1-13-16 Kirby Smart Press Conference Thoughts

I caught the CKS presser on SEC Network today. Basically an open mic and forum where reporters could bounce whatever questions they wanted at him before he takes off for the recruiting trail today. The interview went about 25 minutes. Here are some of the questions and statements that I thought were very indicative that the goings-on at UGA under this new leadership are exactly the things we've been talking about on dawgs.com

Q:Kirby have you had a chance to evaluate deficiencies in the lineup so far before you hit the recruiting trail or have you just not had the time?

A:You mean something specifically about positions or...[reporter mutters about wide receivers].. Yeah...I haven't had a good chance..I mean..I know from playing them offensively more than anything because we got to play them so I got to observe it. But you know, to pinpoint one area, you know, I think as a whole, we always have to build from the lines. It's hard to play good SEC football without great offensive and defensive linemen. I think there's a lot of good skill players within a five hour radius of here, but you gotta have great o-lines and d-lines and that's where you gotta start to build a great program. And I know we gotta go out and get great players and there's a lot of great players in this area.

Q: Now that you've won the National Championship at Alabama and you said that would help Georgia, what is your pitch to guys on the trail the next couple of weeks?

A:They know coming in that there is a certain standard of excellence that I'm used to that they're going to be held to and there's also a standard of expectations that they're going to be held to at the University of Georgia. And if they understand that, if they know what the expectation is: to be great, to win championships, to do things the right way, to go to the SEC championship, to win the SEC east, when you build all those things with building blocks, you focus on what it takes to get you there - not the actual result. I think they've seen that product, they've seen me be part of that product for nine years. I want them to understand those are the goals and that's what we're going to do. I think there's proof in the pudding, and we need to use that in recruiting, and we will.

Q:Coach, any advice that Nick Saban gave you before you left?

A::The advice Nick Saban gave me is nine years of experience in working for him. He's very supportive and told me if there's anyway he can help me, he would. He wants to keep that relationship open and he's always been that way. He is a developer of young men, a developer of coaches; a promoter of the game. .... He was very appreciative of me staying, and I mean obviously we didn't play very good and he wasn't fired up about that, but we won and he was very appreciative of me staying on.

Q:: Coach you said in Phoenix that you welcome a dual threat quarterback, and in a DeShaun Watson, how difficult it is to defend those guys. Jim Chaney seems like he's very much a pro-style guy and Jacob Eason is very much a pro-style guy. Do you think Jacob Eason can run some of that stuff, do you install some of that stuff, does Jim...[interrupted]

A:Yeah we gotta win football games. We've got to win football games. So obviously we have to do what's best for our offensive system with what we have. So what he have here right now is a quarterback environment where we've gotta compete to find the best guy for the job. And of the three or four guys we've got here, we're going to be able to compete and find that out. If a dual-threat guy comes along that we're gonna recruit -- I've played against Jim Chaney, I've coached against Jim Chaney. You go back to his history at Tennessee, he had some quarterbacks that did run, and he had to use that. If that's your best way to run the ball is with the quarterback, then you have to use that. If your best way to run that ball is to hand it to Derek Henry or to Nick Chubb, then you have to do that. You do whatever you have to do to win the game. If we do have a dual-threat quarterback, then we cross that bridge when we come to it..... you also recruit to the style of quarterback you have and that allows you to get all kinds of other positions, whether it be running back or receiver. You also recruit to an NFL criteria of can this kid go on to play in the NFL? and more-and-more guys are doing that in the NFL. So will we be open to it? Absolutely. Can Jacob do it? I don't know that right now. I don't know. I can't answer that.

Q:Coach do you think you have a need to change the culture here?

A:Absolutely. Absolutely. This culture, not that there was anything really wrong with it, but this culture has to change and now it is Coach Smart and Coach Smart's staff. And we're doing that. We're doing that in the weight room day one. We're gonna make sure every kid does that and we also want them to know that this is all going to be done by us, under our eyes, through our window. That's the whole point. That's the whole point of the offseason is to establish that. To make toughness. To make kids be comfortable being uncomfortable. I think that's important for them to do. I had to do it as a coach. And when you step outside that box, it's good. We're going to make these kids become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

From swimming in the pool to swimming with sharks.
Great post.

Another real good move by Kirby Smart.

He is letting all know that the program will be run a certain way, "his" way.

What he said above in post #1 will resonate with the young men looking for a place to play and grow mentally and physically.

Kirby Smart is not going to run his program entirely like Nick Saban's. For sure he will not run the Georgia program the way it has been handled for a long time.

My favorite line was the culture comment..Boy did he "coach-speak" that one up so as not to embarrass the former coach.

Is the culture going to change? ABSOLUTELY. Not once, but twice. ABSOLUTELY.

Translation: This culture under the former staff was such an abysmal disaster that I didn't know if I was walking into a college football program or a police benevolence athletic league run at the local boys' halfway house.

So in love right now.....................swoon.

SouthernDawg wrote: My favorite line was the culture comment..Boy did he "coach-speak" that one up so as not to embarrass the former coach.

Is the culture going to change? ABSOLUTELY. Not once, but twice. ABSOLUTELY.

Translation: This culture under the former staff was such an abysmal disaster that I didn't know if I was walking into a college football program or a police benevolence athletic league run at the local boys' halfway house.

Previous head coach got a lot of elbow room for the "Translation" portion of your post SouthernDawg. One of his recruiting tools. Living room chat that convinced many parents that he had their backs.

I believe Kirby Smart is a "good man". I also know that he is a SEC Head Coach that will have his/our program moving forward. Believe a head coach can do both. It will be a new experience for many of us watching football in 2016.

While we may not be know-it-alls, there is a lot of football talk on this board that covers many areas of UGA football that some on the sidelines never fully came to understand. Started before the last head coach.