Coach Smart met with the media on Tuesday afternoon following practice. His quotes are in italics.  

On How Practice Has Been So Far This Week: It's been good. They had a good day yesterday. They got introduced to Missouri. They had good spirits today, and it was nice and cool out. 

On The UGA Secondary Against Missouri's Offense: We'll find out Saturday. I'm always confident in our teams and players, but it won't be on just them. It'll be on the safeties, the rush, the linebackers, the down and distance, and the field position. A lot of things go into stopping a good passing attack, and then they've got a great running attack. So it's not like it's just one-sided. But it won't just be on the DBs. It'll be on the collective group... it's not an individual unit. 

On Roderick Robinson: He looks much better. 

On The Missouri Running Backs: They're physical. They're tough. You can't have one runningback in the SEC. You'll have none if you have one. They're really physical. They run their tracks. They have great vision. They catch the ball out of the backfield. They protect. They're complete backs. It seems like everybody we play in the SEC has good physical backs...They certainly do. They've had a lot of success in the run game because it works together...Pass and run. 
On If They're Doing Anything Different in Practice to Fix Redzone Defense: We're doing the same thing we've done every year. The results have been different, but the process has been the same. We tried to make a bigger emphasis on it. We're trying to do more of doing it right. Like eye control, doing your job, and stopping the run. 

On Jalon Walker's Progression as a Pass Rusher: Work Ethic. I mean, he's committed to it. He works his trade and craft every day. I thought Schumann did a great job pointing out he took every rep on a Friday walk-through to really work his pass rush move-in a walk-through...Like physically and mentally taking his steps, dropping, rushing, and stripping the quarterback. And I'll be danged if he didn't do the exact thing in the game. We could put those three clips he had of him doing that back to back and show the players that being intentional in a walk-through can have incredible value. 

On Marvin Jones: Marvin's growing up and playing good. He's doing some good things. He had a few good plays and a few bad plays. He had a couple he wished he had back, but he did have some discipline and played a screen well. He had the fumble recovery. He's becoming more and more confident in his gameplay. 

On Looking At Last Year's Missouri Game to Gameplan For This Year: We have a history with Missouri now with Eli there. You look at both sides of the ball, and you look at matchups. They did a tremendous job. They kept us off-balance offensively and dominated the line of scrimmage defensively. So what are you going to do to answer that? You got to be able to impose your will, run the ball, and throw play action. You got to be efficient. You can't waste down and distances. You can't get negative lost yardage plays. You got to stay ahead of the chains. Same things they're saying they go to do on, we got to do on them. 

On the UGA Special Teams Unit: I don't know if we've been as successful as I'd like to be on special teams. What allows you to be successful on special teams is good players. What allows you to have good players is good recruiting. You got to have a staff that's dedicated and committed to special teams. I don't coach the special teams, but I'm going to be there for every minute of it because I think it's important. I think when you demand excellence, and they see the head coach's nose in the special teams' stuff, it makes them realize it's important. We try to put a really large value on the special teams going. 

On Where He's Seen Improvement in Malaki Starks' Play: Confidence. Knowledge of the system. Leadership. He's a great kid. He works every day. He listens. He's extremely coachable. His parents did a wonderful job raising him, and he's a joy to coach. 

On A Slant Route: Well, if it was the hardest play in football, then I think everybody would run it. Why do some people not throw it... I think you'd have to ask an offensive coach that. We certainly did not play it well the other day. A lot of it has to do with the coverage you're in and the matchup you've got. It's a very often batted ball. A lot of times, it has to do with the spacing of the game. There's a lot of things that go into slants. They did a good job executing it last week. 

On Christen Miller: Gotten better. He's gotten better with each week. He still hasn't reached his potential. He's getting better. He works hard. He's one of the kids that enjoys taking reps against the offense because he gets to go against SED. He's like coach, I only get better if I go against the really good offensive line. I love his work ethic. 

On Winning a Close Game on the Road: I think it gives you the belief that you're in every game. You know you can win any game, any circumstance, anything going on. This team has kind of had those qualities probably since last year against Missouri, but it's not a situation you want to put yourself in often. 

Photo Courtesy of Charles Jordan.