Monday's News and Notes

Kirby Smart tried to make one thing perfectly clear during Monday’s press conference to preview Saturday’s game against Arkansas State (Noon, ESPN2): This week, the Bulldogs won’t be working on next week’s highly anticipated contest against Notre Dame.

“Nobody in our building is going to be working on Notre Dame this week. We won’t have anybody working on Notre Dame this week,” Smart said. “That’s not our focus. I have too much respect for this team (Arkansas State) and too much respect for how they play. We’re not working on Notre Dame this week.”

Players are apparently forbidden even to mention the Fighting Irish by name.

Both Trey Hill and David Marshall avoided even saying their name, refusing to discuss “the other team"—only Georgia’s next opponent, Arkansas State.

“We’re just focused and worried about the team we're playing now,” Marshall said. “Too many people talk about other teams on campus, but we’re just talking about one team: Arkansas State.”

Smart wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We don’t look past today, that’s the thing. We’re focused on today and getting better at us. I think when these guys turn on the tape like we did last night, we don’t ever lie to our players, we say, ‘This is what it is, and here it is for you to see; you be the judge.’ We did that last week, and we’re going to do it this week,” Smart said. “The tape speaks for itself this week. (Arkansas State) is a really good football team. They have a really good quarterback, good wideouts, they have explosive players on defense, and all-conference players all over the place in a conference that I’ve got a lot of respect for.”

Two games into the season and senior defensive lineman Julian Rochester has yet to take a snap.

Coming off an ACL injury, Rochester has been cleared to practice and has since the start of fall camp. Still, he’s yet to take a snap in either of Georgia’s first two games.

So, what’s up?

“Julian is cleared completely. He’s healthy, he’s practicing. He’s got to go out and earn playing time; he’s got to go out and compete for playing time, to work. I don’t know that he’s 100 percent confident in himself right now, but he’s coming off an ACL,” Smart said. “He’s like Zeus; he’s like all those other guys coming off those. When you’re in the trenches, its every down; you’ve got 600 pounds on you, so it’s up to him to earn that by the way he plays and practices.”

Position mate David Marshall—who admits to still being slowed by the Lisfranc injury he suffered last year —says dealing with the constant rehab hasn’t been easy for Rochester to do.

“His biggest challenge is just to keep up the treatment on that knee,” Marshall said. “He’s just like me, I had to come back and rehab, do treatment a lot. That’s what you have to do, just stay in treatment.”

He’s already offered some advice.

“I told him it’s going to be hard; it’s going to be frustrating,” Marshall said. “He’s just got to come here every day, work on everything, and be positive. I told him it’s going to be a hard process to get back right.”

A number of freshmen made positive impacts in the win against Murray State.

Freshman outside linebacker Nolan Smith was certainly one.

In two games, the Savannah native has four tackles, including 1.5 sacks for losses of 10 yards, and according to the pregame stats, leads the team in quarterback pressures with four.

“Nolan is smart. Nolan listens. So, when you give Nolan a plan and say, ‘This is the way I want you to rush on this defense, or this is the way I want you to rush on this particular tackle,’ he does it. He applies what he learns. He plays with just maximum effort.”

Smart said Smith’s effort is what sets him apart from other players.

“He’s like a wild man, hair on fire, I’m never over. A lot of football is effort. You can take 10 five-stars, and 10 three-stars, and you go out there and put one other guy on the team to make 11 and the team that plays the hardest usually finds a way to win the game, and that’s what Nolan does. He plays hard. That makes football important to him. It allows us to play in a lot of situational football,” Smart said. “He’s got to continue to do that. He going to get matched up on better and better. Like this week, he is going to play better tackles than he played last week. He’s got to use his skill set; he’s got to use his trade, and he’s got to understand how the defense is engineered to make it work.”

During his post-game press conference, Smart deferred much comment on backup quarterback Stetson Bennett until going back to watch the tape.

Monday, he had plenty to say.

“Stetson is going to grow as a player; he continues to grow in practice. I’m looking for him to improve in all facets: his accuracy, his timing, his confidence, his points, his decision making,” Smart said. “He did some good things, but he did some things that he doesn’t typically do in practice, and you really can’t point to why.”

A pick-6 that resulted in Murray State’s second touchdown certainly applied before he rebounded to complete 9 of 13 passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns before scoring on a 1-yard run.

“The higher you get your practice reps, just like the game and what they’re doing defensively, the more accurate your players are going to play in the game. So we’ve got to continue to improve that,” Smart said. “Stetson’s got to continue to improve his decision making, what is he going to do when he gets flushed out of the pocket, Mike points, a lot of different things. But he’s willing to work on it, and he’s committed to that. I love the way Stetson competes in practice and the way he’s growing as a player.”

By now, the story regarding Arkansas State head coach Blake Anderson is a familiar one.

The popular coach of the Red Wolves recently took a leave of absence following the death of his wife Wendy from cancer.

Anderson returned for last week’s game at UNLV and his team responded with a huge 43-17 win.

“I can’t even begin to fathom or understand what he’s gone through. When I first heard the news, I was crushed for him, his family, his kids. I can never imagine what he’s having to go through, because that’s really tough,” Smart said. “Obviously, he loves family, because he made the choice to step away, and was able to go be with them, and now, he’s come back. I’ve met Blake a couple times, and I’ve got a lot of respect for him as a person and a coach. I can’t imagine what he’s had to go through as far as his family, all his family, his kids and everything.”

“James (Cook) is a great asset for us. He’s very versatile. He can line up in the backfield and run the whole play. He can bounce outside; he can be a slot receiver. He can be a rocket guy, he can block. James does a lot of good things. One of his best redeeming qualities is his toughness. He runs the ball tough and he does a good job. He is working to improve his ball security. We knew this last year. He was one of our better players last year. He was coming into his own and understanding of what kind of roles he had to do, and understanding the offense. That’s a growth and maturity process which he’s been able to do. As he continues to be able to do more, we want to use him more.” – Smart on James Cook

“It’s going to be a tremendous asset for us. When you start looking at location here and what they’re able to do. This team meeting room is 13th in the SEC, I think, in terms of seats. The weight room gives us an opportunity to work our whole team and not have to do three and four workouts of smaller groups in there. We can have two groups, or one group if we want to, with the size of our weight room. It’s going to create a lot of benefits for our players to be able to use the facility and help us recruit.” – Smart on the $80 million football facility approved last week

…Dawg Walk Saturday is set for 9:45 a.m.

…Saturday’s game is on ESPN2. Announcers will be Roy Philpot, Kelly Stouffer and Lauren Sisler.