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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: AUBURN VS GEORGIA

November 26, 2017

Kirby Smart

Atlanta, Georgia

CHUCK DUNLAP: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to SEC Championship week. Today we'll have each coach participating in the game, Coach Smart and Coach Malzahn, with us for 30 minutes each.

With that, I believe we have Coach Smart on the line already. Coach, good afternoon. Thank you for being with us. Congratulations for officially making the game and being in championship week. Before we take questions, would you mind just discussing your season and your team as you enter the championship game in Atlanta.

KIRBY SMART: We've got a great group of seniors who have done a good job of setting the sail in the right direction. It's been a very eventful year. We're excited to get to play in what I consider to be one of the greatest venues and greatest games in all of college football. It's obviously had a lot of impact through the years on the playoff system and the BCS system. I think it's a great environment, very special, and we get the privilege of playing what I think is one of the hottest teams in college football right now in Auburn.

Gus has done a tremendous job regrouping his team and coming back after some early and midseason losses, and they're playing really, really well and beat a really good Alabama team yesterday afternoon.

Q. Kirby, I was wondering, what are the challenges or even the advantages of playing a team twice in one season? In this case, especially, in four weeks.
KIRBY SMART: I really don't see it as a challenge or an advantage for either team. We obviously know each other pretty well because we play each other every year anyway with them being a crossover rival. So just two times in one year is unique, but it's not really a challenge or an advantage in any way.

I think both teams just know each other, and a lot of carryover on both staffs, a lot of talented players on both teams. So I'm not sure that it really presents any advantages or disadvantages.

Q. I was interested in reading a couple of weeks ago how close you were possibly to going to Auburn, to taking that as your first head coaching job. Can you just bring us up to date a little bit on that. Do you ever give yourself pause to think of what if things had turned out differently? I'm sure you're happy with how things have turned out.
KIRBY SMART: Not really. I haven't thought about it that much. In the profession we're in, you worry about the here and now, and you try to be where your feet are. That's really all we've been thinking about since the arrival here is turn this program into the caliber program we think it should be and developing our team and these young men into better people. That's been the goal. So all the other stuff is really in the past.

Q. Were there some other times that you were close to a job?
KIRBY SMART: Yeah, there's been several other times close to a job, but I don't think -- that's not really the important thing right now. It's getting this team ready to play what I consider to be a really good football team.

Q. If I can delve into the rematch thing really quick again, what do you remember about 2011 when you all played LSU again? Was there anything unique about that? I guess it was about a couple months difference rather than a few weeks here.
KIRBY SMART: The biggest difference was how far apart the games were. They were a big difference because we had that entire prep time. In this situation, you've got a game week, so it's really four or five days of prep, and you've got to go play. That was a month of preparing, it seemed, maybe even more than a month, that we knew we were going to play and still had to prepare. So it made it a little different in that regard. You had more time to do things and try to get things different. I don't think you can reinvent the wheel in a week. Really hard to do.

Q. You said in the Auburn game you weren't as good as tackling as you wanted. How do you see the Tech game? Maybe a little better tackling in this game yesterday? And I'd also like to ask you about playing inside the Dome, Mercedes Benz. I know you played in the Dome with North Carolina. How much does that help these guys? And the other ones, though, just have to rely on the practice they're going to get in there before the game.
KIRBY SMART: Yeah, that practice before the game won't help a whole lot because it's just really a walk-through and you kind of get to see the place. Yeah, I think the experience in the Georgia Dome in the North Carolina game was great. I think that was good for our kids, and some of them will benefit from that.

Ultimately, it's not really about where we're playing, it's about who we're playing and preparing the right way. We're just really worried about today right now and focusing on the things we've got to do today to get prepared.

As far as the tackling, there were less space tackles. There was a lot of sideline -- it's just different when you play Georgia Tech. It's really hard to compare the tackling. I know for you guys a tackle's a tackle. But really for us, it's different because those kids are getting the ball either in a scrum, or they're getting it out on the perimeter right on the sideline. So it's just hard to measure that. We did tackle better yesterday, I agree with that, but they were not put in a lot of loose play situations that typically happen when you play a spread offense.

Q. Kind of out of curiosity without revealing too much, as far as film prep with this thing, do you look at the first meeting between you guys? Do you study 'Bama? Now that you already played them once, do you look at anything that happened before the first time you played them?
KIRBY SMART: Yeah, we have a breakdown system we use. We have a lot of games in it. We always do. We carry seven, eight games in a breakdown. We had that many the last time we played them. We'll have that many this time we play them.

Just over the history that, obviously, I have and the coaches on the staff have with Auburn -- because a lot of our coaches have competed against Auburn in different places -- we have a lot of information. That's not really what this game is going to come down to. It's going to come down to flat back, hat speed, playing physical, who can get all the blocks, and who can tackle. That's what football usually comes down to.

The breakdown information will be there, but they're going to run the plays they always run. Gus always has, and they're pretty good at it. We've got to run the defenses we run, and we've got to run the offense we run. At the end of the day, it will be a lot more about how the kids perform on the grass.

Q. As someone who has faced Auburn every year for a long time, I know they've had some unbelievable offenses and some Heisman Trophy winners and all that stuff, but if you look at offense, defense, and special teams, is this front to back the most sound Auburn team you've seen? Or how would you compare that to the others you've faced?
KIRBY SMART: They're really good. They're really good. When you've got a quarterback that's as smart as theirs, throws the ball with ease, very efficient in the passing game. They've got some really good weapons out there with their wideout, and obviously they've got one of the most physical offensive lines. I think they're playing at a really high rate right now on both sides of the ball and special teams.

So it would be right up there with one of the best Auburn teams that I've seen.

Q. Hey, Coach, you talked after the game at Auburn about the way they controlled both lines of scrimmage. What's going to be the challenge when it comes to shaking the memory of that in order to execute the way you're going to need to on Saturday?
KIRBY SMART: Well, I think the biggest thing is just being honest. I mean, you don't shake a memory. You put it in their face, and you challenge people. You play more physical. Strike people to get off blocks. If you're on offense, you've got to strike people to stay on blocks. Fundamentally we've got to play better than we played last time. And obviously, we've got to play with more discipline and composure to avoid the knucklehead decisions we had in the game.

You can't give good teams things. If you give them things, it makes it twice as hard. They're already good enough and talented enough that you don't have to give them anything. They can earn a lot, but you can't give them things on top of it. The physicality will be really important in this game.

Q. What's the biggest way your postseason experience and that of your assistants can help your team in a game like this?
KIRBY SMART: Just making sure the kids understand, trust, and believe in the process that we go through this week, that it's not larger than life. It's the next game. And each one of these games they've been playing have been really important, and this just happens to be the next one. So I think leaning on the fact that we've played in a lot of these tight games, you've got to lean on that, and the kids have got to be confident with it.

Q. To dovetail off the film prep and watching the loss at Auburn, do you have to almost make sure to remind yourself that for nine weeks you didn't play that way and you can almost overanalyze a game like that in this type of week preparation?
KIRBY SMART: Not really. I mean, it is what it is. Those were the match-ups that day. Those other nine weeks were different match-ups. It was a different kid on a different kid. For that day, that's the match-up we had. For whatever reason, whether it was they had a better match-up or they were more physical, that's what it was. It is what it is.

We've got to go out and try to change that by how we play and try to change, whether it's a match-up, or give ourselves our best chance to be successful and go out and execute and fundamentally play better. That's the number one thing you can do better is make better decisions on offense and tackle better on defense and play better on special teams.

Q. Coach, I'm assuming you've had a chance to meet with your players since you guys found out you're going to be facing Auburn. Was there any reaction from them of getting their second shot at them, or was it just business as usual?
KIRBY SMART: No, we don't meet with the players on Sunday. That's our players' day off. So it's not something we go in and meet with them or talk about. We visit with them on Monday. Obviously, they all know. I mean, we all know. But by the time we got back, that game was not decided yet.

Q. And then a followup to that, when you knew the two deep in the roster you're going to have coming out of camp, could you have envisioned that this outcome to this point of the season was possible?
KIRBY SMART: Yeah. I felt like we had a good two deep and we had a good team. Certainly, I thought that there would be more close calls, more tight ball games based on the year before, but I certainly envisioned that we could do this and that we had good enough players to do it. They all had to play good. They had to play better on special teams. We had to improve in a lot of places. I think we've done that to put ourselves kind of in the situation we're in.

Q. Hey, Coach, this is one of the reasons that Georgia fans wanted to make the change and bring you in was to get to this game. Do you feel that you're on track, or are you a little ahead of track on bringing the process that you learned at Alabama over here to Athens?
KIRBY SMART: Yeah, there's no track. Each team is independent of the previous one. Everyone wants to put a model up there of your one year, two year, three year. Every year is different. If you get complacent, then you can get yourself in trouble. It's a cutthroat league in the SEC, and you'd better be on top of it recruiting, on top of it developing your players, on top of it with your facilities at every moment. That's something that we're constantly working at.

We want to improve in every way the way we coach our players, the way we develop our players, the way we recruit our players. We want to improve in every way to give us the most chances to be successful.

But as far as where we are now or where we are as far as on a timeline, next year is starting over from scratch for us.

Q. Kirby, you mentioned about not shaking a memory, putting it in their faces. Is that kind of the way you approached things the week after the Auburn game, and how do you think they've responded? With Ben Cleveland and the offensive line, has it panned out like you wanted the last couple games?
KIRBY SMART: It's been okay. It hasn't been a major difference in regards to Ben. Ben's doing a nice job. He and Solly are still in competition. Each week it's that way at practice. We get after it pretty good at practice. We'll see how it turns out this week in some of the competitions across the board that are still going on out there. We got guys that are playing well, and the guys that play and practice well will be the guys that get to play the most.

We really didn't shake the Auburn thing in their face, guys, I'll be honest with you. That's not really my coaching style to throw it in their face. We're more technical and try to coach them on what they didn't do right. Not one kid went out there against Auburn and didn't want to do it well or didn't not play hard. I mean, we didn't have success as a team. A lot of that falls on me as the head coach and the rest of the staff. We're trying to find ways to help them, not rub their face in it. We just use it as teaching and learning so we can improve.

Q. And Kerryon Johnson's availability this game, health status, how much do you think that would change things for Auburn, do you think?
KIRBY SMART: I really have no clue on that. I don't have any -- I'm a lot more worried about Nick Chubb's status for us than I am the other because I can only control what we can control. We're focused on trying to get our team ready to play.

Q. Kirby, you worked with Kevin Steele a good bit. Could you just talk about him, and do you see anything different in what he's doing now than what you've seen in the past?
KIRBY SMART: He's done a tremendous job. I'll tell you what, he's got a defense playing at a high level, and they are very confident. They get after it. They tackle well. They look fast as heck on film. A lot of players that have played a lot of SEC ball out there playing for them. They've got some DBs, it seems like they've been in the SEC forever, and they're playing at a high level. Big guys up front.

I remember when Will was there, he recruited a lot of those players that one year that he came over from Florida and they signed some of those guys. Kevin has come in and won those guys' confidence over and has really done a good job defensively.

As far as if you're talking about scheme-wise, yeah, there's some similarity because he and I have been together before and some similarity between what they do in Alabama and us and some others in the league, but they're playing really high level right now.

Q. Kirby, there's been some rematches before in long periods of time, 2011, but I wanted to ask you, what have you learned from 2006, when you were with the Dolphins, because it seems a bit more analogous as far as the fast turnaround and facing division opponents again, as you did that year. Just what did you learn from that experience of having to prepare for the same opponents three times in division opponents at the NFL level? And is there anything you could take from that experience and apply it this week?
KIRBY SMART: Well, you know, you always look back, and you have common themes and common cut-ups you use. You look back and try to figure out what worked, what didn't, what gives them problems, what you were able to do. When you have a game plan, you typically don't use all the game plan, just like when I'm sure Auburn played us, they had plays they didn't use. So you're able to go back, recycle those because you didn't necessarily use them.

It's the same way for us. You have some pressures you didn't use but you've been repping. So you're able to pull those out and get a little carryover with the team. I think that helps.

But at the end of the day, it really is not about the game before. It's really about the motivation in this game. Our kids understand that. They know that they've got an opportunity to go out and at least erase what they did last time. This is a fresh start to go out and play a new game.

Q. Also wanted to ask you about punt and kickoff returns. That was an area that you guys did quite well against Auburn, and they struggled quite a bit, not only in that game, but all season, particularly on kickoff returns. Obviously, this is in a dome. It will be easier for both kickers to get touchbacks. But if the opportunity presents itself, will you hope that your returners might even be more aggressive or willing to be more aggressive because Auburn struggled so much where maybe in a situation where they might ordinarily take a touchback, are you telling them to possibly be more aggressive against an opponent that struggled so much on kickoff return coverage?
KIRBY SMART: Well, you've just got to be smart. We make a decision each game how far we allow our returner to bring it out from. You've got to be careful in regards to that because just the law of statistics say a lot of times you're better taking it at the 25 than trying to return it because of the things that can happen.

I get where you're going with that, but we'll have a decision for our guy how far he can bring it out from, and that's always the case. I wouldn't be surprised if their guy doesn't kick it out every time in there, though. Really powerful leg.

Q. Coach, in the last game with Auburn, Jeff Holland was one of the team's leading tacklers and had three quarterback hurries. What type of lessons did you all learn in that game in terms of the challenges he presents in pass rush, and how do you all prepare for that this week?
KIRBY SMART: They've got a lot of good ones. That's the tough thing. As soon as you start worrying about one guy, another guy can beat you. Jeff is a really great get-off guy. He's got great pass rush ability. He's got speed, plays really hard, talented, talented player.

He was working on Andrew a lot of the game. I thought Andrew kept battling. He battled hard, and he got better as the game went along. Sometimes the best way to grow and develop as a player is you get to play more against the good players. Hopefully, that experience for Andrew will pay off some in this game.

But Jeff is a guy that I recruited out of high school, really good, and he's only gotten better. They're doing a really good job with him.

Q. You know you recruit against so many different schools at Georgia because of the Atlanta area and everything else. Would you say Auburn is a team that you run up against almost more than any other? I just wonder -- I know how coaches are about losing games. You don't forget the losses, but what about recruiting losses when you look across the sideline and you know how close you were with this guy or that guy?
KIRBY SMART: When you say look across the sideline, are you talking about how close you are with the players that you recruited --

Q. How close you might have been to getting him? How close you might have been to getting that guy but he's on the other sideline rather than on yours?
KIRBY SMART: It happens a lot. I would say that, yeah, Auburn -- between Auburn, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Clemson -- I mean, those are the ones. I can't say that we go up against Auburn more than anybody else, but as much as certainly. There's a lot of overlap with them recruiting in the state of Georgia.

I think they do a great job. They've got a great program. And kids want to play in the SEC, so that's going to continue to be the case. That's kind of your life blood is your ability to go recruit the talented players. A lot of it is picking the right one to go recruit. A lot of times they might value one more than we do and vice versa, we may value one more than they do. You may get them based on how much you wanted them at the time.

Certainly, when you look across the field, you see guys that you know well and that you develop relationships with, but I'm not one of those people -- I look at it as I enjoy getting to see those kids I've gotten to know. I enjoy seeing them grow up.

Stephen Roberts is a kid I recruited hard. He was committed to Alabama. He's become a really good player. Marlon Davidson, I had his brother in camp since he was in fifth, sixth grade. I've known Marlon and his family for a long time. Seeing him grow up. Tre' Williams. Those are all kids I had really close relationships with, and they're growing up and becoming good players. I'm happy for those guys that they've developed and become better people. I think that's part of the coaching profession. It's what we do.

I want to pull to beat them as hard as I possibly can come Saturday, but after the game, I want to be able to shake their hand and tell them how proud I am of them of where they've come.

Q. Kirby, just talking a little bit about how much the Bulldog Nation can help the team on Saturday, and getting back to Georgia, are you pretty excited about the support of the fans and what they can do, as Auburn proved when you all had to go over there, what that 12th man can do for the team?
KIRBY SMART: Yeah, we're excited to be playing in our home state in a brand new venue that is kind of the Mecca for college football right now. You think about it, it's played host to one of the opening games of the season that was one of the best, and now it's going to play host to the close of the season, the regular season anyway, of one of the biggest games, and it's right in our own backyard.

Our fan base has got a chance to impact this game, and we certainly want them to come out and turn out and do as they have done this year but to a higher degree and be there for us and support us.

You never know what kind of impact a crowd, crowd noise can have on a game, but we'll certainly need their help.

CHUCK DUNLAP: That's going to wrap you up, Coach. Thank you. We'll see you Friday in Atlanta.

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