Georgia coach Kirby Smart transitions from one of his most experienced rosters to a full-blown youth movement as he begins Year 10 with the Bulldogs.
“Our team is going to be comprised of 54 percent first- and second-year players. Very big change for us,” Smart said at SEC Media Days in Atlanta on Tuesday.
From Smart’s vantage point, he has new names and faces, but the same standard and belief he brought to the Bulldogs from Alabama a decade ago. He said the program mantra in recruiting and the “strained” landscape of college football has been prioritizing relationships “over transactions.”
That could mean finding an all-in freshman who fits the program over replacing a first-round pick with a high-dollar transfer.
It also gives Smart an unfamiliar baseline, going from “one of the most veteran teams I’ve been a part of” to the 2025 version where follow the leader might be a bit more literal than previous seasons.
“What do you get with that? You get youthful exuberance. We’ve had practices that have been spirited,” Smart said. “We had a great spring practice that we talked about the words fire, passion and energy. I think the biggest thing that separates college football teams today is complacency among players versus fire, passion and energy among players. So we’ve tried to highlight those traits as much as possible with our players.
“Our players need to bring juice and energy each and every day. If they don’t, they’ll be confronted by the players that do. And if the players continue to do that, we’ll have a successful season and a successful football team.”
Smart is starting the season with a new QB1, albeit a familiar one, in Gunner Stockton. The quarterback jumped into the fray in the SEC Championship when Carson Beck was injured and then started the Sugar Bowl, a 23-10 loss to Notre Dame.
Already this offseason Smart has defended Stockton’s potential with talk show host Paul Finebaum while taking multiple opportunities to remind his QB where he needs to be by the final Saturday in August.
Smart said he learned all he needed to know about Stockton being ready by watching him prepare. The line coaches commonly share about preparing like the starter is Stockton’s modus operandi since he arrived in Athens.
“Gunner is a kid that leads from the front. Gunner is a winner,” Smart said. “He comes from an athletic family background, his dad played at Georgia Southern, and he’s the kind of kid you want at the front of the line, and he leads from the front. So I appreciate what Gunner does. He’s going to be a big part of our program this year in leadership and doing that with the offensive players. He’s already begun to do that in his leadership groups that he runs right now.”
His sophomore quarterback is the embodiment of what Smart said the Bulldogs are trying to build around and a message to players and opponents of the complacency Georgia hopes to avoid.
“You can say what you want, but there’s people more in college football today, especially in the SEC, that are comfortable with where they are,” Smart said, listing examples from his coaching past from Julio Jones and Mark Ingram at Alabama to Georgia pupils such as linebackers Roquan Smith and Nolan Smith.
“(Thinking) ‘This is a pretty good life. I’m earning 200K a year. I’m very comfortable.’
“You don’t reach your goals being comfortable. You don’t attain great success — none of those people I mentioned before were ever comfortable. They were aiming at something. They had a goal. They wanted to go achieve it.
