The return of Georgia football players to campus is a twofold process. The first is all about the health and safety of the 100 or so players that eventually will comprise the 2020 football team. The next is the football side of things.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, in a video-conference call with beat reporters Thursday, said he feels fairly confident about the quality of the team the Bulldogs eventually will field for the season. That goes double for the defense.
Listen to the entire Kirby Smart teleconference
But he’s not ready or willing to guess when the season might start and what it might look like when it does.
“I’m not going to voice an opinion one way or the other because it really boils down to one thing: What the experts, infectious-disease people, scientists, what they come up with that is safe. Ultimately that decision is going to come down to what makes a person feel safe, and a lot of it will have to do with the choice and decision of each and every fan, the well-being of our fans, as well as our players and our staff.”
June 8 is the first day that Georgia football players will be permitted to conduct voluntary workouts at the Butts-Mehre complex, as per an SEC-wide decision reached Friday. But the Bulldogs are arriving on campus before that, some of them as early as this week. Most of the upperclassmen have their own off-campus housing and can return at any time. But before they’re permitted to use school facilities and engage in voluntary workouts, all players will have to clear a medical screening and a COVID-19 test.
Smart spent 26 minutes fielding questions. Following are some excerpts:
Q: What’s your sense of players’ feelings for coming back to campus?
A: The first thing we talk about is knowledge is power. There's no doubt they all have questions. … But we've been in communication with our players. We have Zoom meetings with them positionally and football-wise eight hours each week. A lot of that time is spent not necessarily on X's and O's and teaching; it's spent on information and communication. We've got a leadership group that we stay in contact with, and we're able to provide those guys with information, and each position coach provides his group information. So, we're anticipating everybody coming back on a voluntary basis. We don't have anything telling us that's not going to be the case. But it's certainly up to each individual player.
Q: Where would you say your team is as far as being as prepared as it would have been without the pandemic restrictions?
A: I can't say that. That's not where we are because we don't even know the threshold or the capacity of some of our players. We did not get to go through spring ball with necessarily some of the positions, especially on offense, of guys to see what they can handle. We will find out what the NCAA and the SEC are going to allow us to do leading up to the season because right now we do not know that. The more they give us time-wise, the more we will be able to do. The less they give us, the less we will probably be able to do, but that is not something we have decided right now. I am excited about the experience coming back on defense because I do think we have a lot of experience there where we probably do not have as much offensively.
Q: Do you have a guess as to how the football season might unfold?
A: What I've found is everything we think is going to happen can change based on what goes on. Are there going to be any spikes? Is anything going to happen in July? We'll know a lot more about the season and people in the stands in September, when that comes. What you have to look at is that's still three months away. You know, it's hard to make a decision on that now because three months ago we were just finding out what's going on. So we've got three months, and I'm very optimistic that we'll have fans in the stands. But to what extent? I really have no clue and I don't want to speculate.
Q: How is the return of players being staged?
A: They're all coming back on their own. It's not like they're being brought back in stages. We haven't identified an exact number that will come back because, again, it's voluntary. But our protocol … will be based on a medical work-up. They've got to have an extensive physical, they've got to have a COVID test, they've got to have a lot of things done prior to June 8. So they've got to get back prior to June 8. They'll come back on their own.
Q: What has this week in particular looked like for the coaches as y’all have been allowed back into your building?
A: We're in on a little bit of a shortened version, less time in the office and also alternating how many guys are in the office. Offense and defense are separated. There are a lot of protocols that have been instituted by our university from a safety standpoint. They have cleaning crews that come in after and before we're in here. So we have a shortened window, and each side of the ball has its own window they can come in. We'll phase in a few more each week. But that's an important thing, the safety of the coaches, because it's documented that the most vulnerable is the older population and those with an immune-compromised situation, and a lot of times that can be our coaching staff, support staff and different people that we have to care for. They're the most at-risk.
Q: What has the recruiting part of this looked like?
A: It's extremely different. I mean, the recruiting world has probably changed as much as anything because you're just not capable of going to hospitals. May is a very active month for all college football coaches, not just us. We'd be going out watching spring practices, going school-to-school. … We're doing what everybody else is doing. We're jumping on Zoom, we're communicating with parents, coaches, recruits and we're doing everything virtually, and that's really the best we can do. They keep extending the period that (recruits) can't come on campus, they just extended that again, so it's looking like that's not going to happen. So it's going to be a very different period. Who manages that the best is going to be very important. A lot of this will be who had the best relationships heading into this. At the end of the day, you can only develop so much of a relationship through a phone or text or virtual activity. We've tried to be creative in the way we do that.
Q: In your opinion, how much of a role does revenue play in football coming back?
A: I certainly think fiscally and financially there will be a benefit if there is a football season. But that has nothing that goes into the decisions medically. A lot of people say the SEC is coming out strong with return dates … but every decision that is made on the SEC level I can assure you was made by infectious-disease people based on the safety and well-being of our student-athletes. … Pressure to do things financially isn't going to do anybody anything good. The worst thing we can do as administrators is feel like we have to do this in order to survive financially. We can't make a decision that is costly even to one student-athlete. I know at Georgia every decision we're making on return-to-sport is safety and health and well-being.
Q: How serious are the players taking this?
A: The last thing we need right now, if people want to have a football season or any kind of athletic season, is to have another flare-up. The biggest thing we can do as far as taking care of that is to make good decisions and be aware. So, we're going to educate or players because, I promise you, there are some of our players who don't feel vulnerable because of what they've heard because they think they have super powers. So we're going to educate our guys to be safe and make good decisions.
Q: What will you say to a player who is uncomfortable with coming back?
A: The first thing is defer to the medical staff. We've got one of the best medical staffs in the country in Ron Courson and Dr. (Fred) Reifsteck. We've had multiple meetings with them, they've talked to our players and their parents in terms of trying to educate them. There is no pressure. To a man, every one of these guys is working out. If they're working out at home, could you argue that wherever they're working out, at home, at a local gym, the high school, backyard, that that environment is as safe as one that's monitored and taken care of by our staff. As a parent I'd certainly feel a lot better about my daughter or son being able to work in that environment that's been professionally taken care of outside of wherever they're working out currently. We found that to be the case with most we've talked to.
Q: What about lodging once the players are all back?
A: A lot of that is still being determined. We're working through that process with the university housing department and different people. But over 50 percent of our team lives off campus, meaning they live in apartments or a designated lease area. That will remain the same. As far as the rest of it, we're still working through it.
Q: Have you been able to learn much about your team with everybody being so scattered?
A: Yeah. I think every kid to a 'T' has done a tremendous job through this adversity. The first level of commitment (is evident) in our team GPA. To be over a 3.0 as a football team for the first time ever is incredible for those guys to come back and finish strong. Before spring break, we didn't know this was coming and we had the highest markers of the semester we had ever had. So we were on our way to our best semester ever. We made a concerted effort to improve in that area and our goal was to have a team GPA of 3.0. We went on spring break doing that, and then we finished it with all the news and the transition and going on line. So that was incredible. As far as workouts, a lot of our guys have been posting workouts, but there have been a lot of other workouts they've been sending to each other among position groups. There are signs there is a level of commitment that you need to be successful, and I'm looking forward to getting those guys back.
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