Three-peat isn't at forefront of Georgia's mind
Three-peat isn't at forefront of Georgia's mind
NASHVILLE, TN. —Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart doesn’t want his team to get complacent, especially as the Bulldogs are currently back-to-back defending national champions.
Smart took the stage at the 2023 SEC Media Days on Tuesday and said that complacency — is in his fact — his team’s biggest enemy heading into the upcoming season.
“The threat for us is complacency. The first thing you have to do is acknowledge that it is a threat,” Smart said on Tuesday at the Grant Hyatt Hotel in Nashville. “ Like if you acknowledge that complacency is a threat, it’s the first threat toward stomping it out.”
Even as Georgia is favored to win a third straight national title, it isn’t at the front of his players’ minds. Smart has pushed the narrative that his players will have to earn it again.
Smart and his coaching staff recently taught their players about a popular New Zealand rugby team, and how it handles a lot of success. The All Blacks are New Zealand’s national team, and they are the winningest international rugby program of all time.
"We took a deep dive. We took six weeks. We took a title and a mantra from them and studied those things for six weeks because we don't want complacency,” Smart said about the study on the All Blacks. “They've done it better than anybody else and we use that."
A few years ago, the Bulldogs studied Hernán Cortés, who told his men to “burn the boats” as they didn’t back down from a fight and went on to conquer the Aztecs in Mexico. The phrase stuck with Georgia as it won its first national championship since 1982.
Last season, Smart used a different tactic to keep his team motivated. At SEC Media Days in 2022, he talked about how the Bulldogs will not be “hunted” but rather how they will be the “hunters.” Well, that’s exactly what Georgia did as it repeated last season.
Now, to keep his team from getting complacent, Smart had his players study the All Blacks, who have appeared in the Rugby World Cup nine times, with three world titles. The highly-successful rugby organization set a standard that Georgia wants to mimic.
“One of [the All Blacks] big mantras is ‘better never rests.’ We believe that,” Smart said. “Those are strong words now when you think about it. Think deeply on it. Better never rests."
Smart’s phrases and tactics from year to year might change, but the message stays the same.
He has instilled in his players that complacency won’t be tolerated, but also how they should not be worried about what fans and the media talk about, which is a three-peat.
The Minnesota Gophers won three consecutive national championships from 1934-1936 and remain the only program in the history of college football to do so. However, Smart, who is 47 years old, wasn’t even born yet, and none of his players’ parents were, either.
Smart’s talked about the topic with his team, but he doesn’t encourage them to think about it.
“We’ve certainly looked at some three-peat scenarios of teams like the [Chicago] Bulls and different sports teams that they might actually know about,” Smart said. “No offense to the Minnesota 1935 team, but I don’t know if it’s going to resonate with my audience.”
Georgia had three players speak: offensive lineman Sedrick Van Pran, defensive back Kamari Lassiter and tight end Brock Bowers. Each brushed off the topic of a three-peat
Nonetheless, Van Pran acknowledged how he and his teammates battle complacency.
“It’s just knowing that nobody from the previous two teams is going to go out there and play for you. Like Jordan Davis isn’t putting on a jersey this year for Georgia. Like he’s not playing, so it’s just understanding that, yes what those guys accomplished is great,” Van Pran said on Tuesday. “But this team has not accomplished anything. We have not played a game yet. We haven’t played anybody. We haven’t done anything. So, I think it’s just understanding that if you want what they had, you have to work for it. That’s just the biggest thing. Understanding that all of your opponents are great. They’re all going to be prepared. Everybody is going to be giving you their best shot. So, it’s up to you to make sure you’re working just as hard, if not more than the guys that came before you. And hopefully, by the grace of God, achieve something that you want.”
Lassiter, one of the team’s starting cornerbacks, took the meaning of “better never rests” to heart. He said he strives to get better every day, whether it’s in life or on the field.
"For me, better never rests is just taking every opportunity that I have to play this game, taking it and running with it. Every day that I step into the facility, I try and just put my best foot forward. I try and attack the day as best I can,” Lassiter stated. “I try to have attention to detail. I try to bring up the guys along with me because some days are good, and some days are bad. You try and take the bad ones and try and make them good."
When Smart recruits, he looks for guys that will buy into his process. He wants them to believe phrases such as “you’re either elite or you’re not” and “nobody cares about your feelings.”
Those players that buy into Smart’s mantras and teachings seem to succeed. The culture he’s built around the program in Athens has shown to be one of the top in the nation.
"Those two qualities, loving football and embracing being selfless, are not dependent on outcomes. We want guys that think independently of outcomes. So when you see complacency take over, it's when a team's enthusiasm and ego start worrying about outcomes. That's not what we do at the University of Georgia. That's not what we bring into our place,” Smart said. “That's not what we bring into the culture we want to have. We want selfless people who love football, and that's what we [want to] build around."
Lassiter is a prime example of a guy that has molded into what Smart expects in a player. He’s going to be one of the leaders on a defense that returns a ton of talent in 2023.
“We want to be the best team we can be. Just make sure that we uphold the standard and hold ourselves accountable,” Lassiter said. “The way coach Smart puts it, last year he said success is given to those who are busy searching for it. So we’re just doing everything we can to keep the standard the standard, keeping the main thing the main thing.”