Kirby Talks Secondary Position Battles

ATHENS, Ga. – Head Coach Kirby Smart met with the media via Zoom yesterday afternoon and offered the following comments regarding today’s scrimmage and had some interesting things to say about the secondary's progress.

“I’ll start with DK (Derion Kendrick). DK had one of his best friends pass away, and he’s practiced every practice with us, but today we excused him to go to a funeral. He’ll be back tonight, so he was not out there today. He’s done a good job to be honest with you. He’s been very consistent, very intelligent. He comes from a good program. They play multiple coverages in their secondary. He’s learned… you know there was a concern that can he learn our stuff fast enough, but that’s not a concern. He’s very intelligent. He understands it. He plays big, bigger than he is. He’s physical. Kelee (Ringo) has done some good things. He’s made some plays out on the perimeter. He’s got elite speed. He continues to grow. People forget Kelee has not played tackle football in really over two years because in the spring he missed so much time with injuries. Now he’s gone all the way through this time at camp, gotten one scrimmage under his belt and he continues to work hard. He gets better with every rep. Jailen Kimber is dealing with a shoulder injury. He’s banged up. He was unable to go today. LC (Lovasea Carroll) and Nyland (Green) are both in a growth process of learning. I think they are going to be good players. They are getting a lot of reps. Kamari Lassiter is a guy that didn’t get to play in the spring, he wasn’t hear, but he’s really been a surprise highlight of camp. He’s intentional. He’s smart. He cares about special teams. He learns the first time you tell him. Just another evidence that if you go get smart students that can run, they can play. I think he is going to be a really good football players. At star, (Latavious) Brini and Tykee (Smith) have split that time. I would say that both those guys are neck and neck. If you remember last year we had (Mark) Webb and Tyrique Stevenson that both played that star position in the same games. These guys are very similar not necessarily in their skill set, but similar in that we may play them that way. That gives Brini the opportunity to go play back at safety and provide us some depth. He played safety in a couple games last year and was able to play really well. “