Kirby Smart

“When you talk about the SEC, you never get a chance to rest.”

“I've been very fortunate to be with Coach Saban this long, learned a lot of football from him. It's been kind of the key to my personal success out of the places that I've coached.”

“I always felt like, one of the niches is if you can recruit the SEC, you can be a head coach in the SEC.”

“It's always a danger when you've got a great quarterback that throws the ball well, that scrambles well. You may push him into his asset. You may force him to do what he does best. So you've got to be able to throw curveballs and stop the pass as much as stop the run.”

“I've seen Coach Saban over the years have to make a lot of tough decisions, and there's not one decision he doesn't make that he doesn't bounce ideas off the staff. To me, that's invaluable.”

“To me, personally, my development to become a head coach will be much better working for Coach Saban than necessarily going somewhere else because you learn every day that you're in there.”

“I think it's what's best for that kid. Are you going to teach that kid a lesson for 10 years down the road by suspending him a game?”

“We've got to recruit at the same level of the people who are winning titles and playing for titles, and to do that, we've got to have great facilities.”

“Every young man that we want to bring here to the University of Georgia, we want them to graduate from this place.”

“There's nothing worse than recruiting a player and then leaving the player.”

“How do you play well? You practice well. You prepare well.”

“I think in order to push kids and coach kids the way we want to coach them, we've got to have their trust.”

“Coach Richt is a good friend of mine. I respect Coach Richt and worked for him for a year and respect the man he is and respect what he stands for.”

“I felt like I was selling a product of the University of Georgia that's really special and really special to me as far as the education you can get, the development you can get, and the league we play in. That's what I've sold.”

“What I'm worried about is our team and our players developing and getting better. That's the most important thing.”

“Let's be honest. Georgia, if you get the best players in this state, you should be winning championships.”

“I moved seven times the first seven years I coached.”

“I don't think I've worked a day in my life.”

“When you step out there on the field as a corner in our system, you have to be ready to play because humility is one week away.”

“I think, as a coach, you have to be willing to do what's best for the player. And you say what's best for the player: is it better to give him a game suspension, three-game suspension, no suspension. I think each case may be different in that.”