During Monday’s press conference leading up to the 2019 season opener at Vanderbilt, it didn’t take Kirby Smart long—like, less than a minute—for Georgia’s defensive-minded head coach to discuss what perhaps is foremost on his mind in preparing for the Commodores.

“[Vanderbilt has] some really elite players returning offensively,” said Smart, who is entering his fourth season as the Bulldogs’ head coach. “When you look at what they’ve got coming back, the tight end who leads the country in returning receptions; a back who has as many or more 10-yard carries as [Georgia’s] D’Andre Swift; they have a receiver who seems like he has been playing there forever. Every time we've had to play them, I thought he was a very good wideout.”

The “very good wideout,” senior Kalija Lipscomb, has made 151 catches in his Commodore career, including an SEC-best 87 last season for 916 yards. Nine of his receptions in 2018 went for touchdowns, after totaling eight touchdown catches the year before—each ranking fifth in the conference for their respective season.

Lipscomb was averaging nearly nine catches, including more than one for a touchdown, through the first five games of last season, before being limited to merely two receptions for 16 yards and no scores at Georgia in a 41-13 Bulldogs’ victory. Still, he wouldn’t be held to less than four catches the rest of the year, en route to being named second-team All-SEC.

During Smart’s press conference, after being asked about Vanderbilt’s apparent two-way battle at quarterback between junior Deuce Wallace and Riley Neal, a graduate transfer from Ball State, the head coach soon switched gears again, mentioning the Commodores’ terrific trio on offense.

“We have to prepare for both [quarterbacks], be ready to face both—but it’s not going to be as much about those guys as it is the guys around them,” Smart said. “The guys around them are really good players. They will be as good as we face at those three positions this season.”

Only trailing Lipscomb on the team in receiving last season, senior Jared Pinkney also returns after catching 50 passes, including seven touchdowns, for 774 yards—an average of more than 15 yards per reception for the 6-foot-5, 260-pound tight end. Pinkney’s 50 receptions were not only the second-most last season of returning FBS tight ends—but were the most by a Vanderbilt tight end in nearly a quarter-century. He is the lone Commodore who received first-team All-America recognition in the preseason.

Still, the most offensively potent of the trio is arguably running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn who, like the other two Commodore players, is another senior and could’ve feasibly declared early for the NFL Draft. After two seasons at Illinois, Vaughn gained 1,244 rushing yards—the second-most in a single season in Vanderbilt history—scored 14 touchdowns, while averaging a staggering 7.9 yards per carry last season. And, as indicated by Smart, he had 32 rushes gaining 10-plus yards, or the same total as Georgia’s Swift in 2018.

In the loss to Georgia in Athens last season, Vaughn rushed for a game-high 79 yards on only eight carries while spearheading a Vanderbilt running game that had outrushed Georgia (91 to 56 rushing yards) as the Commodores trailed the Bulldogs late in the second quarter by a score of only 14-to-6.

“You look at what [Vanderbilt] has been able to do offensively—it’s pretty special to have the three guys they’ve had back. For three players who chose not to come out for the draft but to come back, it gets your attention,” Smart said. “Each one of those guys has done a lot to earn the respect of our players. If you can do it in our league, it grabs the attention of the room.”