Field Street Forum

ATHENS – Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart, along with offensive lineman Earnest Greene, inside linebacker Chris Cole, safety KJ Bolden and tight end Lawson Luckie spoke with the media Wednesday to discuss fall camp and the progress of the team in preparation for the 2026-27 season.

Head Coach Kirby Smart

Opening Statement…
“I’m excited for our guys to be back in a real camp setting. So a couple of things I want to hit on from an athletic department standpoint, and probably the most important thing and exciting thing to me is we, the first game of the year, will not be Tennessee State in Sanford Stadium. There’s actually going to be a soccer match held in Sanford Stadium, which I think most of you know about. I’m excited, it is August 20th, between the hedges at 7 PM, our women’s soccer team will play James Madison University. [Keidane McAlphine] has done an incredible job. I’ve been to several donor events with Keidane. He does an incredible job recruiting, but also trying to make Georgia’s soccer program the best in the country. It will be the first time there’s been a Georgia soccer match held in Sanford Stadium. A lot of you remember the Olympic gold medal match. I was actually in school here in 1996. So, on the 30th anniversary of that, they’re going to have a soccer match in Sanford Stadium. The goal is to break the attendance record, which I fully expect Dawg Nation to get that done, and turn out more than 22,000 people for a soccer match in Sanford Stadium. So, I am excited about that, and hope to be in attendance myself, along with a lot of our players. With it, we’re moving on to a different phase. We talk about the phases of our football program. We have an off-season phase, a summer phase, and a mini-camp phase. The mini-camp phase was probably more productive this year than it’s ever been, in terms of onboarding new players and trying to get guys understanding how to practice. Then, we kick off what we call training camp. What is the purpose of training camp? To subtract some things from your life, so that you can add some things. Everybody’s heard of addition by subtraction. I’m asking each player to have some addition by subtraction. What are you going to do for the next 12 to 14 days that you’re technically in camp? Camp is really longer than that for us, but those are the number of days that you’re not in your normal bed. You’re away, you’re locked in, you’re focused, and school starts. We’re still in camp mode, but you get ready for what you do. We’ve shown a lot of examples of pro players, what they do for camp. Pro teams, what they do for camp. Our history of camp here, and how you can improve your team by gaining depth on your roster, is what we’re going to do. We’re in a really healthy state. I feel like we’ve got a lot of guys that can practice. We’re fortunate to have really good numbers still. I think we’re at 125 to 127 guys practicing, which we’re very fortunate to have those numbers. We can get a lot of guys reps now, and a lot of growth is needed, but I’m excited about this team. We have to test toughness, and a word we talk about a lot around here is grit. We got to find out what kind of grit we got during this camp, so when we get into these fourth quarter battles, we can win them.”

Read more