The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Plenty of issues to cover for DBs
Group has experience, but Smart wants to see better performance.
ATHENS — In the nearly two years now that Kirby Smart has been Georgia’s football coach, this much has become clear: He will be bluntly honest when he analyzes his team. And that’s especially true when it comes to the secondary, where he used to play for the Bulldogs.
It happened last year, when Smart downplayed an experienced secondary that had finished first in the nation the year before he arrived. It happened again this summer at Smart’s first preseason news conference, when he essentially said that having four starters back was overrated.
“We’ve got guys back, but how well do those guys play?” said Smart, Georgia’s starting safety in the late 1990s. “Do they play to the standard of what University of Georgia is? I don’t think so. I can’t sit here and say we play to the level of expectation that a secondary should play to.”
That was fairly unprompted and seemed a bit harsh, considering the unit did finish second in the SEC in pass defense last year. But it’s also defensible when you consider that Georgia was torched by the two best quarterbacks it faced last year — Ole Miss’ Chad Kelly andTennessee’s Josh Dobbs — and that questions remain about this experienced Georgia secondary.
Is there a No. 1 cornerback?
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at the University of Georgia. I don’t want to be there. I want to be first in the con- ference.”
Shut-down corner: Does Georgia have someone who is a No. 1, lock-down cor- nerback, the type coaches know they can put on the other team’s best receiver?
“I don’t know that we’ve developed that. I’m very confident in Malkom Parrish and Deandre Baker, but when you say No. 1 lock-down, I don’t really know how you define that,” Smart said. “I
don’t know if you’re saying first-round pick? Is he going to stop everybody he plays against? I mean, our guys complete passes on them out there and I don’t know if we have a first-round wide receiver. So I don’t know how to measure that, per se.
“I’m confident they know what to do and they really compete hard. The freshmen are going to compete with the older guys. The older guys are doing a good job. But we still have room for improve- ment in the secondary.”