Tuesday news and notes

After playing at Texas, LSU head coach Ed Orgeron complained that the visitor’s locker room at Royal Memorial Stadium lacked working air conditioning, a charge that Texas officials later denied.

But the possibility does make for interesting conversation, and Tuesday, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was asked if he’d ever come across situations where other schools weren’t quite as hospitable as perhaps they should be.

"Some of the SEC facilities on the road, y'all should go around and do a story on, because there's not very good locker rooms in the SEC on the road,” Smart said. “They're mostly the old '60s and '70s locker rooms from stadium to stadium. It'd be a nice little story, some of the places I've been to, and the dungeons you've been in. They're not high-quality, and I'm not picking on other places because it's not very good here. They're not very nice.

“That's just the way it is. We had to walk two blocks at Vanderbilt because a situation occurred. Things happen and you deal with it.”

But is it gamesmanship as it pertains to the home team? Smart won’t go that far.

“I never thought of it that way,” Smart said. “There were a couple of times we got stuck in a road block and couldn’t get to the game on buses, and thought we were going to have to get out and walk on I-85. That frustrates you, but there’s not a lot you can do. Some things you can control, and some you can’t.”

Smart revealed that redshirt freshman wide receiver Tommy Bush will miss a few weeks while recovering from a sports hernia.

“Tommy Bush is a couple weeks away. He’s had some sports hernia, osteo—I can’t say the word—he’s got growing problems,” Smart said. “So, we’re hoping to get him back, I don’t know when.”

Bush suffered the injury late last week in practice and did not dress out against Murray State.

The news is better for defensive lineman Tramel Walthour (lower body injury), who has been wearing a boot but could be back soon.

“Tramel, hopefully, we get him back soon, too,” Smart said. “He’s running and moving, and he may be cleared this weekend. It may be next week.”

…Wide receiver Kearis Jackson continues to practice with a club over his broken left hand, but is still a few weeks away.

“He’s available, but I mean, I don’t think we’re going to put him out there with a club. It would be pretty one-dimensional, unless he’s able to catch every ball with one hand,” Smart said. “But he practices, he takes reps, he runs routes. He’s catching punts, he’s doing everything. But we’re probably not going to use him until he’s 100 percent.”

On Monday, Alabama AD Greg Byrne and president Stuart Bell released statements expressing disappointment that next week’s home game against Southern Miss is set for a noon kickoff.

So, what does Georgia head coach Kirby Smart think about Saturday’s game against Arkansas State kicking off at noon Saturday at Sanford Stadium?

It turns out he appreciates it more than you might guess.

“My family afterwards, I get to see them; I get more time with recruits on the back end,” said Smart, when asked why he’s got no problem with time. “The biggest thing is the recovery for the players for me, because the next game (Notre Dame) is the farthest off. Getting to go home and watch the night games with my kids and my wife is probably the most enjoyable thing for me.”

All 14 SEC schools typically have to play at least one early game during the course of a given season.

“It’s been a pleasure. He’s a bright kid, works his tail off. He took a role on the team, he played d-line most of his first year here, went to o-line that next spring, didn’t complain about it, and thought it would help our team. He moved back, continued to work and has really helped us a lot. He’s tough, he’s worked hard and is a high-character kid.” - Smart on Michael Barnett

“He works really hard. He’s spent a lot of time with them. They come up there and meet extra whenever they get a chance. He makes it fun for them to learn. He educates them. He shows them why. He’s really prepared in his meetings and teaches toughness. All the values that we promote. Relentless effort, press man, playing hard, all those matter to him.” - Smart on the impact new DB coach Charlton Warren has had

“I don’t pay attention to it. I get so entrenched in the game and the coaching of the players, because I want the players that are in the game, whether we’re up one point, down 10 points, or up 40 points, to feel the same intensity that the ones that are in at the beginning of the game feel. I don’t get caught up in the scoreboard part, I just want the players that are in the game to have success, especially, if the margin, one way or the other, up for us or down for us, is out of control, we’re not going to ever stop coaching the kids who are in the game because they are all learning opportunities, and those kids want to play good just as much as the ones that were in earlier in the game.” - Smart on whether or not he watches scoreboards this early in the year

“How are we going to match up? We’re going to find out. It’s going to be a real test. They have great wideouts, and they have wideouts at all positions. They have tight ends, and they are really athletic, and they’ve given people major problems with match ups. So, I can’t tell you how we’re going match up. I can tell you how we match up each day against our guys, but it’s going to be interesting to see, because they’ve got a guy who can spin it, and they’ve got a guy on the perimeter who can catch it, and they have experience doing it in big games and in big stadiums.” – Smart on how his secondary matches up with Arkansas State’s passing game

“He’s done well. He’s put up good numbers, right? He didn’t really have much of a rotation this past weekend. How many carries did he have? Six or seven. That was just the way the game went. We got up, and once we got up, we weren’t going to sit there and let him carry it the whole game, so it was a tale of two games. One game he needed to carry it more, and one game he didn’t.” – Smart on the play of D’Andre Swift

…Georgia practiced for two hours in full pads Tuesday in preparation for Saturday’s game against Arkansas State. “It was hot today and it was hot yesterday. Guys were pushing through it the way they need to do. It’s tough out there, because we get a certain number of reps,” Smart said. “They probably had a better practice yesterday than they did today, but we’ll clean a lot of that stuff up from today, come back tomorrow, and hone it down.”

…Smart said he texted former defensive coordinator and Colorado head coach Mel Tucker after his season-opening win over Colorado State, but didn’t after last week’s victory over Nebraska.