NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates
Kirby Smart on inexperienced roster: ‘We have a long way to go’
Kirby Smart says Georgia is a work in progress, with a young, inexperienced roster struggling with fatigue.
We’re watching this evolution play out in real time, a path that was inconceivable a few short years ago.
A path that has finally reached the top of the mountain, where everything should be gold and bold and clear to see. Only it’s not.
The coach/player dynamic is rapidly changing, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Not even the most powerful coach in college football.
“They’re offended when you coach them,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said during a media availability following practice March 18.
This revelation, everyone, is staggering.
Not that today’s player has become difficult to coach. But that Smart, who comes from coaching tree of Nick Saban – the Death Star himself – admitted as much.
There is no coach in college football with more coaching capital. No coach in college sports with more weight and more gravitas – and here’s the key – and more of a chance to ignore the tsunami of player empowerment than Smart.
And while he hasn’t given in, the fact that he’s declaring this obstacle is significant. The evolution, everyone, is quickly becoming a revolution.
This isn’t so much about calling out players to accept coaching as it is a loss of control. There’s slippage in the player/coach dynamic, and it’s growing.
Georgia has 24 freshmen who enrolled early, and Smart said last week not one is in shape. Not one freshman is, “sustaining his reps and just flourishing.”
That led to his assessment of the rest of the team, and how the events of the past four years since the inception of NIL and free player movement…
Source link : https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2025/03/25/kirby-smart-georgia-football-nil/82644067007/
Author :
Publish date : 2025-03-25 10:06:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
