglisi not shying away from competition
Smart has always seen the competitive spirit in redshirt freshman quarterback Ryan Puglisi.
Puglisi never wavered from his Georgia commitment even when the Bulldogs also had five-star Dylan Raiola in the fold. Unlike Raiola, Puglisi signed with Georgia. He is now entering his second season as a Bulldog and showing his coaches what he can do.
"He's a really good baseball player. He's got arm talent. He's got size. He had tremendous high school tape. He played a really good league up there," Smart said. "He was one of those guys that really flashed when he was on the scout team. That's traditionally what happens when you have a card, you don't have a read, and you just fire away. He's made some really good throws on the run. He's got a strong arm, but he does have a long way to go in terms of learning exactly what we're asking him to do, the command of the offense, the volume of the offense. He's getting better at all those things."
Smart wants more depth at receiver, including freshmen
Smart admitted that last year's offense didn't have "the guy" at the receiver position.
He's hoping that the depth of this season's team combined with better health will lead to better production.
"What's good about that group right now is there's some depth there, some competition there," Smart said. "You got the young ones who practice one day right now and I'm like, oh man, these guys, they look good. They look like they can help us. Then we got some old ones from Dillon (Bell), Colbie (Young), Cole Speer, a lot of the older guys out there that I'm like, man, these guys look good. (Zachariah) Branch and Noah (Thomas) are there. There's just a lot of competition. There's a lot of answers."
Smart added that he also wants to get this year's freshmen ready to go quickly.
"We’ve got to figure out what the new guys do best and we’ve got to bring the freshmen along now," Smart said. "We can't wait until halfway through the season and get them going. These freshmen are going to be talented players."
