Wide receiver Matt Landers is the first to tell you his first two seasons Georgia didn’t go quite the way he thought they would.

There was a lot he had to get used to.

That includes the adjustment that every young player just out of high schools has to make. The demands placed on him as a collegian were going to be greater than anything he’d ever experienced before.

“Back then, I took a lot of things personally—Kirby (Smart) yelling at me; I used to always get down," Landers said. "It was ‘Oh, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that.' But I learned that if Coach is talking to you, he believes in you. If he stops talking to you, that’s a bad thing.”

Like many young players who starred in high school, Landers said it was really the first time he’d experienced that degree of tough love.

“Everybody saw I was getting down on myself, not wanting to do anything and just giving up,” Landers said. “But everybody has picked me up, everybody on the offense, everybody on the defense, previous players—Sony Michel, Nick Chubb, Riley Ridley, Terry Godwin, the whole receiver room, my boy Isaiah Wynn.”

The native of Pinellas, Fla. is still very much a work in progress. At 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, Landers has the size that Smart and offensive coordinator James Coley crave. At times he’s flashed as well as any of the receivers currently on the Georgia team.

Take Saturday’s G-Day performance, for example. Landers caught a 52-yard pass from Stetson Bennett and even threw a 39-yard touchdown pass to quarterback D’Wan Mathis on a trick play.

There were also a couple of instances when he dropped some balls, pointing to the kind of inconsistency that Smart said he’s going to need to correct.

“Matt’s had a good spring, but his level of consistency has to improve, and Matt has to play to his standards all the time,” Smart said. “We’ve seen flashes of really good things from Matt. With those flashes, we’ve got to see him come down with some 50-50 balls. There were a couple of balls I thought he should have pulled down early and get going. He’s become a better special teams player, too. He’s been able to contribute and he's been more competitive. We really need Matt to step up for us.”

Landers acknowledges the issues there, noting it’s going to be very important for him to put in as much work in off the field this summer as he possibly can.

“I know I’ve got to work harder,” said Landers, who played in just four games last fall after redshirting in 2017.

“Most people say my body language is bad, but I don’t think that’s it. When I drop a ball, I always feel I should have made that play,” he said. “I feel I’ve got to make every play, so when I don’t, I’m looking forward to the next one and making that one.”

Quarterback Jake Fromm says Landers will continue getting plenty of opportunities.

“You’ve got to feed them balls and show them that, ‘Hey, I trust you, I’m here with you, I’m going to keep throwing balls at you,’” Fromm said. “That’s the easiest one—to keep throwing balls at him, sometime it takes a word, sometimes it takes a little pep-me-up, but Matt does a good job and I can’t wait to see the plays he makes this fall.”

Landers, likewise, appreciates the fact that his teammates have his back.

“I love my team; I love how they’ve always comforted me when I don’t make a play. But I like adversity, I like getting past adversity, so having them on my side is always a blessing,” Landers said. “I don’t feel like I’ve earned a spot; nothing is given to you. I’m just going to go into the fall with the same mindset I had in the spring and give it everything I’ve got.”