Guerry Clegg: Georgia coach Kirby Smart learning as he goes along

Kirby Smart checked another block on a long list of firsts — first SEC Media Days. By all accounts, Smart handled the moment well, better than some of the veterans.

A lot of that has to do with how Smart has handled issues leading up to last season. The two most sensitive issues are player discipline and comparisons to his predecessor, Mark Richt.

Smart has yet to walk the sideline as Georgia’s head coach, but he has already had his share of discipline issues. Five players have been arrested since he was hired in December. Two of those, defensive lineman Chauncey Rivers and defensive back Chad Clay, have been dismissed from the team.

“I hate that for them, but our team has moved on. It’s very important that we don’t make the same mistakes twice. That’s a big part of improvement.”

Another player, Jonathan Ledbetter, did make the same mistake twice. He has been arrested twice for drunk driving. It would be easy to justify dismissing Ledbetter from the team. Instead, Smart suspended him and, more importantly, is getting him professional help now before it’s too late. Ledbetter’s football career is secondary to his well-being.

Then came the inevitable comparisons to Richt. Smart steps into a unique situation. Seldom has the departed head coach been so universally loved by the players he left behind. In those cases — Baylor’s Art Briles comes to mind — the coach did something egregious to deserve getting fired. In Georgia’s case, Richt was fired because of the perception that the players underachieved. So there had to be some guilty feelings among the players that they let Richt down.

That’s not an enviable position for Smart.

“First, I would like to say Coach Richt is a friend of mine and worked for him for a year and respect the man he is and respect what it stands for,” Smart said. “I don’t think it’s a competition between Coach Richt and I to win over this team. I think you earn that by the way you behave and the way you perform. Every kid I’ve been around as a football player, they want their coaches to make them better as men and as players.

“If they see value in you as a coach that you can create value in them as a player and as a person, they respect that. It’s not a competition between he and me to win the team over. That’s never what it has been about. I’ve got a lot of respect for Coach Richt. He’s reached out to me and we’ve had communication. I think he’s going to do a great job at the University of Miami. Our team has moved forward. Our team is focused on this season and not looking in the rearview mirror.”

The focus now is on these 48 days until the season opener against North Carolina. To the fans, it can’t get here fast enough. To the coaches, there’s still so much improvement and development needed to be made.

“Although spring ball went well in terms of players being responsive to the new coaches, it’s the next six week that will determine the outcome of our season,” Smart said. “These next six weeks are the focal point for us moving forward. We’ve got to find a way to get our freshman class that just came in married up with the current roster we have and make sure those guys get the right seats on the bus.”

The players seem to have bought in to the message. Brandon Kublanow took Sony Michel’s place at Media Days after Michel suffered a broken arm. Kublanow then told tight end Jeb Blazevich and safety Dominic Sanders to meet him early for workouts before the flight to Birmingham. That unsolicited act of leadership made an impression on Smart.

The players, too, fielded the inevitable comparisons between the former and current head coaches.

“I don’t know if Coach Smart is really that different, but we’re having a great time,” Kublanow said. “He runs around all over the field. I think he’s an amazing coach and he’s really doing well.”

Then there’s the matter of handling his quarterbacks. As Bulldog Nation eagerly awaits freshman Jacob Eason’s debut, Smart has refused to tip his hand. Returning starter Greyson Lambert, a senior, and junior Brice Ramsey remain firmly in the competition.

One thing Smart undoubtedly learned from Nick Saban, his boss for the past nine years at Alabama, is to not let others — fans, the media — rush his timetable. Saban talks a lot about the importance of the quarterback winning over the team, something he felt Jacob Coker didn’t do last season until he came off the bench in the Ole Miss game

“I think a lot of that is how he, that person, affects the rest of the offense,” Smart said. “Does he make every player on the offense better? That’s hard to measure. You know, that’s a decision you got to make subjectively as a coach.”

Selecting his starting quarterback is yet another first for Smart to check off his list.

This story was originally published July 16, 2016 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: Georgia coach Kirby Smart learning as he goes along."