Before Kirby Smart took the field for the first time this spring with his Georgia football team, he was asked what he wanted to see in the 15 practices ahead.
Smart was melding much of the nation’s No. 2 ranked recruiting class with holdovers from a team that won the SEC championship and reached the College Football Playoff quarterfinals last season.
“Yeah, I want to see the fire,” he said. “I want to see the passion, the energy. I want to see who wants to be a good football player, who really cares about this game. They care more about the game than they do about their NIL revenue stream.”
It’s clear now as Georgia holds its 10th spring practice Tuesday, Smart is drilling those points home.
Again and again and again.
“Physical, passion, fire and energy,” Smart told his players before they held their first spring scrimmage Saturday in Sanford Stadium in a video put out on social media by the program.
Georgia won back-to-back national championships with those traits in 2021 and 2022 even if they may not have been spoken like the buzzwords of connection, composure, resilience and toughness.
Now the team has players stepping into larger roles like on the offensive line where the Bulldogs lost four starters.
“That’s one of the things we’re really talking about as a program is the fire,” offensive tackle Monroe Freeling said. “Like what do you really have in yourself that you want to, I guess, really apply. What’s your fire? What gets you going? Who loves the game? I think that’s what we’re really applying to ourselves this year.”
There was no lack of passion, fire or energy from linebacker Nakobe Dean in the national championship game against Alabama to end the 2021 season.
Dean got in fellow linebacker Channing Tindall’s face when Tindall was indecisive on an assignment, something Tindall…
Source link : https://www.onlineathens.com/story/sports/college/football/2025/04/06/georgia-football-kirby-smart-spring-practices-justin-williams-fire/82890564007/
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Publish date : 2025-04-06 09:03:00
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