ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Kirby Smart opened his 10th season as Georgia coach with Thursday’s first preseason practice knowing he didn’t have to worry about his message growing old with his players.
More than half of Georgia’s players are starting their first or second years. Smart knows his lessons won’t quickly sound stale for the defending Southeastern Conference champion Bulldogs. With only seven returning starters, Georgia opened practice with a long list of young players eager to seize their first starting jobs.
“We are young … but we are hungry,” Smart said Thursday. “We’ve got a team that’s fun to coach. … A lot of them haven’t had an opportunity to play, and now this is their opportunity. Sometimes when you’re coaching, it’s a lot more exciting for guys when they’re having their first time. Now that being said, the lack of experience sometimes can show, but we’re going to try to get through that in camp.”
A more experienced Georgia team finished 11-3 last season and No. 6 in The AP Top 25 final poll. It was the team’s eighth consecutive top 10 finish under Smart, including back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022. Last season’s SEC championship was Georgia’s third with Smart.
Georgia returns only four starters on offense. That total includes two tight ends — Oscar Delp and Lawson Luckie, who made seven starts. Right tackle Earnest Greene III is the only returning starter on the offensive line. Wide receiver Dillon Bell is the fourth returning starter on offense.
Quarterback Gunner Stockton took over for injured Carson Beck in the second half of Georgia’s 22-19 overtime win over Texas in the Southeastern Conference championship game in Atlanta. Stockton started in the Bulldogs’ 23-10 Sugar Bowl loss to Notre Dame in the CFP semifinals.
Smart says Stockton is still competing with Ryan Puglisi, but it would be a major surprise if the junior doesn’t start in Georgia’s season opener against Marshall on Aug. 30. Following Beck’s transfer to Miami, Stockton strengthened his hold on the job with a strong spring practice and directed the first-team offense in the G-Day spring game.
The defense includes only three starters: lineman Christen Miller, inside linebacker C.J. Allen and cornerback Daylen Everette.
Fire, passion, energy
Smart, 49, was asked if he still lives up to the team’s 2025 motto: “fire, passion, energy.”
“I feel it every day, because if you don’t have it, it’s hard to be successful,” Smart said. “You can’t keep up. Our staff has it. Our staff has great juice. We’ve had a chance to reenergize.”
A championship standard
Delp was a freshman on Georgia’s 2022 national championship team. He said he’s motivated to help the Bulldogs win another title and has tried to share lessons from that team with new players.
“I came back for a reason,” Delp said when asked why he didn’t enter the NFL draft. “I want to have a great season.
“I know how it was when when we won games and we won national championships. I was here for that and so I just kind of share with them the standard and what those older guys were holding me to when I was younger. I just try to keep it the same, you know, the standard is the standard. You’ve got to do it certain ways to win championships.”
‘Big Mike’ finally has his chance
Offensive guard Micah Morris (6-4, 330) entered camp as a projected starter. The fifth-year senior was a fill-in starter last season. This is his long-awaited opportunity to be a full-time starter.
Morris, who has a nickname of “Big Mike” and a reputation as the strongest player on the team, said he never considered finding an opportunity to start at another school through a transfer.
“This is my home, this is where I committed,” Morris said. “This is where I wanted to be when I was a 17-year-old kid. … I knew I could develop here even if I wasn’t starting.”
Jackson facing internal discipline
Smart said backup offensive lineman Jahzare Jackson, a sophomore, “is disappointed, obviously, in the decision-making process” following his arrest in Athens on July 16 on possession of more than an ounce of marijuana, a felony. “He’s being disciplined internally, but he’s with the team,” Smart said.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
