The Georgia Bulldogs have their biggest challenge of the season on Saturday as Georgia plays at the Alabama Crimson Tide. Georgia and Alabama have to two highest scoring offenses in the country, but both offenses could be slowed down by rainy and windy weather that is currently in the forecast for Saturday night in Tuscaloosa.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart says that Alabama has "a tremendous team" this season. Smart is 2-7 in his career against Alabama, where he served as the defensive coordinator under Nick Saban for many years.
Smart has a bunch of respect for Alabama and coach Kalen DeBoer. The Crimson Tide have beaten Georgia in back-to-back regular seasons, but Georgia beat Alabama in the last meeting, which was a 28-7 SEC championship win for Georgia last year.
"I have a lot of respect for coach Kalen DeBoer and the way they go about things," Smart said, "They have an extremely physical football team. They're playing really high-level football right now."
Both Georgia and Alabama are 5-0 overall and 3-0 to start SEC play. The winner of the Georgia-Alabama game will have a great chance at advancing to the SEC championship.
Everything Georgia coach Kirby Smart said about Alabama
On his first impressions of Alabama
"I was super impressed with both sides of the ball and special teams," Smart said. "Their quarterback is playing amazing for them. The guy (Keelon Russell) is really talented, fun to watch and you've seen the growth just from the first game all the way through. The talent this guy has is pretty incredible, and they have a really good scheme around him. It'll be a great challenge for us to go into a really tough environment to go play, and our players are looking forward to it."
On Alabama's secondary
"They're very talented," Smart said. "They have ball hawks, guys that make plays on the ball. They have a lot of length in the secondary and play physical.
"A lot of that is brought on by their front because they create pressure situations. They stop the run. When you stop the run and force people to throw the ball, sometimes it can make you one-dimensional. They've been really opportunistic, as well, when they've gotten them, running them back and scoring. Anytime you score on defense it's a big, huge momentum swing, and they've got players that can do it."
This Crimson Tide have back-to-back games with a pick-six.
On starting Alabama QB Keelon Russell
"I knew about him in high school and watched his high school tape," Smart notes on Russell, who is a former five-star recruit. " I knew he was an elite player, probably the best quarterback in the country coming out. Then, he kind of goes away and disappears for a year and reappears.
"He's unbelievable, savvy, arm strength, pocket awareness. People will make him out to be a runner. He doesn't run unless he has to, and he can. He scrambles to throw, scrambles to run. He's accurate and smart. He's very talented."
On Alabama's defensive front
"Size and physicality," Smart said. "They've gone and recruited, or however they go about getting players, and they've gotten more size and more strength at the point of attack. They are very physical, which Alabama has always had."
Regarding what Kalen DeBoer's scheme brings to the SEC
"There are a lot of similarities between our offense and theirs, but there are some different things that they do that other teams in our league have done, but maybe not in a few years past," Smart said, "I think guys overlap in ideas. Certainly, when you look back at all the times we've played since he's been there, all the Washington cut ups are in all our stuff. There are a lot more similarities to what he did there, but a lot of that has morphed into SEC pictures now because he's been in our league so long and does a tremendous job offensively.
"They are really hard to defend because you don't feel like there's a play they don't have. They've got all of them in terms of the plays you have to stop."
On Georgia and Alabama relying more on high school recruiting than the portal
"I don't think it had anything to do with where we were," Smart said. "It usually has to do with what we need. I think you have to be careful. I don't know that the perception out there is that there's a portal program, and there's a traditional high school program because I don't think there's a hit rate going around on these teams that are portal teams of how many times they actually hit.
"You only know Trinidad Chambliss. You only know the guy that goes and plays. What about the 30, 40, 50, 60, 70-percent of players that they got that didn't play, that didn't have an impact?
"I just like to think that we're going to do what we need to do to win. If that includes getting 50 portals, then that's what we're going to do. If it includes getting 10 portals, then that's what we're going to do. I think when someone says Alabama and Georgia compared to others based on where we started at has nothing to do with where we started in the process. It has to do with what you need, and ultimately, can you develop better than you draft (acquire players via the transfer portal)? It's not really drafting but going and taking somebody else's development and try to make it your own."
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This article originally appeared on UGA Wire: What Georgia coach Kirby Smart said about Alabama football
