ATHENS — Georgia may be considered by many as the preseason No. 1 football team in the nation, but it’s no different than any other program when it comes to spring drills.
Kirby Smart, entering his ninth season as the Bulldogs’ head coach, served that reminder Wednesday at the Georgia Pro Day workout.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” Smart said. “We’ll get to work on that, it’s just step by step, day by day.
“Don’t put one foot too far ahead of the other.”
The Bulldogs’ challenges on offense are obvious, with five of the nine transfers on the roster playing the receiver position and a new lead runner in the backfield.
Smart knows what his offense is up against with the personnel turnover.
There are 15 practices to figure it out, and from the sounds of it, the Bulldogs will need every snap.
“Can’t tell you anything about them (receivers), really, because I haven’t seen them go out there and do anything,” Smart said entering the opening week of practice.
“I’ve seen them run around in circles, touch a cone, lift a bar, but that doesn’t define a football player for me.”
The Bulldogs held their second practice Thursday and will go at it again Saturday, with Smart looking for his quarterback to establish a rhythm with his new targets.
Three of the top four pass catchers from last season are gone: All-American Brock Bowers, explosive perimeter threat Ladd McConkey and reliable third-down target Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint are headed to the NFL.
That attrition is why Smart broke form and attacked the portal for wideouts and another tight end – Stanford All-Pac-12 selection Benjamin Yurosek, who is not yet on campus – to spark the pass game.
Quarterback Carson Beck led the SEC with 3,941 yards passing while ranking fourth in the nation in completion percentage (.724), prompting experts to tag him the co-Heisman Trophy favorite alongside Texas’ Quinn Ewers entering the 2024 season.
Beck has talked about his need to build confidence, and Smart seemed to echo that sentiment by sharing that “Carson is not an extremely assertive young man.”
Beck is, nonetheless, quite talented and holds the key to the Bulldogs’ championship hopes in 2024.
That’s why Smart put the onus on Beck to get comfortable with the receivers – Miami transfer Colbie Young, Vanderbilt transfer Landon Humphreys, USC transfer Michael Jackson lll – along with second-year transfers Dominic Lovett (Missouri) and Rara Thomas (Mississippi State) – and returning wideouts Dillon Bell, Arian Smith and Anthony Evans.
“I think he has to build a rapport with some of these new wideouts we’ve got in that room,” Smart said. “They’re going to be important for him to grow with.”
Smart surprisingly pointed to Trevor Etienne as one of the emerging leaders in the Georgia clubhouse, an indicator the Florida tailback transfer might indeed be a most pivotal offseason addition.
Like the receiver position, the Georgia running back group is very much in transition, with the top two rushers from the 2023 season, Kendall Milton and Daijun Edwards, moving on to the NFL, taking 60% of the rushing yardage and 67% of the rushing touchdowns with them.
Etienne, the young brother of former Clemson star and current Jacksonville Jaguars tailback Travis Etienne, is aiming to become the first Georgia tailback to be named All-SEC since D’Andre Swift in 2019.
Roderick Robinson, Georgia’s 240-pound sophomore back, figures to provide short-yardage punch and provide the thunder to Etienne’s lightning.
Smart is not ready to get into too many specifics. The Bulldogs’ head coach maintains that each season is its own, and there is little to no equity carried over.
Depth charts are hard to come by across college football, and with good reason.
There’s another transfer portal window approaching, from April 15-30 – opening two days after the Bulldogs’ hold their annual G-Day game at Sanford Stadium.
It’s not a stretch to suggest there will be more attrition off the Georgia roster as well as around the rest of the SEC and college football.
Smart and some of the players on his roster will have some decisions to make between now and then, on offense and defense.
“Goals of spring for me would be to expand our roster of winning football players … can you play winning football?” said Smart, whose team has not lost a regular-season game since the 2020 season.
“We’ve probably got 30 or 40 guys that have proven that. We’ve got another 30 or 40 that have to prove that to get the team we need to have ready to go play the schedule we have.”
The Bulldogs open the season Aug. 31 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium against Clemson, and have SEC trips to Kentucky (Sept. 14), Alabama (Sept. 28), Texas (Oct. 19), Florida (Nov. 2) in Jacksonville, and Ole Miss (Nov. 9).
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