Lots of little sound bytes from yesterday but nothing remarkably groundbreaking. First and foremost, let’s talk about injuries.
Smart had positive news on the injury front.
Topping the list is center Drew Bobo (foot), who is expected to be ready for the start of the season. You can read more about Bobo here.
Others include:
Outside linebacker Zayden Walker: “Zayden’s back doing everything. He’s been great. He had the shoulder,” Smart said. “We have a lot of shoulders every spring. But he’s doing everything with us right now.”
Wide receiver Sacovie White-Helton: “Oh, yeah. Sacovie had a separated shoulder the day before the spring game and couldn’t go,” Smart said. “But he’s done everything since.”
Defensive end Gabe Harris: “Gabe’s been doing good. He’s similar to Drew. It (foot) was a very significant injury,” Smart said. “Those two were the two biggest missing pieces for us towards the end of the year and made it really tough. But he’s out there doing everything now. He did not do anything in the spring. We need him to have a big year. But, yeah, he’s on a load-management deal, so he’s not like out there every day doing everything. But he’s healthy.”
Defensive lineman Jordan Hall: “Jordan Hall’s great. Jordan’s doing everything with us, working,” Smart said. “You know, he’s had two bilateral knee rods put in there, but he’s doing great.”
We are officially on what seems like the annual “how healthy is Jordan Hall” watch. Still hoping he lives up to his potential this season…we need all the horses on the defensive line to get back to form.
Also notable was Kirby getting chippy when questioned about Georgia’s receiver room:
There were some typical questions about this and that, but not much to write home about. One interesting stand out was Raylen Wilson’s reaction to being told Texas is baaaaccckkk…
Go Dawgs.
Salty Kirby is the best Kirby.
Its going to crapshoot because of the playoff format, but I like our chances this year if Gunner takes a step forward and the defense is what I expect it to be.
I liked Raylen’s little half smile while the question was being asked. You could tell he was thinking ” This shit again? We heard that before last season too.”
My Inner Nolan Smith II We a 7-5 team approves of SEC Media Days’ narrative. After all the most important part of any Championship is what the media thinks in July, since all those clicks translates into “checks notes,” zero points on the field. Wow, with all those zero points scored by the media in July imagine the scoreboard during the game! It’s literally the boogity man level frightening.
Raylen outer response… we can’t control opinions… we can control getting better(Kirby approves this message)
Raylen inner response… keep sayin’ that shit… keep fuckin’ around with these Dawgs and you gonna find out(Kirby approves this message)
I get the sense that we have a highly motivated, and very hungry team with solid, elite team leaders that have a massive underdog chip on their shoulder. Thank you media and thank you Texas.
I don’t doubt that going forward Texas will typically be “more talented” on paper than us, but they damn sure are not going to be tougher than us as long as Kirby is running things.
One other notable comment was related to Dowdell being out. Major bummer since we could have used a big and highly experienced RB coming off the bench in short yardage.