Category: UGA Football

ATHENS — Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart, along with CJ Allen, Raylen Wilson and Earnest Greene, spoke with media Tuesday to discuss spring football practices. They offered the following comments.

Head Coach KirbySmart
Opening Statement:
“Welcome back guys. We’ve got a lot to go over. We probably have a little bit of time. I know you guys probably have a bunch of questions, so I want to try to get all the information I can. We’re getting ready to start spring practice today. I’m excited. This group has worked really hard since the end of the year last year. We’ve had lots of time to spend together as coaches, staff, our school systems have started. We’ve got a lot of new players. It feels like more new players than ever before, which I think I say that every year. But the numbers don’t say that it’s more new guys, but it certainly feels like that. We’re averaging about 33 percent new per year, which you’d like for that number back in the old days to be 20-25 percent new every year. But it’s turning over more and quicker, which we have less turnover than most places. We pride ourselves on retention, stability. The foundation of this program is built through high school programs and bringing good kids into the program that can become good football players. But as we do every year, I want to try to make as many announcements as I can quickly. Colbie [Young] is with us. Colbie is going to be practicing with us. He’s cleared. So, he’s practicing. He’s been working out with us. Guys that are out for spring, I think we have nine total guys. I do a year-to-year average. I think 2024, we had 12 outs. 2023, we had eight outs. 2022, we had 14 outs. I think we’re at eight or nine, depending on how you classify a couple guys. We’ve got five shoulder surgeries that happen at the end of the year. Those are all rehabbing right now. They’re in really good progression in terms of getting back. Monroe {Freeling], Gabe [Harris Jr.], Colton [Heinrich], Christen Miller, and Jaylan Morgan all had labral repairs, which is very common. I had it when I played here. That’s, I think, five of those. We’ve averaged five to six every spring. Then we’ve got Ryan Montgomery, who has the ACL repair, Branson [Robinson], who had the PCL repair, Rod Robinson, who had the ankle repair, and then [Brett] Thorson, who you know had the ACL and MCL repair. Those are all guys that are working through things. They may be available for maybe some things in spring, like walk-through type things, but not in-practice spring. And then limited, Joseph Jonah-Ajonye, coming off the foot navicular surgery he had. He looks great. He’s working out, running. He’ll be limited to start spring and try to get to work his way back. That’s kind of where we are from a medical standpoint. We do have some soft tissue injuries coming out of the offseason, but nothing substantial there. So, I’m excited where we are in terms of guys being able to be out there because we’ve got a lot of healthy guys that can get reps. So, I’m excited about where we are for the spring. Looking forward to getting out there and kind of seeing our guys. You guys will have a lot of questions, I’m sure, about new guys. I don’t know because I haven’t got a chance to really see them. I can tell you what they look like in shorts and running around at workouts, but we haven’t done a lot of football work until we start up today. So that’s what we’ll be doing moving forward.”

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