Field Street Forum

Following practice Tuesday, Dec. 8, head coach Kirby Smart and players Nakobe Dean and Jermaine Johnson offered the following comments. A word document of tonight’s transcript is also attached.

Head coach Kirby Smart (Full transcript)
On whether there is any good news on the injury front in terms of getting some guys back…
“Kendall [Milton] has practiced in a black jersey and done really well. I wouldn’t say he’s full speed, but I’d say he’s pretty close. Hopefully he’ll be able to play. Richard [LeCounte] has taken about 25 percent of his reps that he would normally take. He’s probably not ready. I’d say he’s the furthest from those guys. Jordan [Davis] looks good. Jordan has done a really good job of being in conditioning shape. He’s been practicing really hard and looks good.”

On whether the NCAA has given him or the other coaches guidance as far as the 85-man roster and how to approach it going into the 2021 season…
“Yes and no. I mean, the feedback is that the seniors who choose to come back for an extra year of eligibility don’t count on the 85. So, that’s a bonus. You know you’re working off your 85. You assume those guys are going to be gone, but they’ve got the flexibility to come back. That’s great. That’s the right thing to do. I think that’s super, but now try to make decisions for your organization mid-year is a different circumstance. Everything doesn’t mesh…let’s say we have five mid-years, which isn’t the case at all, but let’s say we have five mid-years that want to come. We have to have a spot for every one of them to come, so every senior who elects to stay, we don’t have a mid-year spot. So, even though [seniors] won’t count towards the 85, we don’t have a spot for [mid-years] to come. We don’t really control what seniors stay, and we’ll certainly give them the flexibility, but if we have more mid-years that want to come than seniors who want to leave, we have a problem. I don’t think that all the things mesh real well, especially if you’re a program that has a shot at a lot of mid-years. What’s different about this year? Kids aren’t in high school, so why should [they] stay for [their] second semester? We’re looking at—and I don’t know about other schools, maybe they’re the same way—[but] we’re looking at the possibility of anywhere from 14 to 20 mid-year enrollees. Let’s say we have 20 mid-year enrollees who want to come—we don’t have 20 spots. Yet, the seniors won’t count next year, but they’re eating spots right now. It just doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make perfect sense, so it’s a dilemma that we have to deal with. You also have programs that have juniors, so you don’t know juniors who haven’t declared yet, but yet we’re having a signing date before the juniors declare. We’ve been saying for a while that the timing just isn’t accurate, and it really causes some mismanagement, and the people who suffer are the high school kids who may be told one thing and then someone say, ‘Well, I thought you could be here, but maybe you can’t be here.’ It just depends on the number of spots you have.”

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Game & Broadcast Info

The Georgia-Missouri game in Columbia, Mo., was originally scheduled to be played on Nov. 14. However, the contest was postponed on Nov. 11 due to a combination of positive COVID-19 tests, contact tracing and subsequent quarantining of individuals within the Tiger football program, consistent with Southeastern Conference virus management requirements. This past weekend, Missouri rallied to top Arkansas 50-48 giving the Tigers five wins in their last six contests and three in a row.

The Bulldogs experienced their second postponement of the year last Saturday. Vanderbilt was scheduled to come to Athens but the game was postponed until Dec. 19 because the Commodores’ squad size and position availability fell below the league’s roster minimum requirements.

Before this season, the last Georgia game to be postponed before this season came in 2001. The Bulldogs were scheduled to host Houston on Sept. 15 that season. But the game was postponed and then played on Dec. 1 following the Sept. 11 attack. That year, Georgia already had an open date on Sept. 22 so the team went three weeks between its second and third games. This is the latest regular season game for the Bulldogs (coincidentally also on Dec. 12) since 1931. That year USC topped Georgia in L.A.

The Bulldogs hold a 8-1 edge in the series history with Missouri. The first meeting came in the 1960 Orange Bowl in Miami, and the Bulldogs posted a 14-0 victory to cap a 10-1 season under coach Wallace Butts. The Bulldogs have faced the Tigers just nine times because they did not play again until Missouri joined the SEC in 2012. That year, the Tigers played host to Georgia in their first-ever SEC contest.

1960: W, 14-0 (Miami, Fla.) 2015: W, 9-6 (Athens)
2012: W, 41-20 (Columbia, Mo.) 2016: W, 28-27 (Columbia)
2013: L, 41-26 (Athens) 2017: W, 53-28 (Athens)
2014: W, 34-0 (Columbia) 2018: W, 43-29 (Columbia)
2019: W, 27-0 (Athens)

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