Kirby Smart on Georgia’s main opponent: ‘It’s going to be us every week’

ATHENS — The Georgia football coaching staff started preparing for the Bulldogs’ opening opponent, Marshall, last week.

But Kirby Smart said his Georgia football team has another opponent to be concerned with right now — itself.

“You’re asking about the opponent, the opponent is us, and it’s going to be us every week this year,” Smart said, likely referring to the newness of the Bulldogs’ roster with 54% of the team first- or second-year players.

The Bulldogs bring a 31-game home win streak — the longest active streak of its kind in the FBS ranks — into the 3:30 p.m. game Saturday against the Thundering Herd, and they are a 38½-point favorite to make it 32 consecutive victories at Sanford Stadium.

But Smart seems just as concerned with the style points as those on the scoreboard.

“Hitting goals,” Smart said when asked about how he’ll measure the team’s offensive success against Marshall. “We have some really lofty goals. We go in and say, ‘OK, we got about 15, 20 goals up there that we look at,’ and if we hit those goals, then we usually play well.”

Smart said there are rushing goals, third down conversion rate goals, along with goals for red-zone efficiency, yards per completion rate, turnover rate and penalty rate, among others.

“We’ll look at it, and we’ll see where we are and then we’ll figure out what we need to work on,” Smart said.

Smart and his coaching staff have stressed being able to run the ball more efficiently and stop the run better than a season ago. The Bulldogs averaged just 124.4 yards per game rushing last season, which ranked 15th in the SEC.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think Georgia could rush for twice that amount — or more — against a Marshall team that has 62 new players in its program under first-year coach Tony Gibson.

The Georgia defense, meanwhile, allowed an average of 129.6 yards per game on the ground, which ranked eighth in the SEC.

The Bulldogs could hold the Thundering Herd under 50 yards rushing, even though Smart noted that Marshall added some good backs to its team in the offseason.

Coaching on the fly

Plenty of adjustments will need to be made on the fly, as there is no game film to study when it comes to how Gibson and his new staff will configure Marshall’s offensive and defensive schemes.

Smart deflected back to his own football team when asked how best to prepare for a team that features an overhauled roster.

“You start with yourself, right?” Smart said. “You prepare yourself by how you run to the ball, how you strike people, how you move people, how you run the ball, throw the ball (and) don’t turn it over.”

In other words, the Georgia head coach is confident that with sound fundamentals and execution, the Bulldogs’ adjustments should take care of themselves.

Smart noted that opening games can sometimes feature “sloppiness” along with penalties, so his focus is more on eliminating the unnecessary setbacks that are within Georgia’s control.